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Viewer Comments HOME HISTORY RURAL KY ONE ROOM SCHOOL GENEALOGY LINKS
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COMMENTS, STORIES AND EXPERIENCES AS REMEMBERED FROM THE ONE ROOM SCHOOL DAYS Hello Harold, I just found your site on the one room school. I too, attended a one room school here in Lawrence County Kentucky. I think that is one of the best experiences in my life time is having that opportunity to attend a one room school with all 8 grades. We have had 2 reunions and are planning a 3rd one for September 6th of this year. We do have a website: http://www.evergreen-school.com and hope you might check it out and leave us a note.If you want we can make reference to your site on ours to help more folks relive the days of one room schools. Glad you have the site because I think we need to keep the fond memories of attending a one room school alive and pass that down to today's world. God Bless, Sandra Jobe Louisa KY
The following article is from the writing of Eleanor Scott Martin. To view more of her very interesting stories, go to: http://jscott.tierranet.com/bgspring/bgspring.htm October 5, 1988 From This Distance the Old School Was Fine By ELEANOR MARTIN Am I the only one around who remembers the one room schoolhouse? I remember. I attended one. "School days, school days dear old golden rule days, Reading, writing and arithmetic, taught to the tune of a hickory stick." The teachers in those days really liked to teach. They were the teacher, the principal on down to the janitor, in the winter building fires in a cast iron stove, even binding up cuts and bruises. On cold winter days when snowstorms blew in, we would leave our desks and form a circle around the wood stove. The younger students felt so warm and secure. It's no wonder they picked up so much knowledge, hearing the adult classes at close range. The children of today seem to mature earlier, and are so smart, with high tech and related subjects- traveling down a road, which I never knew. The pay for teachers was very low and those who got into teaching for money soon got out. No foreign languages were taught, and we did not have the equipment for chemistry. The demand was not great. Peer teaching was very effective, the older students helping the younger ones. Every one cooperated, that is why it worked so well. Spelling bees were one of the school's Friday programs, a review of the week's spelling lessons. The pronouncer often was one of the older students. One Friday things were going along well until he came to the word biscuit and he pronounced it byscoot. It brought the house down. The teacher had to come to his defense. "Quiet! Quiet! Everyone can make a mistake." Long afterward he was known by his classmates as Mr. Byscoot. The superintendent came to visit our school and asked a little boy what subject he liked best. Without hesitation he said recess. When recess came we played "Annie Over," batting the ball over the schoolhouse roof from one side to the other. I remember one teacher teaching us as if we were college students. He would say put your books away and he would lecture for one hour. In the hot September days, with no air conditioners, no fans, I was bored and wasn't interested in anything he was saying and would almost fall asleep. This at an early age. After the consolidation of schools my school was claimed by fire. I now have only memories. Some parents were upset over busing small children to school saying bigger is not always better. I lived in Breckinridge County, went to school in Meade County, and received my mail in Hardin County. You guessed it. Big Spring, Kentucky. In the winter when school was dismissed we would race home. My sister and I had to get in the wood for the night. We had a fireplace, but heated with wood stoves. When that was finished we would look for the cookie jar, and sometimes find a package of fig bars from Uncle John's Store. Those were happy days, so carefree. From Glover Towery, Jacksonville, Florida, April 2000 Harold, I read up on your web page and found it to be very interesting I appreciate your offer for me to provide input. Comments from Mary Stearns, Greenville, South Carolina, April 2000 I like your new web page. . I have heard Bob talk of his experiences at Snow, how he went Mary Comments from R.C. Paterson, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, April 2000 Harold, I didn't go to a one room school house, I went to a "more modern" two room school. I went there from third through eighth grade, and I firmly believe that was a definite advantage over going to a school with seperate rooms for each class: from fifth to eighth grade, we heard the lessons for each grade four times. If you were off sick and missed it one year, you had the opportunity to pick it up the next year. Incidentally, there were just two of us in the eighth grade when I finished, just one girl and myself. There had been another boy in our class, but his family moved to the Chicago area during that year. Bob I just finished reading your remarks about going to the one room school, and have a few additional comments. It's too bad they didn't put something with the date on it in those pictures so you could tell when they were taken. I have a picture of the students and teachers from the two-room school I attended, taken at the end of the first year I went there. That was at the end of my third classes, and they have two girls in the front row holding a small chalk board in front of them showing it was the 1940-41 school year. In this school, each room was heated by a large pot-bellied stove. The stoves were fired by one of the boys in the upper grades. Usually, they were started up on Monday mornings, maintained by the teachers during the day, and they were "slacked" at the end of the day. The next morning, the fire boy would start them early in the morning so the rooms were warm when the other students arrived. I was the fire boy during my eighth grade year, for which I earned the tidy sum of $4.00 per month. As was the case in your school, there was no electricity or water, so students carried drinking water from nearby homes (a few hundred yards) and everyone made a drinking cup out of paper. Those small crock containers, with the push-button valve, that held the drinking water are real collectors items now. And, of course, we had two outhouses and a coal house, from which the students brought the coal for the stoves during the day. Dusting erasers was another outside chore that most of the students vied for. As I think of more things I'll send them along,too. Bob I thought the following article on dirt roads was very appropriate to include in my comments page. We walked the dirt roads many years wherever we went (usually no more than two mile radius from my house). Subject: DIRT ROADS (Author unknown) The following comments were received from Henry Stearns, Jacksonville, Florida, June 2001 Harold, I enjoyed your "Stearns genealogy'' and can relate to your early
Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 5:25 PM John D. Shelton
Dear Mr. Stearns,
Received from Delores Cole, July 2002 Hi i am a former snow school person I AND MY BROTHERS ATTENDED SNOW SCHOOL IN THE 30 AND 40 S DELORES C.L,DEWARD AND JOHN D COLE WE WERE ABLE TO SEE THE SCHOOL FROM OUR HOME THE COLE FARM. I HAVE LOTS OF MEMORIES OF SNOW ESPECIALLY GOING ON OUR MOUNTAIN AND CUTTING DOWN GREEN PINE TREES FOR CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOW AND THEN MAKING THE ORIENTS FOR IT. WE ARE NOW LIVING IN DIFFERENT PART OF THE COUNTRY C.L. IN RICHMOND KY DEWARD HAD PASSED ON WE STILL MISS HIM VERRY MUCH JOHN IN DANVILLE IN ME DELORES IN INDIANAPOLIS.IN GOOD TO SEE THE WEB SITE WOW.
Received from Sandy Battin, New Mexico, July 2002 Harold: You will never know how happy I was to find your web site. My great-grandmother was Martha Ellen Starnes (married John Marcum). She was the daughter of John Anderson Starnes and Martha Ellen Piercy. The documents in your site are wonderful. I had been having trouble finding information about her. I knew her as a child and would listen fascinated as she told stories about growing up in Kentucky and moving to Tennessee with her family. She loved Ann Galloway and Van, Sam and the others so much. I remember how she cried the night she heard that Ann had died. I remember visiting John and Prudence Kelly Starnes and how welcome we felt, how they teased me about losing my front teeth (as a little girl). I would love to get in touch with other members of the Starnes family. Martha, my great-grandmother -- her family called her Mattie and we called her Nanny -- told me that the Starnes had changed their name because they were teased about it being Stearns, which apparently meant backside in those days. She said they were just tired of getting joked about! As I said, I'd love to e-mail or talk on the telephone to other descendents of the Starnes family and fill in gaps about what happened with Martha and John Marcum, their two daughters, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren if anyone is interested. Thanks again! Sandy McCraw Battin
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The following comments received from Paul Minor, Virginia
.Your school comments brought back a lot of memories.
My school for the first 3 years was actually a 2 room school. One of the rooms was used as a playroom. The one room used for classes had a large coal stove in the front center, and there were about 5 rows of seats. The first row was for Primer, the second row for First and Second grades, the third row was for Third grade, forth row was for 4th and 5th grades and the last row was for 6th and 7th. This was a great concept because by the time you reached 6th grade you had heard all the grades, including 6th, 6 times.
In the winter, one of the 6th or 7th graders would come in early and have a fire going when the other kids arrived.
It was also the responsibility of an older kid to carry water the half mile from the spring. About mid-morning the teacher would send someone with the bucket, to the spring, so we would have fresh water for recess and lunch. I once was allowed to accompany one of the older kids to the spring and he showed me how he could take the bucket of water over his hear without spilling it. I tried it, and spilled the whole thing down on my head.
When it was warm in the springtime, the teacher would have an older one take us little ones outside, assemble us on a rock in a semi-circle, and read stories to us. I can still feel the warmth of the sun on those rocks, and hear the birds.
I could go on and on, but I am sure you did the same things that I did. Did you eat possum grapes and paw paws? Did you ever see how many lizards you could catch during lunch?
Paul
