Bessie McCauley and Geraldine Jones, One-Room School Teachers
by Pam Lane and Drema Lemley
Excerpted from "One-Room School: The Schools of Yesteryear," originally published in Mountain Trace, 1(4), Spring 1976.
Kenneth G. Gilbert, ed.
Reprinted by permission of the editor.
Being a member of the largest 1976 graduating class in the State of West Virginia, (over 1,000 students) it is hard to imagine what it would be like to attend a school where there were only two or three in a class. It is hard to imagine having the same four or five subjects for my six years of schooling, or what it would be like to walk miles in all kinds of weather just to get to school. We students of today do not know how lucky we are. At Parkersburg High School we have over 100 subjects to choose from, and as for the walking to school, whether we have a car at our disposal, a bus picks us up close to our homes, or we walk across the street to school.
We have interviewed several teachers that have taught in a one-room school, and a teacher who is now teaching in a small two-room school in Wirt County, W.Va. They have told us what it was like teaching in the small schools, and their opinions of today's large schools. As one lady put it, " When they took the one-room school from the community, they took something out of the community that can never be replaced."
Garnett Shears, Bessie McCauley, Ava Ruble, and Geraldine Jones tell us their story of yesteryear.
Bessie McCauley
"My first school was in Wirt county, about two and one-half miles from Freeport. The only way you could get to this school was by horseback or to walk. The teacher had to board at a local home. I stayed with a family that lived in a great big log house. They had a wood fireplace and cooked over a wood stove. The food was absolutely out of this world. The school that I taught in was a mile and a half from the house where I boarded. I had to walk every morning and evening and carry my lunch. I had never been in a one-room school till I opened the door that morning. I had students that were older and larger than I was, and my first though was, what am I ever gonna do with them?
"The second day, two of the boys went to the woods to smoke and set the woods on fire. One of the parents came along and helped put the fire out. He said to me, 'Miss Henderson can you whip these boys?' I weighed all of 97 pounds, and I said, 'I don't know, but I can sure try.' he went to the woods and got me some willow branches, and I whipped those two boys. that ended my discipline problems right there before it ever started. In later years, I found a paddle to be more effective. Some good-natured person in the community would make one for me. Since I was the only teacher and taught all eight grades, I usually paddled on the average of one a day.
"Children didn't usually know anything back then. They didn't know their A B C's, they didn't know one number from another; they just didn't know hardly anything. I had on the average of two children in each class and about 16 in the school. It was easy, teaching all eight grades at once. You'd start in with the little ones of a morning, and usually we had a table and chairs and you'd give them something to do, or let them work at the board. Then you would take the rest of the students grade by grade, and when you'd finish with them they would do their lessons, while you were teaching another class. Since there was only one or two in a class, you would work from seat to seat. The little ones would learn from the older ones, and usually by the time the first grade got ready for the second grade, they knew everything that was taught in the second grade by listening to the older ones.
"Back then, we had time for playground, picnics, hikes, and things the larger schools don't have time for today. When I taught at the Island Run School those children had never been to a movie, so we got a truck and took 'em to a movie. We also took them to a circus one time, all 45 of them. Pie socials were a big thing back then, too. We had a lot of pie socials. People would bring pies, cakes, and boxes. The girls would decorate their boxes real pretty, then the boys would bid on 'em. Somebody would bid against the person that wanted the girl's box so that would bring more money for the school. That's the way we got our supplies; we didn't have a Board of Education to come out and put a lot of money out for books and things like that. If we wanted something done, like a well drilled, we had a pie social.
"Everybody just had a gay time at the pie socials. It was the highlight of the year. They would have a wash tub full of ice that had cokes in it, and we'd have somebody to come in and do the auctioning of the boxes. On the rule, the boy that got the box got to eat with the girl and take the girl home. They'd pay as high as thirty dollars a box. My husband went to a social one time and some of the boys said he wouldn't be able to buy this one girl's box. He didn't know which box it was, but he knew the color and what kind of ribbon it had on[.] There only happened to [be] 14 boxes there that night that had the same thing on it, and he bought all those boxes just to get that one girl's box. We decorated the boxes with crepe parper, flowers; we put ruffles around the basket; they were really pretty. If it was in the fall, we'd gather leaves and put on the basket. In the baskets we'd put two sandwiches, two bananas, two bars of candy, a couple pieces of pie, couple pieces of cake, and the food was really good.
"The people of the community usually furnished everything except the pop. And of course, the teacher usually fixed a good portion of the food. I know one time I made nine cakes.
"At Christmas time we had Christmas programs; we'd have a Christmas tree, and practice for about three weeks. Then, all the parents would come in, and it was really nice. The theme was humorous and religous [sic] together. They always had a manger and a real live Santa Claus would come with a bag on his shoulder, and we changed names and everybody got a gift. The teacher got everybody a gift, and most everybody gave the teacher a gift. The teacher usually gave gifts that the children needed. Then, we always treated them to a bag of candy and an orange or apple. The teacher always got cologne, powder, jewelry, some of the most beautiful jewelry you ever saw.
"The people I boarded with didn't expect favors for their children. If the children needed discipline, they got it. Everybody got discipline when they needed it and praise when they needed it. They expected you to help their children with their homework if they needed it, but I felt if I spent all day teaching them, then they could spend the evening doing their lessons.
"In the center of the school room, there was a pot-bellied stove. When the kids came to school of a morning when it was wet and snowy, their clothes would be frozen, and we'd hang their clothes all around the room. It would smell like a house of wet dogs.
"None of the kids at my school wore asafetida; that's what children wore back then to prevent colds and the flu during the winter. You'd get it in a drug store, and take a string and tie it around your neck. When I went to school, I remember kids wearing it. I don't think a cold would land on you, wearing that thing. It smelled so bad.
"I've had lice in school, and it was the teacher's responsibility to check heads and get rid of the lice. One old doctor gave me some medicine that they had in the army for lice, and the boys would carry in a lard can of water, and we'd heat that water and everybody would wash their head. First, we had fine combs and we'd comb their heads. Then, everybody had to have a head wash whether they had lice or not. We had the head washings till we were rid of the lice. I usually got the health nurse to come in and help me. We washed those heads every day for about three weeks. Then we'd go to the homes and take some of the lice medicine. There wasn't any need to get rid of them at school if they weren't rid of them at home.
"Never in all my years teaching did I find a parent hostile to me. Even when I whipped one of their kids. I know one time we changed our method of grading and all the parents came to me and said, 'I just don't understand this method of grading.' I said, 'Don't feel bad but I don't understand it either.' Every parent I ever had in school just went right along with anything, because I tried to be one of them. You couldn't go into a community and set yourself above them, you had to be one of them. Their heartbreaks were your heartbreaks, and their delights were yours.
"One child was appointed by the Board of Education to do the janitorial work. He cleaned up the school of an evening or early in the morning. He was paid four dollars a month, and back then that was a lot of money. He was also responsible for building the fire of a morning, but the teacher always helped with that. The kids never came to a cold school. We ran the bell at 8:30 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. They weren't supposed to be on the school grounds before 8:30, and then at 9:00, school started.
"Part of the time I had a hand bell, and then, sometimes there was a bell on the roof. Recess was at a quarter after two and lasted 15 minutes. They had a special way to line up to go to recess. They lined up, the little ones first and so on, that's the way they came back in too. Everybody marched out, and when they got off the school ground they went wild.
"I had some fighting at school. Now, down at the Island Run School I had a bunch of rough ones. Oh, but they did fight. I had some boxing gloves so I took those to school one day. When the first two got into a fight, I said, 'Come on let's everybody go outside.' I drawed a ring and I put the boxing gloves on the two that was fighting, and I said, 'Get in that ring and go to it, and the first foot that comes out gets a paddling.' He had to either face his partner or get a crack from the paddle and me, and I don't crack easy either. Now, that ended the fighting.
"Most of the students carried their lunch to school. There was no hot lunches. What they brought in their lunches was unspeakable. Some of them even brought cold pancakes. The ones that were more prosperous had sandwiches, cold biscuits, and an apple. If it was pretty, we'd take our lunches and go outside and eat; if not, we'd stay inside and eat, then play games.
"Then children were so shy, and I had to do something to pull them out of it. So, on Friday afternoons, we'd have more-or-less a workshop. We'd have different projects that we would work on. They would sing while they were working, or whistle, and everyone helped everyone else. Then, we usually had some cookies or something to eat. This usually brought the children out of their shyness. They didn't know how to express themselves.
"When the children finished the eighth grade, they were qualified to take an examination to teach school. I went to college before I started to teach school. The first school I ever taught at, I made ninety dollars a month. We started school in September and ended it in April, when farming started. In the summer I just goofed off and had a good time.
"The first teachers almost always got stuck way back in the hollows, unless you were fortunate to have four years of college right off the bat. Unless you were fortunate enough to do that, you could bet your bottom-dollar you'd get back in a hollow.
"Back when I was teaching school, the kids got more personal supervision than the children do now. The kids today are just a number, not a name. I've had people, (high school graduates) come here and help me in the store, and they weren't nearly as qualified as the eighth grade students were back then. But today, the children realize that they have to graduate and go on to college if they want to get any place."
Geraldine Jones
"Jackson School was my first school in Wirt County. My first check was $81 as a substitute. I think I had nine students, and they were first through the eighth grades, and that was about the smallest class I've ever had in one-room schools. I had 31 students at Freeport one year. I taught at Oilrock for two years, and my biggest class was about 21 students.
"Most of the time, the grading was A's and B's. There was a time when we gave numbers; 100-90=A, 89-80=B, 79-70=C, and 69-60=D.
"The classroom activities started with the flag pledge and one verse of America or West Virginia Hills or some patriotic song, and then we would have the Lord's Prayer. You had to schedule your classes to that all of the students had something to do at all times. In all of these one-room schools we had a recitation bench in the front, and we would bring the reading class to the bench or read aloud. Sometimes there'd only be one in a class or there might be as many as six or seven. I think that the small schools are more advantageous to the child. The students received more individual help, even though the teacher isn't helping all of the time. The older children could help with math or spelling, or listen to reading. This is good for both younger and older.
"The walls on the inside of the schools were plain, except for what you put on them. I had a picture of the National Capitol, the State Capitol, and a presidential picture.
"The clothes the children wore weren't expensive clothes, but if they were too dirty, they got told about it. We had inspection every morning. Everyone had a handkerchief and they laid it on their desk. If they had clean fingernails, polished shoes, combed hair, etc., they got a school star. We chose one girl to be nurse and one boy to be doctor for one week. This inspection took place after the flag pledge, the song, and our prayer. The children took pride in this. It was terrible if you didn't have a star every day.
"My biggest experience with lice was with a tiny little girl. She kept scratching her head and right in the middle of class, she yelled, 'Teacher, teacher, come here and catch this flea.' I had figured what it was, but when I got to her, I couldn't see anything. She said that her mother had caught fleas on her head the night before. I went in and called the school nurse. When she came, she said it was head lice. This was a Friday, and on Monday morning, the little girl came up to me and said that her mother got rid of her fleas. I had never seen her mother without a cigarette between her lips. I asked her how she got rid of them and she said, 'She poured gasoline over our heads.' I could just see that cigarette in her mother's lips...
"I didn't have to paddle too much. It seems they understand if you let them know in the beginning, you're not going to have that much trouble with them.
"I've used willow switches, they used to be real handy. I've also used ping-pong paddles. One time at Freeport, this large boy, I forget what it was he did, but he had been asking for it all day. So I shut down recess, took up school, and said no more. When I went to the desk to get the board out to paddle him in the cloak room, he took off. He ran all the way up the hill to his grandmother's house, it's close to half of a mile. So I just gave all the kids something to do and put a couple pretty good-size girls in charge and took after him. He ran up, and in the front door of the house. When I went up and knocked on the front door and asked if he was there, she said he had just come through. He took around by the side of the house and went back to school, he was there in his seat, but he still got the boarding.
"I had paddled five kids for not getting their lesson, and someone that didn't like my husband went and told one boy's grandparent to swear out a warrant. The County Supervisor delivered it to me. They chewed the grandparents out, and when it came time for me to tell my part, all they said that they could do was to ask me if they could whittle me out a new paddle to use for the new year instead of a ping-pong paddle. But ya know, that boy still has respect for me. Even when he was in high school, if the bus was crowded, he would get up and give me his seat.
"I don't believe in this thing of sending a child to the principal, he needs discipline right then.
"It's a lot easier to teach one grade, but I always felt it a challenge to teach all eight grades at once."