ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE
By Mary Anderson-Boyd
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In a one room schoolhouse named Walnut Grove, down in Stone County, there was one teacher for all 8 grades. She had about 60 pupils, who attended each day. There were no school busses then and we walked 2 miles and one tenth, up a bluff road, that ran next to Crane Creek. We saw a lot of snakes along that road. My Brother Milford T. Anderson and I, Mary Anderson-Boyd, were the janitors. That lasted for a couple of years and we were paid $3.50 a month. That was a lot in those days. Money was scarce and that made us feel rich. There was a big furnace that sat in the northwest corner of the room and it burned coal. We had to carry several buckets of coal each day. Dad would take us in the car every morning before school to get the furnace going and it was very cold. The school later became consolidated to Hurley and the bus picked the kids up, which was quite a change for all of us country kids. We always had to line up alphabetically and march into the school house, at recess and at Noon, which was after lunch. Sometimes the teacher would cut classes on Friday a little early so we could wash the window, blackboard, and dust erasers. We looked forward to that! |
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© Mary Anderson-Boyd 2003
