Beyond the Bridge:: A City-Bred Teacher's First Year in a 1950'S Rural High School

Also by R. D. Lock:

Taking Charge of Your Career Direction (5 editions)

Job Search (5 editions)

Activities Manual for Taking Charge of Your Career Direction and Job Search

No Greater Love: A Story of the Spanish Civil War

Beyond

THE

Bridge

A City-Bred Teacher’s First Year

in a 1950’s Rural High School

R. D. Lock

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Beyond the Bridge:

A City-Bred Teacher’s First Year in a 1950’s Rural High School

Copyright © 2011 by R. D. Lock

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1661-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-1662-4 (e)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 06/22/2011

Table of Contents

Also by R. D. Lock:

AUTHOR’S PREFACE to BEYOND THE BRIDGE

Part One:

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chapter 2: August

Chapter 3: September

Chapter 4: October

Part Two:

Chapter 5: November

Chapter 6: December

Chapter 7: January

Chapter 8: February

Chapter 9: March Madness

Part Three:

Chapter 10: March, Continued

Chapter 11: April

Chapter 12: May

Chapter 13: June

EPILOGUE: AFTER THAT FIRST YEAR

AUTHOR’S PREFACE to BEYOND THE BRIDGE

Oh, the memories! From before the opening day of school in the autumn to the commencement ceremonies the following spring, this story is abundantly filled with scenes remembered from a teacher’s first year in a high school during the 1950s. I’ve written a novel rather than a memoir in order to embellish a bit for the sake of dramatic action. However, the material is based upon actual experience and the characters are composites of real people whose names are fictionalized to protect the innocent.

The events in this story include narratives that may remind readers of a number of scenes from their high school days. Among the chapters and their subdivisions are these occasions: The ‘give and take’ with students in their classes and townspeople in a rural community, a political party convention in government class, games won and lost in basketball, teacher parties behind pulled shades on Friday nights, a religious revival, the thief who made me an ‘undefeated football coach,’ suspicions of having Communist sympathies, the class clown, advising President Eisenhower, School Board politics, the basketball contest that resembled a football game, a Grange Hall square dance, a maple syrup festival, being summoned before the Student Complaint Committee, motivating the love of my life to teach with me the following year, hiding under desks from a threatening tornado, and counseling with students who seek far more advice than arranging future school schedules.

My best wishes go to the 15,000 or so students I have served through teaching, coaching, and counseling over 43 years in high school and community college, and this book is dedicated to them.

Part One:

TEACHER

Chapter 1: The Beginning

1

I came to the bridge, the one a couple of miles outside town that has curvy inclined walls of concrete rising to a high point in the middle and sloping down again. On the other side, the road turns so you can not see where it goes. The first time you cross that bridge you get an immediate feeling that somehow you’ve gone into unknown territory; it is as if you were headed into Brigadoon. How long would it be before a leprechaun would be found sitting by the side of the road? The paved road had quit fifteen miles before crossing the bridge. On warm, rainless days in late spring, clouds of dust rise behind you even if you drive only thirty miles per hour. No state or U.S. number marks this trail; only the county road commission crews keep Westminster Highway scraped of washboard ridges in the summer and plowed of snow in the winter. Especially after crossing that bridge, you know you’ve gone into the back of beyond.

I was headed for an interview – a teaching-counseling-coaching job. Burrowing through the file of job vacancies in my college’s placement office, I had noticed Westminster Rural Agricultural Schools. Secondary teaching positions open: English, Science, Social Studies, Agriculture, Industrial Arts, Physical Education. Guidance counselor and football, basketball, cross country, and track coaches needed. Salaries begin at $3,600. I had already checked out vacancies where the pay was slightly better, but you had to specialize and teach one or two subjects all day long with no counseling or coaching. Interviewing at another high school I had seen the words on a sign: Why can’t all of life’s problems happen at age seventeen when I know everything? I’ll bet the kids loved that put-down. Then the Westminster posting came along. Small problem: Where was Westminster? I finally found it on a map. No problem – it was only about thirty-five miles from where I lived. I just had never noticed it. For me, until now, it didn’t exist.

My ’48 Chevy rolled over a flat bridge crossing the Crabapple River again. I came to a dilapidated convenience store that sold gas, groceries, and hardware but most prominently advertised beer, wine, and liquor. Back on paved road once more, the car rattled across railroad tracks and after climbing a long hill, it lumbered into the village of Westminster. Down the main street, the houses were set back, giving room to spacious lawns and gardens. A dog rose from its slumber in the middle of the street and ambled over to the side. Moving into downtown, I first encountered a funeral home, branch bank, Standard gas station, and what looked like an old-time opera house, now the town library. The center of town held a pharmacy with a soda fountain, the village tavern, a small-town supermarket, two combined hardware and farm implement stores, a variety store, a café, a barber and beauty shop, the post office, an auto supply store, another gas station, and the village newspaper office. No traffic lights halted anyone. At the end of downtown was a four-way stop with a Methodist and a Congregational church on the corners opposite each other. An old academy building occupied another corner. The fourth corner held a village green that must have been a transplant from the town’s New England roots. That’s me, I thought – a transplant; a big-city guy in a small, rural town.

Spotting two girls strolling through the green, I stopped the car and asked directions to the school. Turn right, said one, and go past the grain elevator and turn left at the first street beyond.

You’ll be on Elm Street, the other girl made clear.

Thanking them, I looked at my watch. It read 4:35, meaning I was already five minutes late. I turned at the four-way stop and headed for the school. The maple trees were full of leaves on this sunny afternoon in May of 1956.

Always five minutes late, I thought to myself. That’s the story of my life. My college advisor had said to have my first year’s teaching job already sewed up by March or definitely by April for the following school year. Late on that, too.

A minute later I pulled up to the front of the school. It loomed over me like pictures of factories I’d seen in books about the early days of the Industrial Revolution – two stories, red brick, with old-fashioned windows now being closed by a custodian. School day was over and buses were gone, so I figured I could park at the front door. Picking up a folder containing my college transcripts, I bounded up the steps. In the main office I found the school secretary. The nameplate said Anne Flexner.

I’m William Robertson, Ms. Flexner, I announced. My friends call me Robin. I have an appointment with Mr. Darwin and Mr. Smith. Sorry to be a few minutes late; didn’t correctly judge the time it would take to get here.

She waved off my concern by saying, No problem. Mr. Darwin, the superintendent, is here; the principal, Mr. Smith, had to leave early.

Okay. By the way, when was this building built? I’m just curious.

This part of it was built in 1923 and another part way back in 1889, she replied. You probably haven’t seen the new elementary school further down the driveway. We’ve been in it two years now. I’ll tell Mr. Darwin you’re here.

I had forgotten the Mr. Darwin’s first name. Charles? I wondered. The thought came to me that I should have taken that one-credit course on job hunting.

Mr. Darwin emerged from his office carrying a manila folder, which I assumed held my college records. He invited me to enter his inner sanctum.

Welcome to Westminster Schools, Mr. Robertson, he said, closing the door and motioning me to sit in the chair in front of his desk. I’ve been expecting you. Thank you for arranging your transcripts to be sent. Nice spring day we’re having.

I remember thinking: Ah, yes, build rapport and friendliness when you are first meeting with another person – this I had learned in counseling courses. What safer topic is there than the weather? Very good, Mr. Darwin, and by the way, please tell me your first name, not that we might ever be on a first-name basis.

Another nameplate on a desk saved me. It said ‘Eugene Darwin, Superintendent.’

There’s nothing like a crisp, sunny day in these parts, I agreed.

What interested you in the Westminster Schools? asked Mr. Darwin, getting right down to business. Maybe I was too inexperienced or naïve, but his voice struck me as so plain-spoken and his eyes appeared to be so gentle that I had the impression I was talking to a man who had few pretensions and was inherently honest. Not being a suspicious person by nature, I was completely disarmed. Thinking back, was I so naïve that I didn’t realize a superintendent had to be shrewd and know his way around school politics? How did this nice man ever become a superintendent in the first place?

I majored in history and political science with minors in biological science and physical education. Two years in the Army and the G. I. Bill paid for a Master’s degree in Counseling and Guidance. When I saw the openings in social studies and counseling here – and to top it off, you needed a basketball coach – I thought I’d better get over here and see what this school was all about.

Does our lower salary and being a small school pose any problems for you?

Your starting salary is not that far off from larger schools I’ve looked at. It’s more important that I can teach the courses I’m hoping to teach. And, I’ve always fantasized living in a small town, at least for a while.

Mr. Darwin nodded approvingly. Our base pay is at $3,600, but you would also get $200 for your Master’s degree and $200 for the basketball job. Tell me about your basketball …

He got no further than this because his concentration was interrupted and he seemed to be struggling to maintain his composure. His eyes appeared to be riveted on something behind me. Then, I felt of something furry brushing by my leg, and suddenly Eugene Darwin wasn’t the only one trying to keep his sense of cool-headedness. I turned and saw a rabbit jumping past my chair, leaving what I shall modestly say were ‘calling cards’ in his wake. Apparently, the door hadn’t latched for now it was ajar. The rabbit stopped, twitched its nose, and dropped another business card. Mr. Darwin and I looked at each other and started laughing.

I see I have a competitor, I commented.

A tentative rapping was heard on the partly-open door and a harried woman raced in muttering apologies. She expertly picked up the rabbit behind its ears.

The woman tried to leave, but Mr. Darwin stopped her. This is Rebecca Watson, our biology teacher, and her friend, he explained. Looking directly at the rabbit, he said, You certainly have created one of the strangest teacher interviews I’ve ever had.

Miss Watson and I exchanged greetings. I hope you don’t think we are this chaotic at Westminster High, she said. A student forgot to lock the rabbit’s cage. Of course, it got out and I chased it down the hall. Wouldn’t you know, it became scared and headed right into this office and … well, here we are.

Anne Flexner appeared at the door with a broom and dustpan. Happens every day, she joked, cleaning up the mess.

Remind me to add sweeping up rabbit pellets to your job description, said Mr. Darwin.

When the two women departed with the intruder, the superintendent resumed the interview. I was starting to ask you about your basketball experience before the interruption, he said. We may be a Class D school, but this community is passionate about basketball. It’s a dominant theme of conversation during the winter.

I’ve coached for five years in my hometown for the YMCA and Church League teams, taken three basketball courses for my physical education minor, and played in, maybe, two hundred official games, I explained.

Your background is quite impressive, and that’s one reason I was interested in talking with you. I want you to know this job is for the varsity high school team, not the junior varsity. That’s been reserved for the new football coach.

The thought came to me: this is it; if they offer a contract, take it! A marriage made in heaven. Don’t go anywhere else. You’ll never find Brigadoon again.

2

There were a lot of reasons I signed the contract Mr. Darwin offered. I’ll admit the vacant varsity basketball position was the main attraction, but there were many more incentives to commit myself to the Westminster Rural Agricultural School District. Westminster was a short distance away from the city in which I grew up, meaning I could go home on most weekends, stay at my parents’ house, and get together with friends I had known for a long time. Then there was the matter of my love life; my hometown was where Nicole lived, although she would be finishing her senior collegiate year in a different city, miles away. Nicole was a rather unusual name for a girl born in the 1930s; she once informed me her grandmother had been French.

As for my career, Westminster was the only place known to me where I could practice my three goals as an educator: to be a counselor, coach basketball, and teach the subjects I loved and wanted to teach. I knew this school was smaller than three-fourths of the high schools in the state. Westminster High was a Class D school in the state’s classification system and people were likely to regard it as less prestigious than a Class A, B, or C school. However, a larger high school would require a compromise: I’d have to sacrifice things I wanted to try in my occupational life. At Westminster, I had it all.

Yes, there were complications, to be sure. Aren’t there problems with any decision made involving big changes in your life? No subject I would teach had two class periods, meaning there would be four preparations for each day of school and I would be responsible for another class to which I had not yet been assigned. I now possessed four high school textbooks to get acquainted with over the summer.

The American Government text was Magruder’s text, one that I had read as a high school senior in 1947-48. I looked at the copyright date in the book I was to use as a teacher and sure enough, it was the same edition I had used as a student. Westminster had been using the book for the last eight years. I’d have to fill in the blanks, updating the text covering the absent years. Not only was the text old, it struck me as dull. Occupying nearly two-thirds of the book was a rundown of the duties and responsibilities of officials in various bureaucratic departments of the federal government. I would have to improvise in the interests of making the class more … well, interesting.

Later in the summer I hit upon the idea of having my twelfth grade students read one of my favorite books: George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The author was knowledgeable about the habits of farm animals, as I presumed were many of my students. Orwell wove a story of revolution by the animals against their human owners, only to be eventually betrayed by their leaders. The idea occurred to me when I saw paperbound copies of this book being sold for twenty-five cents. For the grand total of $6.25 plus sales tax, I bought twenty-five copies of Animal Farm from a rather perplexed bookstore owner.

You’re going to read each one? he quipped.

I’m a teacher in a farm community, I explained. My students understand and might even empathize with the plight of the animals. I’ll need to explain that each animal character in this novel has its human counterparts in real life – in this case, people involved in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Maybe the story will teach my students to think before following the crowd in popular political movements.

The U.S. History and World History textbooks were laden with rather basic facts. Why not enliven these subjects with stories that relate to events of today? How did the empires of Rome, Spain, and others fall and what lessons might there be for America today? Why was slavery considered essential for the economy of our Southern states, and how did its legacy damage the entire country, lead to a catastrophic civil war, and continue to be a civil rights problem to this day? How were people living in tribes, city-states, and nations throughout the ages similar to people living now? My objective would be to engage them in the fascination that history and politics held for me.

The subject I would need to spend the most time on before school started in September was American Literature. I didn’t have an extensive background in this subject. American Lit was combined with U.S. History into a single two-period class. Blending the literature and history of our country into one comprehensive course appeared to be the intent of a curriculum committee, which seemed like a neat idea to me. Later, I discovered the real purpose was to make administrative scheduling easier for the entire block of eleventh grade students. The text provided a wide coverage of American writing but little that students could sink their teeth into. Perhaps I could persuade my students to immerse themselves in one book they could choose from a selection of novels by American writers. I would need to widen my knowledge to construct a list of books students would find appealing.

Finishing a Master’s degree program, graduation, and a part-time job with the state highway department would consume time, but I figured I still had room to read and prepare for the new job. In addition to my academic obligations, I wanted to teach my basketball players the fundamentals of dribbling, passing, and shooting the ball, the patterns and plays we would use on offense, individual and team defense, and special situations we were likely to encounter in a contest, and go over all of this before the first game. That would take careful planning and organization of each pre-season practice session. Westminster also needed a guidance program mandated by the state for every school system that very year. I would be expected to collect materials for the counseling and guidance program I was called upon to install. Slowly, as I surveyed the tasks and responsibilities that had been set in front of me, I needed no one to tell me that this next academic year would be a challenging set of 180 school days spread over nine-and-a-half months.

I had thought this summer would be a rather relaxing one with only a part-time job, playing baseball, and seeing Nicole. However, Nicole had to find her own summer job to help pay for her senior year, and this she did as a waitress at a far-away resort. At first, I was unhappy at that turn of events, but now I was beginning to see that it might also be a blessing in disguise. I needed all the extra time I could get to plan for my first year’s teaching assignments.

One’s perspective changes when preparing to stand at the other side of a teacher’s desk in a schoolroom. Once, when I was a very young student, I seriously asked my parents why teachers got paid – after all, we students did all the work.

Chapter 2: August

1

Your teaching will go better for you here if you don’t smile at the students for the first month, stated Howard Smith in all seriousness. The entire Westminster High School faculty was present at a two-day pre-school workshop held each year before school started. You don’t have to be unfriendly, but you do need to let your students know who’s in charge.

The principal had prefaced his remarks by saying he was giving some advice to first-year teachers, a majority of the secondary school faculty. He was dealing with discipline – a subject rarely discussed in our Education courses in college.

It’s better to let up a little on discipline as you move through the year than to start easy and then have to crack down. The best way to start is to cover all of your rules with your students on the first day of school. You could print and distribute your requirements and ask the students to sign a statement that they have read the rules and understand them. Include everything you can think of – student evaluations, tests, papers, assignments, class participation, and so on. Go over the meaning of each grade, the number of tests each marking period, outlines and dates for assignments, deadlines, and penalties for unexcused absences – things like that. Show your students you have things organized and you’ll eliminate a lot of problems that could come up later on.

Sounds good, I thought. Except for that semester of student teaching, I may learn more useful stuff today than I did in all those other Education courses I had in college.

A short time later, the meeting turned to finalizing class assignments. In my head I went over my schedule, most of which had been worked out beforehand: American Government, World History, and the two-period class that combined U.S. History and American Literature. Attached to these four classes was a hard-to-believe-but-true girls’ physical education, plus one hour for counseling. The girls’ phys ed assignment had been added fifteen minutes before the pre-school meeting. I chose the girls’ gym class over a study hall, preferring the role of teacher rather than that of policeman. The entire twelfth grade would be in my government class and I would have the entire eleventh grade for U.S. History and American Literature. Two-thirds of the tenth graders would make up the class in World History and most of the ninth-grade girls were in phys ed. The school day consisted of seven class periods, one ‘conference’ hour for class preparation and six for teaching. That day started at 8:15 and finished at 3:30. Classes ran forty-five minutes each – with one hour for lunch, twenty minutes for homeroom to start the day, and five minutes to pass from one class to another.

Girls’ phys ed? kidded Jim Devine, a second-year junior high math-science teacher. Will there be shower inspection?

Oh, absolutely, Jim, I replied, wondering for the first time about the principal’s assumption that the girls would police themselves in their locker room. It’s worth at least fifty percent of the grade.

Jim smiled. Have fun. How’s the rest of your schedule?

Not too bad, but aren’t there any subjects that meet for more than one class period? My schedule gives me five teaching preps. Maybe I’m lucky – without my counseling hour, there could be six preparations.

Two classes of the same subject are not likely after the tenth grade in this school, explained Jim. Last year’s graduating class of twenty-six had about half the students it started with in the ninth grade.

That’s quite a drop-off.

Actually, it’s the same as a lot of high schools in this state. You might wonder why I teach junior high subjects except for the one driver’s training class. One answer is that there are two seventh grade classes for each subject taught, and that means fewer preparations. Fortunately, I like what I teach: math and science. I suppose the trade-off is that you have more mature students even though you have more preps.

That’s the way the pre-school day went: pep talks from the administration, setting class schedules, and each teacher sizing up their workload and comparing it with the others.

Mary London, a new high school science teacher from a Southern state, told me at lunch, You social studies teachers have one advantage: you don’t have to equip a laboratory before class. I don’t have enough time to set up a biology lab, a chemistry lab, a physics lab, and two general science labs. I can’t do lab preps during study hall. The one fortunate break is that my conference hour is at the beginning of the day.

Yeah, I agree, Mary. In history and government, we don’t have lab equipment to set out. I’m the equipment – well, except for the textbooks, maps, and an occasional audio-visual.

I’m not complaining, she replied. At least the classes here are a decent size. Back home, Lynne and I had classes of forty-five and fifty. After one year of impossible teaching loads, Lynne Elliott, who taught English and speech, and Mary had come north to teach where the class sizes were more reasonable.

How could you teach under those conditions? I asked.

You couldn’t. That’s why we left.

There was no comparison with other teachers concerning the one period per day I had for counseling. As the only guidance counselor, I would plan high school schedules with all eighth graders individually, counsel each senior about their post-secondary plans, and work with any student on whatever problem they were having. In other words, there were over 200 potential counselees to be seen for a single hour stretched over 180 school days. It didn’t compute: Westminster’s ratio worked out to be 1200-plus students per full-time counselor when the state average was supposed to be a third of that load. Also, every student had a ‘cumulative record’ folder I was expected to maintain. Another major responsibility would be to begin organizing and administering an aptitude testing and vocational interest inventory program for grades seven through twelve.

As for coaching, I was part of the athletic staff. Bob Rollins, football coach and jayvee basketball coach, taught junior high math and science and a couple of boys’ phys ed classes. Jim Devine coached baseball in the spring. The track and cross-country jobs were still up for grabs. That was the extent of the Westminster High athletic program.

Howard Smith sought out Bob Rollins and me about coaching cross-country in the autumn and track and field in the spring. Since Bob is coaching football, why don’t we split these two sports? You could coach cross-country, he said to me, and Bob, you could coach track in the spring. It’s worth fifty bucks for each of you. We agreed to the split. I figure I got the better of the deal because cross-country was one two-mile run, while track included several running events plus four field events. The only problem was I had never paid much attention to cross-country, preferring basketball and baseball. At one time, a buddy of mine and I ran races to see who was the slowest guy on the team.

Girls’ athletics? Their sole sport was cheerleading, supporting the boys in athletic competition. Girls’ basketball was a big deal in only a couple of nearby states at the time. A few girls may have silently complained, but no one thought much about it, and I have to admit I didn’t think about it either. In our state, the girls’ game was so restrictive it wouldn’t have attracted a following. Girls were considered such frail creatures they would hardly work up a sweat even if they played the whole game. Of the six players on the court, the three girls designated for defense couldn’t move beyond the center line. Confined to the offensive half of the floor, only the three forwards could score. Players could dribble only once; then they had to pass the ball. The rules ordained for the ‘delicate nature’ of the female anatomy made for a dull game.

Varsity basketball practice would start in November with daily sessions set for 3:45. When the season began, there would be one or sometimes two games per week, twelve Friday nights, three Tuesday nights, and a Saturday night – plus the tournament after the regular season was over. That wasn’t the only responsibility in my schedule. The town might think of me primarily as a basketball coach – in charge of their ‘winter’s entertainment’ – however, there was much, much more. I’d be going over the text pages I had assigned my students to read, writing abbreviated notes for lectures, composing questions for class discussion, constructing tests and marking them, and keeping records for every student. Those non-athletic duties would consume one ‘conference’ period and one or two hours after school except during basketball season, and three or four hours at night – all needed to get ready for the next school day. I thought fourteen-hour days went out with the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act. No doubt about it, the school district was getting its money’s worth from its teachers. The fabulous reward for this sixty-to-seventy hour workweek was one I had already heard about: ‘You never learn as much in one year as you do in your first year of teaching.’

2

Carrying a suitcase full of clothes, I knocked on the screen door of the home of Mrs. Helen Holmes. I had telephoned her the day before. As she was to be my landlady for the coming school year, I had promised her to visit after the pre-school day session. Mr. Darwin had recommended her, saying that she furnished room and board for single teachers at the reasonable rate of one dollar for breakfast and dinner and $30 per month for a room directly off the dining room where we ate. Mrs. Holmes and I first met very briefly the day I was hired back in the spring. She had showed me the room and discussed the arrangements, and I immediately agreed to be her boarder for the coming school year.

Come on in, Robin, she called, coming out of her kitchen. The door’s always unlocked. I see you’ve brought some clothing with you. Just put the suitcase in your room for now and we’ll talk. Can you stay for dinner? I’ve got enough food for two.

That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Holmes, and I’ll accept your invitation.

We went into the kitchen. How did your day go? she inquired.

Fine. Guess what? You may remember I’m teaching four classes, plus there’s an hour for counseling and a conference period. Today, that left me one hour short in a seven-period class schedule. I didn’t want a study hall, so I signed up to teach physical education, a girls’ gym class in that last hour.

I didn’t get any wisecrack remarks, as I had gotten from my male colleagues.

That’s nice, said Mrs. Holmes. I think the girls will be very pleased, probably thrilled. They’ll look up to you. Good-hearted Mrs. Holmes; she would be looking on the positive side of things for me.

Well, I have to admit I didn’t expect it. I’m not really prepared for conducting this class.

You’ll do just fine. The high school doesn’t start until the middle of next week. You’ve got some time to get ready.

I’m coming back next Tuesday, day after Labor Day, to check on the equipment the school possesses for a gym class. There’s one other item I’m not really prepared for: coaching cross-country. That’s the second thing I agreed to today. The only thing I can think of is gather the boys together, mark out a course, and say, ‘Hurry back!’

Mrs. Holmes laughed softly at that remark. I’m sure there’s a little more to it than that. We talked a little more before she said, Robin, let me get dinner on the table for us. You go into the living room. The village paper is in there. It came today as it does every Thursday, and it will give you information about community happenings more quickly than from any other source.

I went in and picked up a copy of the town’s weekly newspaper, The Westminster Gleaner. With the front-page heading, ‘Introducing Westminster High School’s New Teachers,’ I saw my face plastered alongside four others beneath the headline. The article contained our backgrounds and qualifications. I speculated about the turnover among the faculties of small high schools. Of our eleven junior and senior high school teachers, seven were new and two were only in their second year. Two of our secondary teachers were long-term residents of Westminster. One was Lucille Southworth. She taught first- and second-year Latin in high school and English to the junior high kids and had been teaching in the Westminster Schools for nine years. The reason she stayed was her marriage to Lyle Southworth, a local mechanical marvel whose full-time job was school custodian.

The second teacher was Abigail Bradley, the high school math teacher, a permanent fixture at Westminster High School until she retired. She had come back from college to teach in her hometown. Now in her thirtieth academic year, she had never married and had become the stereotypical old-maid teacher. A General Math, Algebra I and II, Geometry, Trigonometry/Pre-Calculus, and Senior Math instructor, Abigail had earned the respect of every administrator, colleague, parent, and student that ever had contact with her. I found out later she earned only one hundred dollars more than the rest of us. High regard and sincere praise did not translate into a proper salary for her.

The Gleaner carried news that would interest the town and the surrounding countryside. Eugene Darwin penned an article called ‘School Flashes’ which started with announcing the schedule for the opening week of school. The School Board advised accident insurance could be purchased for the year at $1.50. School meal tickets could be purchased each week for $1.00, and sixty cents would be charged for the three days of the first week. The menu for next Wednesday would be goulash, lettuce salad, bread, butter, milk, and cake and peach sauce. A textbook fee of $2.00 was payable to homeroom teachers during the first two weeks of classes. Thirty boys had reported for football practice and the first game would be at Delafield in three weeks.

School news wasn’t the only subject covered on the first page. A list of fifteen couples, all named, had attended the Saturday wedding of Mary Jane Brown and Harold John Severance at the Baptist Church in Riverside. The Westminster 4-H contingent had brought home their share of top honors at the County Fair last week. Names were given for the young people that had won prizes in flower arranging, baking, canning, clothing, diary, beef, sheep, swine, crops, and horsemanship. A meeting was scheduled for the old opera house when representatives of the state conservation department would explain how a project could improve fishing on the Crabapple River and its tributaries. Marilyn Hastings, village treasurer, gave notice that she would collect taxes at her home Wednesday afternoons until October 15 and that remittance by mail would receive prompt attention. A regular meeting of the Masonic Order of the Eastern Star would be held next Tuesday at 8 p.m.

The following pages held items of local interest among various advertisements. Each small community was listed with the name of a stringer published underneath. Who visited whom took up about ninety percent of these articles: Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Wells called on Mr. and Mrs. Earl Bennett last Saturday, Mrs. Robert Marshall was confined to her home by illness last week … and so on. A rural advisor column gave hints on raising runts among livestock. A ‘handyman corner’ column issued advice on cleaning chimneys. Church notices were prominently displayed.

Two pages were given over to classified advertising. For sale by individual owners and agents were livestock, farm tools and machines, grains and feed, household goods, and real estate. In the ‘Personal Column,’ A.H. Dell wished to thank friends and neighbors for helping him on the farm last Saturday. Harvey Liscombe wanted to let people know he would give a reward to whoever found ten Barred Rocks that were lost last Sunday. Not raised on a farm, I wondered why someone would pay for barred rocks. What were barred rocks?

Several jokes were sprinkled throughout the newspaper. A typical one went like this: A salesman tried to persuade a farmer to buy a bicycle, but the farmer wanted a cow. ‘It would be awfully funny seeing you riding on a cow,’ said the salesman. The farmer replied, ‘I’d look funnier trying to milk a bicycle.’ One more thing to get accustomed to: rural humor.

Dinner’s ready, called Mrs. Holmes, snapping me out of my concentration on the newspaper. We sat down to dinner. As she folded her hands for prayer, I remembered she had told me her husband, who had died four years ago, had been a minister in the Congregational church.

She spoke quietly and reverently: O Lord, bless this food and bless us to thy service, and make us ever mindful of the needs of others. We pray in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

As I listened to her prayer, a second prayer entered my mind, perhaps in the form of a question. I simply said it to myself, praying that I would fit into this community and into the Westminster Rural Agricultural Schools.

Chapter 3: September

1

Two days after Labor Day found me with my faculty colleagues on the Westminster junior-senior high school theater stage, sitting in front of the student body. The stage was combined with the gymnasium, a conservation of funds that characterized any number of schools in small towns. A number of students sat in bleachers along the two sides of the gym while the remainder found places on folding chairs in the middle of the floor. More bleachers would be placed on the stage when basketball season started. Two ten-second centerlines marked the floor, giving teams more room to maneuver on offense. I wondered whether a man-to-man defense, which I preferred, would have to give way to a zone defense, which might be more effective in a smaller gym. The principal, Howard Smith, was about to