Living on the West End: My world was growing (I go to school)
By Bill Shepard
The only world I had ever known was about to change whether I was ready or not.
The loud mill whistle would continue to blow, awakening everyone in our house. Dad would still go off to the big mill where he would spend the day doing the kind of work he had been doing for all of my short lifetime.
My brothers would arise early and prepare for school. So what was different? I would be going to school with them!
The year was 1928 and I was 6 years old. No longer would I be left behind to sleep a little longer if I wished, or to go with Mama to the Company Store, and I would miss going with Mama to the ditch to do the family’s clothes-washing each week.
I was excited but I was also scared! I had never been inside of a building as large as the one where my brothers went to school. I had heard them talk about the things they did inside the school. I think sometimes they made up stories to tell just to frighten me. They even talked about some children getting a paddling for not doing their homework, and that really frightened me.
I had received my vaccination at the village nurse’s office near the big mill, the Company Store and the YMCA. Those places were all a part of the Mill Company. All the 6-year-olds had been vaccinated in the summer, before we were to begin school in first grade when school opened in September.
The vaccination was to prevent a disease called smallpox but I did not know that. I knew that it was to make a large sore on one’s arm and when the sore healed it would leave a large scar. That scar would be a sign that one could now begin school.
I had seen the big red brick school but I had no idea about what went on inside the huge building. I was about to learn. My world was soon to become enlarged. I was growing up!
I joined the group of cheerful children on their way to school from the village. They seemed glad this day had arrived. Most had been going to school for years and knew what lay ahead. They carried last year’s report card. The last year’s teacher had written on the back side the words “Promoted to the next grade level” and the teacher’s name.
Some were having to repeat last year’s level because they had failed to achieve as they should have. There were some like myself who were going to school for their first day.
The vaccination on my arm had healed but left no scar as it was supposed to do. My older brother was instructed to take me to the office. He had been put in charge of seeing that I was taken care of on this, my first day at school.
Inside the office were several people I had never seen. One was a nurse. I knew that by the dress and the little cap she had on. The village nurse wore one just like it. She looked at my arm and then to my brother. She asked if I had been vaccinated. My brother assured her that I had. She said, “It must not have taken.” She did it all over again. I was having my first day at school and not enjoying it.
The first day at school was not as I expected, but I really didn’t know what I was to expect. My teacher’s name was Miss West, but I never knew her first name. We were instructed to keep our hands by our side, to keep our mouths shut and walk in a straight line everywhere we went.
We marched in a line when we went to the restroom, when we went outside for recess and when we were dismissed to go home.
There were no lunchrooms at schools in those times. We ate our lunch during our recess. Mama made my lunch and put it in a sack and I would take it with me. My lunch was usually fried potatoes inside a biscuit. Mama would give me two biscuits. They would be so good!
I can’t remember much I learned from books that first year, but I did learn how to line up, walk in a straight line and keep my mouth shut! I must have done everything right because at the end of the year, my report card had written on the back side, “Promoted to 2nd Grade.” I was so proud!
St. John’s School was to be the place I would go daily for the following years. My report card had the words “Promoted to the next level” each year for the next seven years! Each year, my world grew larger. By the time I had completed my 7th year, I was thinking, “Soon my school years will end and I will begin work at the big mill!”
