Were you so poor that you got free lunch in school?

@Nelladell My aunt was born in 1913 and for a long time all she had for her school lunch was biscuits and a baked sweet potato every single day. She got burnt out on sweet potatoes because of it. They had a drought before the Depression and that was why.

@Nelladell How do those one room schools work with all the different grades of kids in there?

@cherokeepatti Yes. Crops were sparse for a while.

@SW-User I visited one in Nebraska as a young child, and stayed all day long. It went up to 8th grade and there were two teachers for the whole class. The younger children were divided up by class and sat up front, older ones in the back. The teachers took turns teaching each class and giving assignments. In the afternoon the older students helped the younger ones with their homework or reading. There were two outhouses behind the school for boys and girls to use and a bucket of water that the teacher had pumped and put in the entrance on a table with a dipper next to it because there was no water fountain. All the students drank out of the same dipper. Every student brought their lunch in a metal lunch bucket and ate lunch at their desks.

@SW-User In our area there were four rows of desks, each row fastened to two boards so the entire row could be shover toward wall when we had our Saturday night hoedowns.

The first row had small seats and was for first and second graders. The second row was for third and fourth grades, the third for fifth and sixth, the fourth for 7th and 8th.

The teacher started each class by instructing the first and second graders, then moved to the next row for a few minutes and on until all the rows had been given attention. We had assignments to work on while she/he was at other rows. Each child was free to do anything silently after finishing his assignment. For this purpose there was a bookcase at back of room behind the heating stove. There were encyclopedias and lots of reference books. There was also a smaller bookcase against one wall with a complete set of NANCY DREW and THE HARDY BOYS.

Morning exercizes included the pledge to the flag, The Lord's Prayer, a group song (slave songs were popular, like OLE BLACK JOE), and something entertaining, for instance, teacher reading a chapter from a book each morning.

For recesses when weather was bad there was a victrola with a dozen or two records stored inside. It had a few needles which we kept changing out, hoping to get a sharper one. We could also pull down our choice of maps from the map cylinder thingy at the front of the room, and draw on the chalk board.

There was no misbehavior that I recall, except the teacher once angered a student and her father came in with a rifle threatening her. Nothing came of it.

Friday afternoons were for spelling bees and such.

The last day of school was a big pot luck dinner. The woen chatted while the men and kids played softball.

A pie supper was held every autumn to raise money. They were attended by folds from a large area outside the school's district.

The county Superintentant visited at least once a year.

One year the government gave the school a box of tangerines. We had never seen them.

@cherokeepatti Oh. That was arranged differently than in our part of country. We didn't have to eat at our desks. In good weather we ate outside. And the teacher didn't have to bring in water. One of the big boys came early, started the fire and brought in water and coal for the day. On the stand by door, n addition to the water bucket (our dipper had a hook and hung on the bucket rim) there was a wash pan where each child was required to wash his hands after recess and at lunch time.

When I went there, there were 20 kids in the 8 grades. When Daddy went there, there were almost 100. I have no idea how that worked, except it was difficult for young ones without much English.

@Nelladell what state was this in?

@cherokeepatti Southwest Missouri

@Nelladell I was wondering because my aunt married a German and I thought he came here after WWII, I didn’t want to ask because maybe he had spent some time in the military there, he had a thick German accent and loved beer and other German things. I found out after doing a little genealogy that his mother came from Germany. Apparently he was raised in a household where German was spoken and most likely the farmers in the area the same and he never lost that accent after growing up. That was in central Nebraska.

@cherokeepatti Daddy didn't have an accent, even though he spoke Lithuanian also and had grown up in a home where Lithuanian was spoken. I thought that it was pretty cool.