Edited
July 1995
Q: Grace, you’ve always been the best
Kindergarten teacher in our District.
Tell us how you got here.
GP: I
applied to Humor’s School Service in Minneapolis, and Mr. Amerman hired
me. That’s how I got here. I came by train from northern Minnesota.
Q: Did
you first start teaching here at what building?
GP: At
Main Street School in the Kindergarten.
There was just the one Kindergarten then. I had two classes, 53 kids altogether. And then it got to the place where I had 85
kids in class and so they decided that we needed a second teacher and from then
on it just grew.
Q: Was
the whole building …
GP: Elementary. No, I don’t remember the year, but they built
on the wing that extends out to the South.
That whole wing was built on.
Q: Then
that added all those classrooms. (GP: to the South.) Was the building connected to what we now
call Old Village School at that time too?
You know that was the high school, wasn’t it then?
GP: It
seems to me that – no, that was put on later.
Q: What
were they using for upper grades when you moved into Main Street School? You know, by that I mean …
GP: It
went through the sixth grade at what we call Main Street Elementary and then
started with seventh grade and went through twelfth at the other building.
Q: Oh,
where was the other building?
GP: The
other – the old high school.
Q: Oh,
what we call Old Village now?
GP: Yeah,
yeah.
Q: But
the two weren’t connected – they didn’t have that walkway then?
GP: No,
it was just an open space as I recall.
Q: Yeah,
and did the – was the Recreation Building there too? Do you remember?
GP: No
it wasn’t in existence then.
Q: Yeah,
were there any other school buildings than those two?
GP: No.
Q: So,
there wasn’t like a junior high anywhere or …
GP: No,
the junior high was in with the high school.
Q: Was
it on a lower level say, or something like that? Do you remember the arrangement in that one?
GP: I
don’t know. I never did know.
Q: And
when you were teaching here then you said that you lived about, like a lot of
us, you had to go into a rooming house place because …
GP: Well,
there were homes that had – that would rent out a room to teachers.
Q: Sure. If you tell me where you lived and on what
street, if you can remember.
GP: The
first room, the first place I roomed was with the Lyons family. A lot of people would know what I mean because
Dick Lyon is the grandson. And that was
where the parking lot is now for – well across from the Post Office. It was on the corner. No, it would be on – it was on the corner of
Cady and Wing. And then I lived with
Huffs – yeah, I lived at Huff’s on the street from where I am now (West
Street.) Their boy came home from the
service, so I went to live with a family called Crandal on Dunlap Street. They moved to California so I got a room at
the Carpenter’s down on First Street.
And then got into the Sedan Apartments, stayed there until 1948 and then
…
Q: Where
is the Sedan Apartments?
GP: It
was on Dubuar? They had just a little apartment in their house, a little
two-room apartment in their house.
Q: Oh,
Mr. Sedan worked for… (GP: Schrader’s), yeah.
GP: And
then I – then we rented a little house down on – at the end of West Street
until we had this house built. We had
this one built – it was finished and we moved in the day before Thanksgiving in
1958.
Q: So,
last year was thirty years.
GP: Thirty
years.
Q: Did
you in that time – did you, being the pilot Kindergarten teacher, did you find
a change in the style of teaching you did in Kindergarten?
GP: Kindergarten
got more and more and more structured as people began to fuss about kids
learning to read in Kindergarten. And
actually, I’m a little disturbed because I think it’s getting so structured
that it isn’t fulfilling its purpose anymore.
Q: How
do you picture its purpose?
GP: Well,
it was to – the idea of Kindergarten was to acquaint children to school, orient
them to school. And when I first took my
training, you were supposed to let them experiment with, give them chances to
experiment with little science experiments, get a little snatch of the idea of
geography, and everything that goes on in school, but also let them learn in
the way that kids learn when they’re at home by trying things out, by interest
in ideas, and following through on interests.
And now they don’t have time for that.
Now, you have to – of course, you were also very concerned about being
sure that these children were being oriented to the idea of reaching and
arithmetic. So, you put a lot of little
reading and arithmetic experiences in their way so that they would meet up with
them. But they got more and more formal
and stuffed workbooks in their little hands, and that you do this. I think that in a lot of ways spoiled
Kindergarten. Of course, I’m one that
believes that you rush children too much.
We have many many years to be old folks.
Why not let them be children for a few minutes anyhow?
Q: You
used to do such imaginative stuff with the kids. (GP:
That’s what you’re supposed to do.)
You collected ideas from everywhere did you?
GP: From
the kids too! I can remember, I’ll tell
you his name, the little Turnbull boy, Brian Turnbull came to Kindergarten one
day and he had some – Grandma had been visiting him or somebody from out of
town. And she taught him how to make
floating candles, and he wanted to know if we could make some in
Kindergarten. And I said, “I don’t know
how.” He said, “I’ll show you.” So, everybody brought old candles, and Brian
taught the class, me included, how to make floating candles, and we all made
floating candles, and they took‘em home to their Moms. We put crayons, the old stubs of crayons into
the wax from the candles to make‘em the colors we wanted them. Now, I’m working with Brian’s little daughter
at Youth Club.
Q: No
kidding. Well, is Brian Turnbull still
around?
GP: Oh
yeah, they live – I don’t know exactly where they live – somewhere between here
and Novi. And he has a little daughter.
Q: Well
then, you’re teaching her; you’re working with her then in church. Describe that church group because I didn’t …
GP: Well,
actually what it is – they called it Nursery, and the kids objected because
they’re all the way from tiny infants a few weeks old to eight-year-olds. All the children whose mothers and fathers
work in the program, which is many. We
had as many as 15-18 kids in the group.
And they’re all the way from three or four months old – well no, the
youngest one I had was three weeks old – all the way from three weeks old to third
graders. And we do – oh, we have stories
once in a while, and we play games, and have craft projects – every week a
craft project. Make all sorts of little
things.
Q: Well,
you said this was one afternoon a week?
GP: Wednesday
afternoons from four o’clock – well, I go at four o’clock – the children come
earliest at 4:15 I think they come. The
first ones come and then they come and go as their mothers are working. If a mother works in the early part, they
stay – some of them go home at supper time; some of them go home at 7:30 when
the fifth and sixth grade gang get through.
And some of them go at 8:30. And
if their parents are working in the group, then they are there until 8:30. But we’ve done everything from needle
pointing to building little banks with these little sticks, popsicle sticks –
just all sorts of things that they work on.
Q: So
usually, they’re working on some kind of project?
GP: Every
week we do a project.
Q: Does
that go through the summer?
GP: No,
we just finished. Last week was our last
week. We had a picnic.
Q: And
you call it Youth Club?
GP: Youth
Club. It includes – the group of
children that are there for Youth Club – the actual Youth Club is 100 and some
children this last year. Plus my little
gang. And they have supper there and
everything. I even have to feed
them. Some of them I spook feed, and
then some of them I just point and say, “Eat your salad?”
Q: Well,
there’s lots of other stuff you do with the church, too?
GP: Yes,
I make the corsages for the new members when they join the church. This last weekend I made 43, 46 corsages
because I always make extra. We had 43
new members.
Q: United
Methodist Church has that many new members – came in this batch?
GP: Yes,
that’s the second batch this year. And I
make the corsages for that. And I
sometimes help address envelopes. Help
serve dinners.
Q: Is
that the sort of thing the Women’s Group does?
GP: The Women’s – well, we have divided into two groups now. We had three, and two of us combined. We couldn’t see having two afternoon fellowships, so we combined.
Q: So,
you have afternoon fellowships for the women and evening?
GP: Morning. They used to have an evening one, but we all
got too old so we (laughter). Nobody
wanted to drive at night, when they didn’t have to, so you just …
Q: So,
you do the things that the groups – do you have talk sessions, I’m sure – then
work sessions?
GP: Well,
programs of various sorts. Some of them
are work sessions, like we had a basket making session a while ago and there’s
a group of ladies from the UMS come here and we stitch and make things for the
bazaar in November. Most of the time we
meet every week – yeah, every week but we haven’t been doing it this
summer. I blew them off when I took a
month off, and we haven’t gotten started.
Q: So,
have there been any of the church in the time you’ve been going – you probably
started when you came here to town?
GP: In
the church down on Center Street and Dunlap.
Q: You
remember just who the minister was, the first minister?
GP: Yeah, Reverend Williams – Reverend Leslie Williams. He died recently. Yeah, he was the minister then. They first visitor I had at school. The first year I came to Northville, I got to town early ‘cause they wanted teachers to come early so they could find a place to live and be all established before school started. So, then they had a polio scare, and school was delayed for a week. And so I was already here, and Minnesota was too far to go home for the week. So, I guess all the teachers were here. I don’t know, but I remember I went in and painted all the Kindergarten chairs and tables.
Q: And
you said you had a visitor?
GP: Yes,
Pearl Hanks, who was third grade teacher, and Reverend Williams came to see me,
to see if I’d teach Sunday School, when I did until a few years ago.
Q: Did
you teach Kindergarten level or the little people?
GP: Yes
– Kindergarten and Nursery School classes.
A busman’s holiday!
Q: Yeah,
well then, I - the church moved from there then on to Eight Mile?
GP: Eight
Mile, and I can’t remember what year, but I remember it was – it snowed, and
the snow was real deep, and we formed a caravan down on – down at the
church. And the people who didn’t have a
car there rode with other people, so everybody had a ride, and we formed a
caravan. And the policemen controlled
traffic as we went from the …
Q: Oh,
that’s smart – you moved like …
GP: Undedicating
– what do you call that? Undedicating –
where you take the – it’s just like dedication – only you remove the
dedication. I don’t know what they call
it. We had that service at the old
church, and then went – did our little procession out to the new church and
sort of a consecration service, but not dedication ‘cause you had to wait for a
bishop to come for dedication.
Q: Oh,
oh. I suppose you carried some object to
make it …
GP: I
can’t remember – can’t remember that.
Q: But
the congregation then all moved into the one session …
GP: We
moved during a church service from the one building to the next building. It was really interesting. And we had our services for years down in the
education unit – the Fellowship Hall.
Q: Oh,
that’s right. The chapel or sanctuary
wasn’t built at first.
GP: No,
we built that later. They moved into
that – I can’t remember how many years ago – on Christmas Eve. We had our first service Christmas Eve. And it’s grown again because a year ago we
added on – a couple of years ago – yeah, a couple of years ago, we added on a
new Fellowship Hall upstairs and extended the kitchen and made it a little
bigger. No, the Fellowship Hall upstairs
is the same size as the one down in the basement, or down on the first level. It isn’t a basement.
Q: And
then you’re having this big increase of members …
GP: Growing
like everything. Of course, you lose
some because this is a transferring area.
People are moving here and there.
We’re forever losing somebody to England or France or …
Q: Your
Mill Race group – I wasn’t aware of them.
I knew there was a Weaver’s Group down there.
GP: This is – we don’t go down to Mill Race for our meetings, but it’s called Mill Race because it’s a central location for our group. There are members from Northville, well; we have some from over Wixom way, a couple, two or three from Livonia. I don’t know – Farmington has their own unit. But Novi, Northville – we have several girls who come clear from Brighton.
Q: Where
do you usually meet?
GP: We
meet – right now, we’re meeting in the Banquet Room of the Elks Building – down
here below the drug store on Center Street.
We’re upstairs – they have their meetings downstairs, and their Banquet
Hall is upstairs, and that’s where we meet.
It’s not on the corner – there’s a little building down the hill from
the drug store. It’s not on Cady; it’s
on Center. We meet up there and most of
the time – a lot of the time it’s workshops, where we learn new techniques like
hand French sewing; the hardinger; and cross stitch – various kinds of cross
stitch projects; and tatting with needles instead of a tatting shuttle; and
just all kinds of fun projects.
(Editor: Embroidery Guild who meets
at the Eagles Lodge on S. Center St.).
Q: Who
teaches you?
GP: Well,
Jean Louer taught the class on tatting – she has the little yellow house out on
Twelve Mile Road and she taught the class on tatting. And she did a class on bargello. And a Pat Krohms who has a shop somewhere – I
think – I don’t know where Pat’s from – but she was a member also. She isn’t now, but she once was. And she taught a class on – I can’t remember
what it was called – open work, drawn work, and all kinds of techniques on this
little heart shaped thing on canvas – ribbons and all sorts of interesting
things.
Q: Now
is this a national organization?
GP: It’s
an international organization as I understand it. But we are definitely affiliated with the national. We have members who go to – well, it must be
our national because one of our members went to somewhere overseas – I think it
was Japan, she went to a month long workshop on Oriental embroidery, where they
work with silk thread. So, it’s an
interesting group. Several of them are
teachers – I mean instructors in – who have taken and got classes and workshops
and gotten their certificate, teaching certificates in this sort of thing. And they there are some of us who are just
learning. See I never needle pointed or
anything like that until I got to …
Q: Yeah,
how did they get you to join?
GP: I
went down to buy some yarn at the needlepoint shop, when it was down on Mary
Alexander Court, and they had a big sign up for class. And I said, “Can I watch for a minute?” I stood and watched all these women sitting
there working, and I got so intrigued that I signed up for the class they had
posted on the wall. So, I’ve just gotten
more and more interested.
Q: Well,
weren’t you doing – you were doing so many handicraft things with the kids?
GP: Yeah,
that’s my first love – hand-crafts. I’ve
always liked that. I think if I had gone
to a city school where they had Art classes as a kid, I probably would have
done more because what I used to do is design covers for their spelling tablets
‘cause we had to make our own spelling tablets in country school when I was a
kid. And I put the design on the covers
because I had a problem with reading. I
had such poor vision that it made my head ache to read, so I got excused from
reading Library books when I had time off, and I drew the kid’s covers for
their books. And I think if I could have
had some Art classes, I would have – of course, I did take Art in college. I had a – my certificate read that I had a
minor in Art. Yeah, you either have to –
as our instructor in St. Paul said – you really need to be especially
interested in and inclined to either Art or Music to be a good Kindergarten
teacher.
Q: Well
I remember you’ve always taken advantage too of things that were going on like
one time when they were fixing Main Street and doing something with the
ceiling, you had the kids watch the workmen.
GP: Well,
we watched them build the new wing on the building. We’d stand in the corner of the Kindergarten
playground because you see – that’s where the building ended – at the end of
the Kindergarten playground. And we
stood there and watched as they dug the hole and each little thing that was
being done, we watched from the Kindergarten playground ‘cause we had a
birds-eye view of that, and we watched that.
We watched them move a house down Main Street. It was really exciting to watch the men come
along and lift up the telephone wires, the electric, people come and lift up
the telephone and electric wires and let the house go under. We watched all kinds of fun things like
that. Anything that was going on, we’d
quit. When the fire truck went past,
we’d quit and run to the window and watch the fire truck go by.
Q: You
caught my ear with the moving house.
Were there any houses say on any of these streets that you know where
they were moved from? You know like a …
GP: The
one of ‘em that we watched being moved was – gosh, where did she get it moved
from – it was down somewhere, Main Street was it? And it was the one that Louise Older bought
and had moved up onto Rogers Street.
Q: Like
at the end of Dubuar?
GP: Yeah. It’s the end of Dubuar Street on Rogers. We watched that one being moved. We put on our coats and hats and mittens and
scarves and went down and watched them turn the corner onto – now, wait a
minute – it must have been from somewhere else.
Would that be the house that was down on the corner where that Heritage
Bank is now? Somehow or another, it was
brought from – ‘cause we watched them turn the corner onto Main Street.
Q: Off
Hutton, huh?
GP: Em,
hem – and then we got close. We came
back and got our coats off and watched them come past the school.
Q: Yeah,
that good big window.
GP: Uh, huh and we watched the men change the light bulbs in the street lights. We watched everything that went on. The fun part of it was that the week after his house was moved up Main Street, the feature article in our little Kindergarten Weekly Reader was about moving a house. And the kids were so excited because, “We know about that!” And they went on and on and told what they remembered about this house being moved.
Q: In
the time that you were at Main Street, who were the principals? Do you remember?
GP: Mr.
Ellison had just been made Principal when I came. He was helping Mr. Amerman in the capacity of
Acting Principal because the Principal had just been inducted into the Army; he
went into the Armed Services. And then
he was appointed Principal. So, he was
the Principal for years until he went over to the, was it the high school or
junior high, both? And then Harry Smith and then Dutch Van Ingen. They were the only three principals I had in
thirty-three years. When I first came, I
wanted to do something with Art, beyond Kindergarten, and so I went to Mr.
Ellison and asked him if I could have some classes in – craft classes for the fifth
and sixth grade kids. And we got it all
set up, and a couple of days before the class was to begin Mr. Ellison had been
at a meeting down at City Hall and he said, “Would you mind doing this as
Recreation Classes for the City?” And I
said, “What do I have to do?” And he
said, “Just what you were going to do.”
So, it was the first Recreation Classes, and I had class after school at
night for fifth and sixth grade kids.
And we soap carved and did all kinds of stuff.
Q: Like
in your Kindergarten room?
GP: In
the Kindergarten room. These kids came
over. I had two different classes.
Q: I’ll
be darned, and that was the beginning then of Recreation classes.
GP: That
was the beginning – that’s the first Recreation classes. They also had Mr. Ellison – then Mr. Ellison
taught class for the Recreation classes, and it was for adults. And we were working with – one of the classes
was plastic, and I can remember I was making a coat, so I made some buttons for
my coat – plastic buttons for my coat.
Well, they had the sheets of plastic, and you cut it out on the saw, and
– drilled the hole for the thread. Then
I made a key tag and some bookends.
Well, you took the long strip of plastic while it was still hot or warm;
you formed it into the shape you wanted… I can’t remember what else we
made. It was one of the first Recreation
Classes, and Mr. Ellison taught it.
Q: I
can’t remember what – we know there wasn’t any Recreation Building at that
time, but was it houses along Main?
GP: The
Brock house was one of them.
Q: Well,
the house on the corner was the City Hall – on the corner of Wing Street?
GP: Yeah,
Wing Street, and I can’t remember what the next house was. But the end one on – that would be on
Cady. No, no, it would have been on West
Street, when West Street used to go through.
And it was on West Street, and that was the Brock House, and they had –
when they put in the third Kindergarten session – Ann Chizmar taught it, and
she had her room, her Kindergarten in the Brock House. And Pearl Hench had a class in the Brock
House, and Margaret Sauers. And I can’t
remember whether anybody else did or not.
But then they had classes – it used to be a house, and they had
apartments up above, and some of the teachers lived in the apartments.
Q: In
the Brock House?
GP: Yeah,
in the Brock House and the next one, but the teachers had to move then, you
see, when they turned it into classrooms.
Q: So,
we kept outgrowing the building kinda?
GP: And
then they built on the addition. Well,
you see, since – I’m not sure – but I thought – now Mr. Turnbull said that the
Chapman school kids went to South Lyon, but I recall’em coming to our
building. And then that school that
burned down came to our building.
Q: Where
was that school that burned down?
GP: Oh,
what was the name of that one? The house
on the corner – it was on Seven Mile and em…it wouldn’t be Napier, would
it? I keep thinking Terney, but I don’t
think that’s – Thayer (Napier and Six Mile) – that’s the one. I can remember when they came into our
school.
Q: And
Chapman School sent you some kids too?
GP: I’m
not sure. But I got a bunch of kids from
out that way. Did he have a record of a
school that burned or something during Christmas vacation?
Q: No,
he didn’t say anything about that – Mr. Amerman didn’t. But there was a Baseline School. It was at Taft and Eight Mile too.
GP: And
that came here. All I know is that it
just kept expanding and expanding until in a – of course, let’s see, in three
years – the course of three years, I think, I think it was. Maybe it was four. I went from 53 kids to 85. I had 43 in one session and 42 in another.
Q: And
some of them were Novi kids?
GP: I
don’t know whether they were Novi kids coming in then or not. I can’t recall. I don’t know what year that was.
Q: But
like we remember where Novi high school kids came here. They paid tuition; they didn’t have a high
school.
GP: Uh,
huh – they paid tuition for these kids from Willow Brook. I imagine anyway. I can remember that. Do you want a funny story from that year –
those years? I don’t remember whether it
was the first one, second, or third, but all of a sudden six children came in
from the bus, and this little guy came in – he didn’t have a note about who he
was. I had one that wasn’t
registered. There was a little boy and
no registration. I asked him how old he
was, and he said he was five. Asked him
what his name was, and he said – oh, I can’t remember his name – his name was
Linden Beebe-Juggie. And I said, “What’s
your other name?” And he said, “Just
Juggie.” I said, “Well, what do people
call your mama, your mother?" He
said, “We call her Mama.” And I said,
“Well, what do people call your daddy?”
And he said, “Well, we call him Daddy.”
And I said, “Yes, but if the man next door to you comes over, he doesn’t
call your daddy, Daddy ‘cause your dad isn’t his daddy.” “No.”
But that was all the information I could get. So, comes time for the kids to go and the bus
driver was a lady, and she came over to pick up the Kindergarten kids and
escort them to the bus if you please.
And so I said to her, “These children say that Juggie belongs on their
bus. Do you know anything about this
little boy?” “Oh,” she says, “That’s
Linden Beebe.” I said, “Well, I don’t
have any information about him.” So I
sent a note home with him requesting some information and saying that the child
wasn’t properly registered. Please come
in and register him.
Q: Now,
the Collins family – Lila had the flower shop.
GP: Yeah,
and she had these two little kids that had this rare illness. And when Kathy was in Kindergarten they lived
in the house that is now in the Historical Village – Cady Inn. (ED:
Yerkes House was where the Collins lived.)
Q: Yeah,
before Renagles lived there.
GP: And
one day Kathy was real real late for school.
And I said, “Kathy, what happened?”
She says, “I took a shortcut.”
And instead of coming up Cady Street, she’d gone clear around onto
Rogers Street – Dunlap Street and up to Rogers Street, and down Rogers back to
the Kindergarten. That was a
shortcut! But she was – the only
indication of her illness when she was in Kindergarten was she had a funny
little tic; her eye would jump. But she
had no problems at all; she could hop and skip and run with the best of
them. I always thought about her and her
shortcut.
Q: In
your teaching career, you covered quite a span – like what were their contracts
and pays in those days?
GP: The
first year, I taught only the first three grades and part of the fourth grade
in a one-room country school, and I got $20 a month.
Q: For
how many months?
GP: It was a nine-month school, but I only did 7 ½ because I had two kinds of measles and mumps.
Q: And
then did things get better?
GP: And
then I went out to another school because they weren’t going to have two
teachers the next year, and I didn’t want to handle all those eighth grade kids
‘cause there were a lot of – it was a big school. Lot of kids – three kids in a double desk –
there were that many kids in school. And
I didn’t want to take on that heavy load.
And so I went out to a school in – anyway, the upper grade teacher took
over, so I didn’t have a chance. So I
went out to a little school on Wright Lake or Height of Land Lake in the next
county, and my contract there was $49 – my paycheck read $49 teaching, $1
janitor service. And you went to school
and built the fire and carried out the ashes, and split the kindling for $1 a
month. Swept the floors.
Q: And
you were paid ten months then, or nine months?
GP: No,
they didn’t have any ten months schools in Minnesota. That one was eight-month school also because
they had a six-week vacation at Christmas time because the snow was so deep,
and it was so cold. So, you had six
weeks off at Christmas. And then I got a
school up beyond Itaska Park, where the Mississippi begins. And that was a real nice little community –
very poor people but a real nice community.
That was $50 a month, but then the people I stayed with didn’t think it
was fair for a teacher to split her own kindling, so – and they had the
contract to supply the wood for the school – so, they split the kindling. When you got to school, you built your fire
until I froze my feet so bad, the school board made me hire one of the 8th
grade kids to come in and build the fire ‘cause they thought it was dangerous.
Q: Now,
you worked through the Depression too?
GP: Oh
yes, the people in this last district that I worked in Minnesota before I went
to – off to college to get my degree – were so poor that the one family had saw
horses with a door on it for a table and saw horses with boards on it for their
bedsteads. And the house got – they were
so poor – that it got so cold during the night that the baby’s mittens came
off, and the baby froze its hands during the night. They had a little one that was four or five
months old, and the baby’s hands froze in its crib. They were that poor. And then along came election time, and just
before election, all people got subsidy from the government because they got
put on W.P.A. But as soon as the
election was over, three days later, they were all released. They were as poor as ever. My first lesson in politics and how rough
politics were. But I can remember, and
then they sent them out food rations – surplus food. Any they sent these people grapefruit, and
nobody had any idea of how to eat grapefruit.
So, we had a grapefruit party, everybody was supposed to bring one
grapefruit for every two people and my landlady game me a knife to take to
school. And everybody was told to bring
spoons. I took sugar to school. We had grapefruit with our lunches; had a
grapefruit party; showed’em how to eat it.
And there were several other things that they – well; they were so poor
they couldn’t buy fruit. It was a great
treat when my family – we were real poor ourselves, but I can remember they
brought out treats for the kids when they came out to our Christmas program. All the family bathrobes for the wise men for
their program. Then they brought out
treats, and dad went down and got an orange for each of the kids because he
remembered the grapefruit story. And
they were thrilled to pieces with these oranges. And mom had made homemade candy and brought
out too for treats for us. I remember
one of the little kids followed her dad all around after the program, and she
said, “Daddy, were you Santa Claus?” “No, but I saw Santa Claus when I went out
and drove his reindeer.” “Daddy, were
you Santa Claus?” This went on and on.
(Laughter) He had been. In that year I bought coping saws; we had an
ice cream social or a pie social at school.
And I bought with the money from the pie social. I bought coping saws and hammers and nails
and went to the grocery stores in town.
And my dad brought them out to me – when he’d bring me out, he’d bring
them – orange crates and apple boxes from the grocery stores. The boys took ’em apart, and we made cradles
for the little girls and key racks for the mothers and dads and all kinds of
little wooden – so that everybody had a present under the Christmas tree. There was a present for everybody in the
community – all the little kids and all the moms and dads and grandmas. Everybody in the school got a present from
the kids. We spent all our recesses and
the last half of our noon hours; everybody’d get up and run around the school
two or three times and go to the little outdoor bathroom and then come in, and
we’d work with the tools for the rest of recess and noon time and made all
those things.
Q: Sounds
like the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories that the kids love so much.
GP: I
read those with such great joy and watched it on television ‘cause it was so
like our kids days at school – carrying the little bucket with your milk in it
to school. I can remember one day it was
my turn to carry the milk, and my foot went through the crust on the snow bank;
the cover came off the pail, and I went (???) milk icicles hanging, and the
kids all laughed. So, Margaret looks at
me and said, “No milk! From now on I carry the milk to school, and you carry
the empty pail home.” It didn’t bother
me; I didn’t have a load.
No comments:
Post a Comment