I know this isn’t my genealogy blog, but I was lucky to be the recipient today of a CD full of amazing pictures of my family taken from the 1880’s to 1960’s. The picture below is of students at Miss Gilbert’s Music and Elocution classes at the Parker Institute in 1891-92 in Whitt, Texas. My great-great-grandmother, Stella Bowling, is on the far left in the middle row (with the buttons that form a V across her chest). There are so many people in the photo that details are hard to see. If you click on it, you can look at a larger version.

My great-great-grandmother Stella taught school for eight years in one-room schoolhouses in the Denton, Texas area. When he was in school, my great-uncle Alvin wrote to her, his grandmother, to interview her about what school was like when she was a girl. This is what she said:

Rosebud, New Mexico
Nov. 11th 1935

Dear Alvin:—

It is with pleasure I answer your most welcome letter. I am glad you are interested in school and hope you enjoy your school days as much as I did mine. Really I think our school days are our happiest days with all their troubles and trials — yes I had my share of “trouble & trial” in school even tho I never got a whipping.

When I went to school the schools were not “Graded” as they are now. We had classes — sometimes 2 or 3 of a kind, I mean of the second reader we’ll say as some pupils would have McGuffey’s Readers while others would have another kind. I used the McGuffey’s Readers. The “Old Blue-Backed Spelling Book” (Webster Spelling Book) and Alvin I don’t believe I’d be afraid to “spell” with my Grandchildren to-day.

I was eight years old April 13, 1875 and started to school some time that year, at Lewisville, Denton Co., Texas. However my Mother had taught me at home, so I was in the second reader and could spell “way over in the book” and knew how to make the figures and count.

That first school house was up on a “rise” N.W. from town about 1/2 Mi. It was a large “two story” house; the upper room was used by the Mason Lodge the lower for school church and Sunday School.

Sometimes there were 75 or so pupils so had to have two teachers, but both taught in that one big room.

We sat on long benches and a class would go up to the teacher to recite and sit on a long bench, only the spelling classes would stand in a row and “turn down”, when one missed a word. The pupil who was head of class to day would “go foot” tomorrow.

The house was heated by a stove and they burned wood. When it was real cold the teacher would let us go sit awhile by the stove to warm our feet. They wouldn’t let us draw pictures in time of books.

When I started to school my Grandma gave me a large square framed slate and that’s what I wrote on, and “figured” & (played when the teacher wasn’t looking.)

In 1879 we moved way out to Wise Co. I was 12 by then, you see so had other books to study such as Geography — Monteith’s Third Part. Rag’s Third Part Arithmetic and Grammar — Smith’s, I believe, was the first one I used; then later Reed & Kellogg’s. So we had to parse and diagram. Yes that was hard.

That school house was a real country school about 3 or 4 Mi. S.W. of Bridgeport (the old town) Texas, in Pleasant Valley. It was built of logs (I believe) and had long home-made benches. No black-boards, so we used slates.

There was a plank “desk” on each side to write on, the boys used one, the girls used the other. Yes, we had a time to write, some had bought copy books, others used “fools cap” paper and the teacher would set a “copy”. It too had a stove and burned wood. The house was in the woods so we had lots of shade to play in.

The boys played on one side of the house, the girls on the other. The boys at both these schools played ball and other similar things. The girls would play games such as base “Learner Lou” etc — we had nothing to play with but always had fun.

Girls all wore sun bonnets — never went bare headed but in warm weather would go bare-footed, same as the boys — oh! the big girls didn’t, of course.

Sometimes school would be only for three months, and a five month school was a long time — I mean in the country. Then sometimes there would be a subscription school in Summer.

Sometimes the teacher would “stay a round” with the people — not have to pay board.

My first school I had to walk alone and go about three Mi. but at this last one we lived just little over 1/2 Mi. from the school house.

While we lived there tho there were two years I did not go to that school, because the teacher did not keep good order. I went to a lady who taught in her house 2 Mi. away. There we sat by a fireplace and used her chairs. She was such a fine teacher too — could explain things so we could understand even arithmetic. Also she had some different readers I used but I forget the names. Of course, they were the higher books 5th & 6th.

My letter is getting too long to tell about when I “went off” to school. So will close for this time and if you want the other part I’ll write again.

Lovingly your Grandmother,

Stella Cunningham

If you get a chance, write down your school memories for those who come after you.

I leisurely perused the Sunday paper today, and I was confronted by ads for back to school supplies from every major retailer you can imagine. There are some great deals out there. Here’s my pet peeve, though. How do I know what to get? No, really. Most schools don’t publish their lists. I cannot comprehend why a school would bother to have a web site and not use it for something as basic as communicating with parents about school supplies.

Most supply lists are very specific. I can buy my kindergartner a pack of 24 Rose Art crayons for 5¢, but what if her teacher wants her to have those fat crayons? There are all kinds of deals out there, but I would be angry if I took advantage of them and wasted money on supplies that teachers don’t want or had to go back and buy a bunch of stuff I wasn’t counting on.

Many schools publish lists to local department and grocery stores, which is very helpful, but for some reason, this seems to stop at middle school level. I have a seventh grader, and I don’t know what she’ll need. Her school’s website is more attractive and contains more information than the local elementary school site, but again, no school supply lists.

Georgia has an annual sales tax holiday for school supplies. This year, it will take place from August 3-6. My daughters don’t start back to school until August 14. School supply lists are not available for me to take advantage of this sales tax holiday.

I am almost certain that her teachers must know what supplies they plan to require. I already know. I know every year. The problem is, students of mine don’t know what they need for my class. They don’t know that they are going to be in my class. I don’t know who my daughters’ teachers will be. I don’t know that it would be possible in their case to ask schools to provide me with that information. They are likely still registering and creating schedules up until the week before school. It’s a bit simpler at my school, because we are still small enough at this point that we only have one teacher teaching every section. There is, for instance, only one college prep American literature course, only one Honors British literature course, and so on. As long as students know what section they will be in, they have a fairly good idea of which teacher (among the three of us) they will have.

I suppose what I will do this year in order to take advantage of sales and the sales tax holiday is buy supplies before I get the lists, but it bothers me. I can get what I think teachers will want and basic supplies that my kids will need, but I run the risk of getting the wrong thing or not getting something they need.