OK, I’ll go first. My family lived about five miles south of Somerset in the Blackjacks on our 100-acre family farm when I started first grade. My paternal grandmother lived down the lane from us under a grove of Oak trees, and we lived under another. A Mr. Frank James (of the ubiquitous James family of Somerset) was our bus driver, and I recall we meandered amongst the family farms for about an hour before reaching the schoolhouse in “downtown” Somerset. The main schoolhouse was a three-story, 11-classroom building that housed second through 12th grades. The first grade met in a two-room building (which was probably an old barracks) down below the official school house.
There were two rooms. Miss Winnie was my teacher and Miss King was the other. Unfortunately, the Hispanic children were segregated, and they were Miss King’s students.
One anecdote I recall was around Christmas time. I was on the playground and somehow my belt was used on the jungle gym where I was playing with two other boys (when was Victor Schmidt, my boyfriend!) Miss Winnie called for me to come into the classroom, and it took me what seemed like forever to get disentangled from that tied belt. Finally getting free, I hurried to the classroom and discovered that Miss Winnie had wanted me to demonstrate to Miss King how I could draw Christmas trees. Drawing was something I was born into!
Moving on to the next year, my family had moved to Southton, Texas, and it was there that I entered second grade. The schoolhouse in Southton had three rooms. In the first room you entered under a covered stoop, and that was for first and second grades. That was my room. The next room was third and fourth; then fifth and sixth. That was archaic, even in 1953.
I rode my bike to school from about a mile away with a group of other children who lived in the community, several of them good friends. But even back then there were bullies. I recall one time this older boy was swerving his bike on the gravel, trying to make me fall. Instead, he lost balance and fell, hitting his head on the handlebar which did not have the rubber covers on it. Naturally, he cut his forehead. But what he did next was to go home and tell his parents that I had knocked him down. Remember, I was only in second grade. My parents and I had to go visit that family down the road where my father defended me, and the truth came out. Funny how you remember those things.
On a lighter note, on more than one occasion my big white beautiful dog, Butterball, would follow me to school. When that happened, I would have to take him all the way back home. Butterball also traveled with me as I rode around the neighborhood and was my protector, even one time chasing a boy who was taunting me.
One place I liked to go was to a little grocery store called Nation’s located just the other side of an old span bridge which crossed the Salado Creek. It was a couple of miles from our house, and isn’t it true that we were safe in those days! I would go there to get a Red Cream Soda (AKA Big Red), and I collected soda bottles on the way to turn in for two cents each! My soda cost a nickel at the time, by the way, but we had to pay two cents deposit unless we turned in a soda bottle. I’m sure most folks reading this article remember those days.
Another bicycle trip I made frequently was to a house around the corner from the schoolhouse to the local post office. I would walk up onto the porch and in front was the door to the home, but to the left was a window with bars like in an old-fashioned bank. The lady postal clerk would reach in a little cubby and pull out our mail. I think our address was just Bluewing Rd. We lived on that property at Southton for seven years and before we moved, we got real mailboxes and a rural route address!
At one time, Southton was a thriving community with a cotton gin and even a bowling alley. It was also the home of Southton School for boys, a juvenile detention center, and a notorious TB hospital.
That Southton vintage school house was soon torn down. Harmony, located just off of Highway 181 near a community called Hilltop, replaced it. I attended third through sixth grades there after spending part of my third-grade year back in Somerset where I had started first grade. The first part of that year my brother and I lived with my grandmother on the farm.
I remember when my fourth-grade school year began I was playing outside and I saw the school bus go by. We lived five miles from Harmony, and I was so distraught that I had not known that school was starting that day that I got on my bicycle and rode those five miles to Harmony school. That was a long way even for a spunky nine-year-old.
Those elementary years in Harmony bring back such sweet memories of lots of friends and of playing chase and jump rope and jacks during recesses. And I fondly remember all of my teachers; well, most of them I fondly remember! LOL.
The school district was East Central, and in my seventh grade I started school at Oak Crest, which was a four-room new school building. Two rooms were for seventh and two for eighth. That school now is part of a 6-A complex middle school. I recall riding the bus from my house to Harmony and then changing buses and riding from Harmony across Hwy 181 and through a little community called Boltville and on to OakCrest, a full hour’s ride. But I never minded because when you’re riding with friends, time passes and you’re having fun.
Oh, and all of us seventh and eighth graders would pile into the bus every morning around 11 AM and ride across the highway to East Central High School where we ate lunch in the cafeteria there. I remember sitting on the bus with Gene Edwards, my 7th-grade boyfriend!
At the end of seventh grade, we had moved to San Antonio and I finished up my schooling at Burbank’s junior high and high school. That’s another story. My high school years were just joyful! Always a country girl, I loved being in a city for those high school teen years where I was close in proximity to my friends; and I’m close in relationships to many of them today.
I hope everybody has as wonderful memories of their school days as I do.