School Days

A few of you have attended rural schools during your elementary school education. I count myself in that group and look back with gratitude on some stellar teaching at that time.

The rural school I attended for grades 1-4 was called Clear Creek School and our teacher was Mrs. West. I remember her as a lovely, well-padded lady who reminded me a little of my grandmother. She kept a classroom of eight grades corralled and learning, teaching us everything from the 3-Rs to music and how to get along with others.

I remember playing Andy-Over (probably not spelled correctly) over the garage located near the schoolhouse—Mrs. West traveled to our school from a town nine miles away and parked her car there during her work day. How exciting it was to wait in suspense as your team threw the ball over the ridgepole of the structure and tensed to run away from the ball thrown at you by the ball-catcher on the other team who crept around the corner. If you’ve never played the game, it’s like Dodge Ball with lots of added suspense.

When snow fell as it does quite often in NE Missouri, we would play Fox and Geese, build snow forts and have snowball fights and, no doubt, come back into the schoolroom with snowsuits soaking wet. Older students helped younger ones and for those of us who came from small families, the atmosphere taught us how a large family functions.

 

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the schoolhouse as it was, but pictured above is the way it looks now—a private residence with an awesome front yard (please excuse the side mirror).

The next picture you see is what we called Trowbridge Hill, the hill I climbed every day on my way home from school (of course I did get to walk/run down the hill every weekday morning). I must say the hill looks much smaller now than it did to a first grader.

I hope you all have fond memories of your elementary school days, rural or not. I wouldn’t trade these memories for anything.

This Ol' House

Perhaps you've heard the old phrase, "Don't change horses in the middle of the stream." My pictures arrived at WalMart today (had to buy disposable cameras since I forgot to pack my handy-dandy digital camera). At any rate, I had hoped to insert a picture of the house my brother and I lived in for nearly six delightful years--as it was back in 1948-1954. Alas, I cannot find the picture album that might contain such a picture.

Consequently, I am including pictures of three old houses--all in the Hannibal, MO area where I attended a country schoolhouse for my first four years of school. One is the house where my family lived, but it has been pared back to much of its "old bones." We got to see all of the houses on our recent trip to MO.

 This is the Garth Robards Mansion in Hannibal, Missouri--a bed and breakfast with most hospitable hosts and excellent food.

Robards was a dignitary in Hannibal in the late 1800s and was, of course, a friend of Mark Twain, who visited the home often.

The house is on the National Registry (of old places).

 The picture to the right is what my family used to call the Big House. It is located on a farm called Andalusia near Hannibal owned by the Kilmer family and may well be even older than the Robards mansion. My little brother loved to visit Mrs. Kilmer because she reminded us of our grandmother but was scared of Mr. Kilmer.

The house to the left has changed drastically in appearance since we lived there. Imagine a porch at the door you see, white paint on the clapboards and an addition to the left of the structure which was our kitchen and dining room.

It turns out this structure was/is a two story log cabin built in the early 1820's. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the present owner, Jim Kilmer. He halted the demolition of the cabin and probably knows more about who might have first lived there.

Stay tuned next week for more of my trips down Memory Lane.

Fall Has Fallen

Autumn has arrived in the areas of the US where we enjoy at least three seasons with the leaves falling, and in some mountainous areas, the snow falling.

Dean motorcycled up to Lamoille Canyon last Saturday with some friends and came back with the report that the aspens, etc. had turned color in the mountains. He knows how I enjoy seeing the color change so insisted that we make the trip to the Canyon after church on Sunday, just so I could see it.

The air was hazy so my pictures were not too bright but I am including one shot to break up the monotony of the printed word. 

I took a picture of a very stately weed with color in the background but because I missed the top of the plant I’m not including it --sort of like the fish that got away..

For those of you who have never experienced Fall in the mountainous west, the bright crimson and orange colors are generally non-existent (remember, I am qualifying that statement with “generally”). The lack of that extra color seems to make the gold of the aspens especially vibrant when mixed in with the deep green of the evergreens. When the sun shines through the yellow aspen leaves, it gives a particularly glowing aspect of gold to the leaves. I didn’t manage to capture that this year, but I have seen it, and it’s awesome.

This beautiful time of year makes me think of the four seasons more often than any other time. Maybe it’s because of the idea of harvest or maybe it’s because of the end of the present year marching ever closer.

It brings to mind the old hymn that speaks of God’s faithfulness, knowing we can depend on fall being followed  by winter, which is, in turn followed by spring and then summer. We would really be in a mess if the seasons got out of synch. I’m so thankful that God is faithful to us in our personal lives in that same way. Just as Day dependably  follows Night, so He is with us always.