One-Room School Days as told by Don Morgan

[Teresa]

I'm still laughing... 
Delusional...
boy she has you pegged alright.. ( hee hee hee)

[Teresa]

Here are pictures of a one room school house. The desks are in rows of very small desks to the larger ones.. for all grades and size children.
( You can see the differences of the  2 biggest people in the class that are shown in the pictures..
One is good and is concentrating on her studies.. and the other is being a brat.) 

[genealogynut]

We were wondering if, by any chance, those pictures were taken at Old cowton, in Wichita.

[Teresa]

Yes they are.
Kjell ( known all over the Cowboy shooting world as Marshal Halloway) and I went there the other day. He was interested in what could be done on a promotional level to help Cowtown out. But after talking with the budget people etc, we came away with a dim outlook. There are many problems right now with Cowtown.. Location, budget, promotion and the way it is promoted..interest rom the public to name a few.
So we went through everything and I took tons of pictures. We had a great afternoon.. combiming business with pleasure.

[Wilma]

It's too bad you youngun's have to depend on pictures to experience the one room school house.  Did you know that the seats of the desks were attached to the desk behind it.  The seat folded up to get it out of the way and if you just happened to be sitting in the seat behind it and had your foot hooked in the crack between the seat and the back of the seat and the person returned to his seat and folded it down, you could get hurt.  You could also sharpen your pencil very sharp and poke it through that crack and puncture the person in front of you.  Of course, I never did that.

[Teresa]

  Now I know exactly where Ta Ta gets her onryness... 

[kfclark]

Don,
Could you tell me more about the games "anti-over" and "fox and geese?"

Dad told me about a game he played at his Clark Grandparents' house (first house north of the Moline Swinging Bridge) where two teams would divide up on either side of the house and then toss a kickball over the house, the other team would grab the ball, run around to the other side of the house and try to hit the other team members to get them out.

[emptynest]

And my husband always used to talk about a game they played in Moline called "Chalk the Corner".   I think he explained it once or twice to me, but now I have forgotten how it was played.  Has anyone ever heard of this game and/or how it's played?

[frawin]

I, too, went to country schools.  I attended Independence in 1st grade.  It was consolidated with Upper Paw Paw.  We had lots of fun as well as getting a good foundation for our education.  I was fortunate to have Miss Nellie McNeal, Leona (Anderson) Taylor & Miss Juanita Anderson for teachers.
Some of the games we played included some that Don mentioned as well as Beckon, Mother May I, Black Man, Red Man and others.  Lots of these games involved lots of running, so we got lots of exercise! 

After Lower Paw Paw consolidated with Upper Paw Paw, we had 28 students in a one-room school building for one school year.  Juanita Anderson was our teacher.  She did a great job and I truly thank her for contributing to my education and my siblings' education as well.  She is a great lady.

On of the fun things we did was have Spelling Bees, Ciphering Matches & softball games against other country schools.  Some of those we played were Fiat, Union Center, & Flint Hills.  It was great fun to see which school could win.

Walking to school was fun as you could visit with other students.  Some students rode horses, others bicycles and some of us walked.  We finally got an old jeep that had been extended & had bench seats along the sides.  It could go through some of the bad mud holes where the roads hadn't been graveled.  Johnnie Murphy was our driver.

The last day of school was special as we prepared a program, received awards, & looked forward to enjoying a great covered dish meal.  We looked forward to certain dishes that we knew certain people would prepare & bring.  After lunch, we had a softball game against the dad's while the ladies cleaned up the tables and visited the after noon away.

Myrna

[frawin]

Don, I tried to e-mail you the Antioch Picture and I kept getting a message that SBCGLOBAL couldn't locate a carrier "totelsci.com", e-mail me again.
Frank Winn