MOVING ON FROM THE ONE ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE

It’s time for the simple little farm girl to move on. She has graduated from the eighth grade at the one room school house. Now we’ll follow her as she continues her life not as a little girl, but becoming a young woman and yet, still that simple farm girl inside.

Well, I have graduated from the one room school house and will move on to high school.  When Sept. comes again, the bus will go by the end of the driveway and keep going on to the one room school where the driver will drop off the elementary kids and pick up the high schoolers that gather at the corner.  The bus will stop at my driveway on the way back and I will climb on board and ride 8 to 10 miles to the next town and to Winthrop High School where I will spend the next four years of school.

Winthrop High School was a whole lot different than the one room school house.  It had a big gym on the bottom floor and a balcony where we could stand and watch the games being played. The class rooms were on the next floor. There were many more kids than we had my other school. I am a simple farm girl and this was a big change for me, especially getting to know so many other kids.

It was hard for me to get close to many of the other classmates because I did not have much connection with them.  Many of them lived in town or close enough to do things together. I arrived on the bus shortly before school started and left by bus after classes ended. So there was not an opportunity for me to build close friendships with the others.

Sports were out of my school life, both practice and participating in games.  Once in a while I might make it to a game. I did take part in some activities that were part of the school schedule such as singing in the Mozart Choir and playing the trombone in the band.  I liked these two as music was a part of me as my father was a great musician.   Sometimes we went on trips and that was usually a lot of fun. One of the biggest trips was playing in a parade in Boston, MA. I did not care for the times when we had to get up in front of the class for reports, etc.  Being as shy as I was this was always a chore for me.

Well the years went by and soon it was Senior year.  I was pretty good at subjects that would be good for an office job. I had not even thought about attending college, due to money not being very available. Some colleges sent brochures to the school telling what they had to offer. I don’t know why I looked at them, but I did.  There was one from a place called Mt Ida outside of Boston. They offered a plan where the student could live with a family and help the family for their board and room. That meant only tuition would be the cost. So we checked this out and it seemed a possibility that we could manage that. And it did.