By NANCY JANE KERN
THE TELEVISION SHOW “Little House on the Prairie” has a good rendition of a luxurious rural schoolhouse. It is a point of reference and always reminds me of my parents’ and grandparents’ stories of school, spanning from the late 1800s to the 1930s. My Town of Austerlitz was a rural farming community with no-frills small schools with benches or 1800s-style wooden topped desks with attached seats. The basics were taught using the 3 Rs of Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmetic. My maternal grandfather was one of ten children and attended the school where my mother and uncle were later taught. The school was located less than a half-mile walk from their home. It was a hard-working bunch, and kids often had to stay home and work.
My Gramp only went to third grade. It was an advantage to be in one room and listen to what all the grades were learning. Our area was a German-speaking settlement that required my Gramp to know German and English. The kids were expected to ditch the German and assimilate. Gramp said he could understand both languages but used correct English with his grandchildren. Many kids walked along streams and marshes and checked their traplines on the way to school. Both girls and boys left their collection outside the school, and my mother remembered a neighbor girl who left her skunk (good fur) and came in next to the hot wood stove. A few eyes watered, but they were used to such things.
The teacher was an unmarried woman, usually boarded at one of the farms, and she arrived early to start the fire in the woodstove. It was tiny, with the stovepipe running across the schoolroom to the chimney, which helped radiate more heat. An open pail of water from an outside handpump was in the back, and everyone used the same cup or dipper. Lunch was a sandwich. They had little or no paper, just wooden framed slates and chalk, and there was a wall blackboard for the teacher. Corporal punishment was routine, and each teacher had a personal favorite technique ranging from rulers, hand smacks, ear boxing, chores, or the dunce stool in the corner. Gramp had a stern father, and a horsewhipping was his added punishment.
Out back were separate boys’ and girls’ outhouses with boxes of corncob wipes. The parents maintained and repaired the schools and provided firewood. Most of these schoolhouses have been converted into homes. One in Red Rock and one on the Old Austerlitz Campus are two of only a few that remain and are restored in our county. The latter was our Vacation Bible School in the 1950s. My mother and uncle were lucky to go on to graduate from Chatham High School. I found out where I got my lead foot when I read my mother’s diary: “I got the Model A up to 55 mph on the Spencertown flat today on the way to Chatham.” She eventually boarded there with an aunt and uncle.
