Country School Legacy #14 - Marceline Birchenough Interview (Rice County)

Scope and content: Index
Marceline Birchenough
Rice County
October 18, 1980

Time: Description
0024: School she went to - her father was the principal - 1930's; Two teacher school - Union 2 school; Eight month school

0050: Talks about her father, also a teacher; Some of his students were older than he was

0085: Having father for a teacher

0111: Talks about being in Union 2

0151: Tricks played at Valentines Day; Someone gave her dad a pig's tail, wrapped up

0173: Last day of school operettas; Mrs. Clyde Ernst was county music teacher; Practiced during school

0224: Size of Union 2; 30-40 kids; Prior to the depression it was three teacher school, then it went to two teachers

0245: Getting to school; Picked up in local cars - "Kid Wagons"

0266: Firing the stove with her dad; Lived fifteen miles away during farming seasons, then moved down near school after wheat was sown

0293: The "Dirty Thirties"; Sometimes closed school

0306: Blizzards and other storms

0318: Stranded Shakespearean actors from California; "Hamlet" had long hair; Stayed at her house for a few days

0359L Decided to be a teacher; Went to Sterling College for two years; Became a teacher because she couldn't think of anything else; Her dad tried to discourage her

0408: First school - taught seven boys; Teachers scarce - beginning of World War Two; Fairplay School - eight miles north of Lyons; That school stayed on Daylight Savings time - the board wanted her to start school and let out an hour early so the boys could come home and work

0492: Describes the seven boys

0522: Typical day; Had desk in back of the room rather than in front; Flag salute and Lords prayer. Opened the afternoon with reading to them; Had music teacher (Miss Dodson) once a month

0578: Recess; She played too; Sometimes played baseball with other schools

0605: Taught in Mitchell her second year. Four upper grades

0626: Boarded out when taught at Fairplay

0640: Bicycled to school; All the boys had bikes too; Once some high school boys took her bike and put it on top of a silo

0722: Married teachers beginning to be hired - teacher shortage; Teachers had higher standards placed on them

0760: Hot lunches; Cooking with rationing

0818: Halloween party; Mr. Evans lost his false teeth bobbing for apples - clerk of the school board

0957: Gifts from students; Got a blouse that she couldn't wear so it took some tact getting around having to wear it

1061: Discipline

1100: Impression of education given and received; Glad her children went to town school because it had more opportunities; Learn by pooling impressions in a class - more there are in a class more ideas pooled; Doesn't think country schools are that much better than town schools

1213: Thinks todays teachers have lost some of their professionalism

1423: "Once they're your students, they're always your students"

1400: Advantages of small rural schools