My Elementary and High School Years

At age six, I was unable to start to school due to being hospitalized for a long period of time with dipthera. My parents and older siblings taught me to read and write at home. At age seven, I was recovering from the illness and I began attending the one room school (Oak Hill in the Kessinger Community in Hart County, Kentucky) that contained all grades 1-8 for half day sessions. Upon starting school at age seven, I began school in the third grade by skipping the primer, first and second grades. There were about 20 neighborhood children enrolled in the one room school. We sat two per seat. Classes were called to the front of the classroom to sit on a long bench for reading and writing classes. The classes started each morning with first grade and continued until all eight grades had class. At noon many times Mother brought our basket lunch which may consist of green beans, potatoes, corn on the cob, fried chicken, corn bread and milk or lemonade. During winter lunch brought my Mother may be vegetable soup or bean soup with corn bread.

After lunch we had a long recess where we played Antne-over, Ball ,Red Rover, May I, and Tag. When recess time was over, the teacher called, "BOOKS" and we returned to the classroom for afternoon classes.

After recess we had arithmatic, geography and history starting again with first grade and going up through all eight grades. While the lower grades were having class, a couple of 7th and 8th graders would go to the spring and get a fresh bucket of water. When they returned we lined up and took turns drinking the water with a dipper; and all students used the same dipper to drink the fresh cool sparkling water.

As the afternoon classes ended for the smaller children, they were escorted part of the way home by older siblings until the little ones were in sight of their homes and their mothers. The older students then returned to school for the rest of the day's classes.

Everyone looked forward to Friday afternoons as mothers came bringing treats of cookies and lemonade. On Friday afternoons there were always arithmatic matches, spelling bees, black magic, tic-tac-toe, pin the tail on the donkey, and bob for apples.

I attended the one room school through fifth grade. Upon entering sixth grade the schools were beginning the trend of consolidating. So, I transferred from walking to the one room school at Oak Hill to riding a big yellow school bus to Cub Run which housed six rooms for the 12 grades. There we had combination classes. I was in a fifth and sixth grade combination classroom with about 20 students.

In sixth grade we had a geography class on China and our Teacher's (Mrs. Dollie Logsdon) brother had been stationed in China when he was in World War II. He brought a display of items he had brought back from China. We read stories about China and talked about their little feet. I remember trying to get my big feet in some of the shoes he brought to display. Also, in sixth grade we took a field trip to Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace in Hodgenville, Kentucky. I guess sixth grade is the most memorable class I had in elementary school.

Many times the high school boys would throw lit cigarettes upon the wooden shingle roof and catch the school building on fire. The fire would be put out and we would go back inside for class.

There were two school busses to transport students to and from school. I caught the bus at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at school at 8:00 a.m. In the afternoon I got home about 4:30 p.m. by the same school bus. I can remember the school bus could not climb the Kentucky Hills and the bigger students would have to get off the school bus and walk up the hills. When we bigger students got to the top of the hill we would get back on the bus and ride until we got to another big hill.

Upon entering eighth grade there was a new brick school building that had one grade per room. There were 25 students in my freshman class. Many of the girls began dropping out of school and getting married.

The classes I liked best in high school were home economics, typing, business, short hand and English classes. The class I disliked the most was agriculture as I felt that only boys should take this class but all my class was required to take agriculture.

The highlights of my senior year in high school consisted of the lead part in the senior play, tour of our Nation's Capitol in Washington D.C. by train and then there was our high school graduation. There were thirteen students in my high school graduation class on April 30, 1954 -- the night we went our separate ways into the adult world.

Author: Edith Bastin
© Copyright: 1998. All Rights Reserved.

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