File: chappellella06-oh-districtschools_M.mp3
Speakers:
EC – Ella Thomson Chappell
KP – Curator Ken Perlman
KP: Tell me about the schools that you went to.
EC: Well the way it was they had to put the fire on in the morning. So somebody had to go early and put the fire on. And there'd be ice perhaps frozen in the bucket, they had a bucket of water for the kids to drink out of out on the porch. And they used to have to go to the neighbors and get that. And then we'd be in there and it would be kind of cold, and then the stove would be in the middle of the floor, a pot belly stove. And the seats that was right handy to it, you'd fall asleep perhaps before the day was over, because it was so hot, and then the ones that was back on the other side, it was kind of cool. So there was a difference in the temperature when you went to school. But still we got along. And the teachers they had it hard but anyway they worked and they got through, and there was a lot of good scholars come out from the school where the teacher had the 8 grades.And they'd had to see to them all, and they made a good job. She'd have the Grade Ones perhaps first, and she'd get through with them and she'd give them their sums to do. And they'd be doin' their sums while they [the other grades] would be doin' the next. However they got through with all the history and geography, and teach them the arithmetic and the reading, and certainly they did B And I remember the big words in our readers, we had to read at home at night, and she'd underline the big words, that we'd have to get the meanings of them at night. There was eight in our family at home, and I can always think of my mother sittin' out every second night. And there'd be about 5 of us on one side of the table and she'd be on the other. But she knew near all the meanings. My mother was a good scholar. And I remember we'd have to write them down, and my mother could give me all the meanings without us goin' to the dictionary. And I never forgot that. And then you had to learn to read. And I think there were better readers then than now because I don't think they read their lessons quite as much in school as they used to.
