Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Elementary School Memories

It's Saturday Night -

time for more Genealogy Fun!

Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to:

1) The new school year has started in the Northern hemisphere, and for most children that means a new grade, a new teacher, and perhaps new friends.

2) Tell us about some of your elementary school memories when you were a child.  What are your memories of starting school in a new year?  Who were your teachers?  How did you get to school?  Who were your best friends?  What subjects did you like best?  What extra-curricular activities did you participate in?  Make up your own questions if you'd like!

Here’s mine:

I had just written about my early elementary school days in my biography and will take snippets of that for this post. I attended three different elementary schools.

Kindergarten
The kindergarten classroom was in a separate building from the primary school building that held grades one through five. Neither building is there today in Pittsburg; a housing development was built on that downtown property. I don’t remember the teacher’s name. My mother may have walked me to and from school, as it was just three blocks away, probably with my mother pushing the old large medal strollers with baby brother, Jonathan seated, next brother, Steve standing on the back holding on, and I probably walking along.

I had scarlet fever while in kindergarten. When I returned to school, I had extra milk to drink from when I was away. Perhaps my parents had pre-paid the milk allowance. Anyway, I dislike milk. At the time I probably couldn’t articulate why I didn’t like to drink milk. It gave me stomach aches and it is likely that I was lactose-intolerant, especially to cow’s milk, which was all that was available at the time. So, there was this extra milk they were trying to get me to drink each day. The cartons were those make of wax-covered paper, square in shape with a flip cap. We had a small straw to suck out the milk. It was also too much liquid to drink in one setting. I don’t remember how I settled the situation. Today I would find another classmate who wanted or needed to have the extra carton and quietly slip it to them.

First Through Middle of Third
Instead of attending public school, we went to St. Peter Martyr School, which had grades one through eight and no kindergarten. My uniform at first was a gray jumper and maroon sweater. My first-grade teacher was Sister Eileen, a very old nun, who probably shouldn’t have been teaching the youngest children. The nuns were of the Dominican order and wore white habits with black veils.

My mother told me that I used to be very talkative and had to stand often in the corner in school. I guess that was completely suppressed by that first-grade teacher as I never spoke up in class after that. Catholic school education also caused me to follow rules strictly and to feel guilty if I had done something wrong.

I had a wonderful teacher in second grade, but I don’t remember her name. She was much younger and very sweet to us. That was the year we had our first communion and did our first confession. I had a real difficult time memorizing the Act of Contrition and thought I would never get to do these sacraments with the rest of my class.

At school, the girls and boys played on separate playgrounds. I remember hopscotch and hanging out with the seventh and eighth grade girls. We just thought they were so cool and they were very nice to us. I also remember playing a Devils versus Angels game that the nuns put a stop to. This photo of me shows the short hair I might have cut myself and my two missing front teeth.

In the third grade, my brother, Steve started first grade. We walked together to school. I cannot imagine letting two young children walk the almost one mile to school alone, but my mother did not drive and she had two young children still at home. On rainy days she sent a taxi to pick us up and I remember being so embarrassed by that. Why couldn’t we be picked up by family like the other kids?

Our uniforms changed that year, too, to a plaid jumper. Many girls wore white pinafores over their jumpers that had to be taken off after lunch. I hated helping the girls by unbuttoning them at the back. To this day, I hate touching old buttons.

Middle of Third Through Sixth Grade
Half way through third grade, my parents bought a house in Walnut Creek. Moving also involved us changing schools. Since they had less money now after buying a house and the schools in Walnut Creek were considered better, we attended the local public school called Parkmead Elementary. My third-grade teacher was Mrs. Rose.

The first week of a new school is tough. The first time Mrs. Rose called on me, I stood up to answer and all the other kids laughed. I formed some of my letters wrong and had to learn a new cursive writing system. The other children wanted to vote me in as the room monitor that week but I declined. There was a reason they wanted me. The room monitor wrote down on the chalkboard the names of misbehaving students when returning from recess. Of course, I didn’t know everyone’s names and that was why I was suggested.

Parkmead Elementary had a full-service cafeteria. The ladies cooked great hot food. Most of the time I brought my lunch but occasionally my mother let us buy lunch. The school sent home schedules of the lunches and my favorite was western-style beans, mostly because of the cornbread and fruit crisp for dessert. The other great item from the cafeteria was, the buttery rolls. Oh man, were they delicious! In those days, cafeterias followed the Roman Catholic rules about not eating meat on Fridays, and the standard fare would be cheese pizza, fish sticks, or macaroni and cheese, none of which were my favorites. Hamburger, hotdog and pizza days were often the busiest for the lunch ladies.

After lunch, we played on the playground. Our playground had swings, monkey bars (several varieties), fields for baseball or kickball, and a large asphalt area for playing tetherball, basketball, four-square, hopscotch, prison ball, and dodgeball. Many girls played jump rope, especially double Dutch. I remember taking turns in playing several of these games. There were girls who spun around the monkey bars. I didn’t like going upside down and couldn’t really do it well. I played tetherball but my short height hindered me. Jump rope though was especially fun. We sang songs like “Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow. . .” and “Janey and Johnny sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first comes love then comes marriage then comes Janey with a baby carriage. 1 2 3 4 . . .” until we missed and hit the rope, losing our turn.

In fourth grade, I had a birthday party and invited all the girls in my class. The party favor I gave out was a set of jacks. At recess, a whole bunch of us would sit on the concrete near the classrooms and play jacks. The boys in the class got jealous and Mrs. Eckhardt, our teacher, bought a few sets for them to use.

Mrs. Eckhardt was one my favorite teacher. I really liked the fourth-grade curriculum. California history was lots of fun because she brought in interesting Native American artifacts such as grinding bowls and baskets. She also began teaching German to us. We chose German first names to use during class and we learned names for various items in the classroom and how to greet each other. Later in sixth grade, the district introduced foreign languages in the sixth through eighth grades because of a requirement the University of California added. So, in sixth grade, I had Mrs. Eckhardt for our German class. Spanish and French were also offered. I ended up taking German all through intermediate school, high school, and two years in college.

We were in fourth grade when the principal, Mr. Sloan, announced over the loudspeaker that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. What a horrible way to tell us that news. We were all stunned. I think we were either sent home or told not to come to school the next day. I don’t think school was in session again until after the funeral. Television stations only played continuing news of the event, the later assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, and then the funeral.

My fifth-grade teacher was Mrs. Griffin. At the time we didn’t know it would be her last year. Our class didn’t behave well, so it is possible we were the cause of her retirement. She was frustrated many times and taped some boys’ mouths shut. I thought she was strict. She didn’t like our handwriting skills and made us do the cursive lessons again. We had to do our writing drafts in pencil and then the final report in ink. We listened to a history lesson over the loudspeaker each week, and while listening, we had to draw a picture of what they were talking about. What I learned from those lessons, is that I’m a visual learner and not an auditory learner.

I had a male teacher in sixth grade, Mr. Carlen. He brought in some interesting activities like science experience and we did lots of interesting art projects. One of our field trips was to an art gallery at U.C. Berkeley. Another field trip was to San Francisco to one of the big businesses such as Wells Fargo or Bank of America. What I remember most was getting a punch card to keep.

The only friends I remember are Maryann, who lived next door (we were only in the same class in third grade), George Ann (who got me started stamp collecting), Joanne (who lived up the street), and Sandra (who got me going to Girl Scouts). I have no idea what has become of any of those friends. Maryann moved to Colorado after sixth grade. Sandra may have moved away, too. George Ann went to the other high school in town. Joanne got boy crazy in sixth grade and I had no interest yet. I am friends with her on Facebook.

So that’s what I had written so far about my childhood, focusing mainly on school. There is more to write about Girl Scouts, playing in the creek, and enduring lazy summers.

Copyright © 2022 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.