Click to enlarge photo5th and 6th grade classes at Curtis School, 1946
I am on 2nd row from top, in front of the principal, Mr. E. C. Griffin
My teacher, Miss Arvie D. Fuller, is on back row, 4th from the left
I thought about which year I wanted to write about and I selected the 6th grade. My teacher was Miss Arvie D. Fuller from Elba. I learned so much from her. First of all, she instilled in us a desire to learn about a lot of things. The first thing we did every morning was have a devotional time and a student could select a Bible passage and read it. Then we would say the Lord's prayer. Then we said the Pledge of Allegience. We would go to the teacher's desk and turn in our lunch money unless we paid by the week. My dad furnished the lunchroom with milk, vegetables, wood for the furnace, etc. so I almost never had to pay for my lunch as there was always credit.
I remember that we had to draw maps of North and South America and label the countries. We had to put in the states and capitals for the United States. I can close my eyes and visually recount all of the states and remember the capitals. We colored the maps (on poster board) and I kept mine for many years. I had to help several of the boys fill in the states. Some of the maps were really wierd. All we had to go by was a small map in our geography book. We had to each bring 5 cents to pay for the poster board which our teacher bought in Elba for us. We shared the crayons.
Miss Fuller was a great English teacher. She taught us the parts of speech and we would go to the board and diagram sentences. I loved doing this. It was so helpful in learning about adjectives and adverbs. We learned to write. She let me write a play and we performed it for "chapel" one Friday. It was about Doctor Doolittle and I made the costumes for the animals (heads only). I directed the play and that was exciting.
One thing I will always remember was our Easter egg hunt. She took us to some woods nearby for a picnic and egg hunt. She wore her black crepe dress or suit (she wore black every day) along with stockings and "old lady" shoes with a small heel. Her hair was light auburn and she wore it short and it was always frizzy. She was a large lady and not very attractive, but we all loved her. She led the way to the woods and there were probably 20 or more students marching along behind her, carrying our lunches and we each brought 3 dyed eggs from home. I can't remember who hid the eggs for us (probably some older students came and did that). We got hot walking to the woods, so she let us go to a creek and splash our faces with water to cool off. I spyed a tree filled with pretty white flowers and decided to pick some to take home with me when we were ready to leave. After hunting the eggs, we sat down on the grass to eat our lunch - and the Easter eggs. We saw a large black snake nearby trashing about and the teacher saw that he was swallowing a bird, alive. She told us to sit still and she found a stick and killed the snake. Then she did something I'll never forget. She found a piece of glass (we were at an old homesite) and she took that piece of glass and opened the belly of the snake, and the bird escaped and flew away!!! What a brave lady. Before we left to walk back to school, I got permission to pick a bouquet of the pretty flowers to take to my mother. Guess what! It was a plant called thunderwood and was poisonous. Soon I began to itch. I had to throw the flowers away and I had a terrible rash for several days.
For Christmas that year, she gave each of us a new toothbrush and we were so happy to get them. We made all the decorations for the cedar Christmas tree in our room. We had a Christmas play with a manger scene and sang Christmas carols. When we finished our desk work, we were allowed to go to the back of the room where there were some new library books and choose a book to read. I read every book on the shelves that year and some I read twice.
The 6th grade always had a graduation exercise and we were promoted to Jr High School. We had to wear white dresses and my mother made mine from one of her sister's dresses. It was so pretty, made of white dotted swiss and starched stiff. I was selected valedictorian of my class and had to give a speech. Our graduation was in the daytime and parents and grandparents were invited to attend. Only my mother came from my family and she brought my baby sisters Alice(8 mo.) and Judy (2). The Jr. High 9th grade graduated the same day, but in the evening.
I never saw Miss Fuller after I left Curtis and often wondered what happened to her. When our son James was born in 1956 in Opp hospital, they put me in a room with an older lady from Elba and it was none other than Miss Arvie D Fuller - my 6th grade teacher that I loved! She was recovering from minor surgery. We had so much to talk about.
