Anatomy of a country school - what was inside

Here I am in the 3rd grade at Curtis School. Miss Mollie Bell Cook was my teacher most of that year. Mrs. Doris Pickard finished out the year when Miss Cook moved.


I entered the new school at Curtis when I was in the 2nd grade. I remember being afraid that I would get lost and not be able to find my room. I would love to write about my second grade but will spend time today telling you all about the new Curtis school.

We rode a school bus to school. My bus driver was Mr. Grafton Young. He owned his own school bus. Upon entering the school at the tall front steps, you stepped into a large foyer. On the left was the principal's office. He didn't have a secretary or telephone. Just a large desk and some chairs. The closet in his office was always stacked high with things for school use. Later his office was used for a classroom when the 3rd grade classroom became the lunch room. On the right side of the foyer was the teachers' lounge and music room. There was a piano in the room and this is were we would go to practice during lunchtime when the teachers were not there. And Mrs. Ringsdorf taught piano lessons here when she wasn't teaching 7th grade history and some other subjects. This was a special room and you always knocked before entering. Mr. Griffin's door was always open. You still knocked to get permission to enter.


You went to your classroom after entering the building. We did most of our homework at school so we didn't have big bookbags to carry around. When I was in the 3rd grade, we had to bring our lunches. The lunch room wasn't built until I was in the 4th or 5th grade. They used the 3rd grade room for the lunch room. The students all had to bring their own plate, glass and silver for the lunch room. I guess there was no money in the beginning to buy those. My daddy helped build tables and benches. We had 2 cooks and they used student helpers during lunchtime to help serve, clean up, wash dishes, etc. The food was good most of the time.


We had outdoor toilets at the back of the school yard when the new school opened. We didn't have indoor restrooms until I was in the 5th grade. I don't know why they waited so long unless building supplies were scarce due to the WWII going on.


Our class rooms were large and plenty of windows for lighting. A big pot-bellied stove was at the front of the room and the boys took turns keeping the stove filled with wood. We had a janitor that came early every morning and started fires in all the stoves. There was a big closet at the front of the room behind the blackboard and teacher's desk. It was called the "cloak room" and this is where we placed our lunches on a shelf over the coat racks. I remember in the 3rd grade that we had a long sand table at the back of the room where we could go after we finished our work and play. We cut buildings, etc. from paper and made a city, with streets, houses, etc and this was placed on the sand table. At Christmas time that year, we were making presents for our mothers and painting privet hedge berries red by dipping them in a pail of water that had red paint floating on top of the water. We put some silver paint in another bucket of water to dip cedar branches. We had painted a gourd green and cut the top of the gourd to use as an opening to put the red berries and some silver cedar into the gourd. Someone knocked over the red paint beside where I was working and it went down the front of my new dress. I had to stay in the cloakroom while the teacher took my dress to try to remove the paint. She found something for me to wear home. And I never got to wear my favorite dress again. We didn't wear pants to school until I was in the 8th or 9th grade, and we started wearing blue jeans.


Every Friday morning we marched single file to the auditorium in the middle of the school for "chapel". Each week a different grade was in charge. We sang songs, had a Bible reading and prayer, and then we usually had a play.


We had recess in the morning and again in the afternoon after lunch. We all ran outside to play while the teachers retired to the lounge to have a cold drink. There was no organized P.E. - just free play. Different age groups played together sometimes. Jacks were a favorite game of the younger girls. Or jump rope, hopscotch, throw the can, hide and seek, Red Rover, and many other games of the day. I don't remember the teachers ever coming out to check on us. When the bell rang, we all came inside to our classrooms.


After we ate our lunches, our scraps were put into a large can and someone would take them outside to give to Curtis, the big hog that was in a pen behind the school. I guess they sold him when he was fat enough and got another one to fatten. We didn't have garbage pickup so this was a good way to dispose of left overs.


I loved going to school and never wanted to miss a day. I remember that I couldn't wait to get to the 4th grade so I could be a 4-H club member, and  to own my own books. The state didn't provide books past the 3rd grade. We  picked cotton and bought books from students promoted to the next grade.


These are my memories of being in the 3rd grade and some of our activities, and what our school was like.

School Memories - 6th grade

Click to enlarge photo
5th 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.

Curtis School Reunion Coming Up

Drawing of Curtis School as Carolyn Wilson Johnson remembers it

This Saturday, October 13, alumni of Curtis School which was located 8 miles from Opp and 8 miles from Elba, AL, will gather for the 22nd reunion. Some of the older alumni wanted to have a school reunion in the 1980's and my aunt Mattie Lena talked me into organizing one. I was living in Winston-Salem, NC and had helped with my Elba High School 30th reunion and my aunt said I was "experienced" and knew what to do. I contacted one of my classmates from Curtis School, Janice Cowen Hudson, and she said she would help. Thus the Curtis reunion was "born". The school closed in 1967 and students started attending school in surrounding towns, mostly at Elba. A few years later the school burned, along with records of the school that had been left in the building.

An Alabama Historical sign was purchased with donations and installed at the site of the old building where the Coffee Co. Farmers Cooperative store is now located. When I was trying to get the historical sign approved, I was asked if there were any outstanding alumni from the school in order for them to approve the historical marker. I replied that there were so many that there wouldn't be room to list them all! So they used the narrative I sent, listing principals and date school opened, etc.

HISTORY OF CURTIS SCHOOL

The site of the first Curtis School is where New Ebenezer Baptist Church now stands on Highway 141 South, Elba (Curtis Community). The Coffee County courthouse discarded all records pertaining to Curtis School, therefore the exact date of organization cannot be determined. Interviews with some older residents indicate 1900.

Mrs. Lucy Grimes Donaldson, born in Nov. 1893, and interviewed just a few years ago, stated that she first attended school at the Foley Schoolhouse which was a one room school located about 2 ½ miles west of Curtis, on what is now Hwy. 84. The land was donated by William (Bill) Foley, and is now owned by Mrs. Enoch (Jimmie Lou) Cowen.
About 2 years after Miss Lucy started to school, Foley School disbanded and a new building was erected near the present site of New Ebenezer Baptist Church. It was named Curtis School. This was in the early 1900’s. There were other small schools in the vicinity; Mt. Zion, Danley’s Cross Roads and Rhodes School.

An increase in population required a larger, more centralized building. Mt. Zion, Rhodes and Curtis schools consolidated in 1926 and a building was erected at the present site of the Coffee Co. Farmers Cooperative, commonly called Curtis Coop. Danley’s Cross Roads school joined them in 1931.

Before the schools were consolidated, students walked to and from school. This was usually the highlight of the day. Friends were made, disputes of the day were settled and sometimes fights broke out along the way.

After consolidation, busses were provided to transport the students. The busses were owned by the individuals who drove them. Some of these were: Jim Cowen, Arthur Johnson, J. C. Jones, Grafton Young, Mixon Young, and Dick and Dot Daniels.

The school closed for a short time during the depression despite the efforts of parents and teachers. The teachers taught without pay and some families provided free board for the teachers.

In 1940 the building was destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in the same location, and school resumed operations in the new building sometime in l941. During the construction of the new building, students attended school in surrounding churches. Grades 1, 2, and 3 used New Ebenezer Baptist Church; grades 4, 5, and 6 used the Church of Christ building at Danley’s Cross Roads; and, grades 7, 8, and 9 used the Bethany Primitive Baptist Church building located on Hwy 166, about 1 mile east of Danley’s Cross Roads.
The new school building was completed in time for the 1941-42 school term, but had no indoor plumbing or lunchroom facilities. Indoor plumbing was installed about 1944. During the school year of 1945-46, a lunchroom was established. Some of the

first cooks wereLena (Mose) Grimes, Bonnie Taylor, and Buna Daniels. Other cooks were Sallie Jacobs, Jessie Lee Donaldson, Fannie Foley, and Cora Donaldson.

The school also had music teachers during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Mrs. Mary Ringsdorf was the first teacher, then Mrs. Lena (Mose) Grimes.

Curtis School always had a good basketball team and good coaches. Mr. E. C. Griffin was coach and also principal. He held this position until the school closed. When the school first consolidated, there was also a girls basketball team and on Friday afternoons, they played other area schools. The smaller children looked forward to this.

The teachers worked hard for minimal pay during those years, and for that we owe our gratitude. They not only helped to educate us, but instilled character-building values. Some of those teachers were: John Grimes, Miss Maude Byrd, Viola Byrd, Lucille Campbell, Tex Kilpartick, Hazel Grimes Lee, Lena Grimes, Doris Pinckard, Jean Lee Johnson, Hilda Lunsford, Mary Ringsforf, Frances Taylor, Jean Meacham, Cammie Ballard Johnson, Arvie D. Fuller, Ora Kelley, Mae Morris, Syble Wise, Evelyn Hocutt, and others. The principals who served were: C. H. Byrd, J. E. Cheatam, Dan B. Nelson, F. T. Walton, R. L. Farris, and E. C. Griffin.

Father time took its toll on Curtis Junior High School, as it did many other country schools. The rural population slowly shifted to the cities and small towns where the factories, mills and other industries offered employment for the parents. Farming had become mechanized and many of the farm workers were no longer needed. Modern transportation provided students the opportunity to attend larger, more progressive schools. All of this meant too few students left
in the country schools.

Curtis Junior High School closed at the end of the 1966-67 school term. It was indeed a sad day. A few years later, the building was destroyed by fire completely erasing all visible evidence of the school. Nothing can erase the memories in the hearts and minds of the men and women who attended school at Curtis.

The land on which the building previously stood, was purchased by Charles Cowen in 1974 who erected the present building and established Curtis Seed and Feed business. Cowen sold the business to Coffee County Farmers Cooperative in 1978.
(This article was researched and compiled by: Jimmie Lou Smith Cowen and her daughters, Janice Cowen Hudson and Mary Cowen Flagg, for a previous Curtis reunion.)

Sugar Cane and Syrup-Soppin' tales

Today a friend told me they were going to a "Syrup-Sopping Festival" near Auburn next week-end. My, how the memories start coming back to me about syrup making days on the farm.
                                              
My dad always had a cane patch at the edge of the field. We had to help plant the cane, which was cut in short lengths, and then laid end to end in a trench and covered with soil. In the fall, several stalks of cane had been placed in a hole dug in the ground and covered with pine straw and sand to keep the cane from freezing in the winter. Little green shoots would come up and become cane stalks during the summer. I copied a photo from the internet to show a cane field.


Around Thanksgiving time, and often on Thanksgiving day, we went to the cane field to "strip" the cane. I really dreaded this chore because I was short and the cane leaves had sharp edges and would always cut my arms and face as we walked thru the field, stripping the leaves off the stalks of cane with sharp knives. Daddy would come along and cut the stalks, then chopping off the top leaves and stack the cane in a big pile to be picked up later and taken to the cane mill near "the spring". That part I always enjoyed - picking up the cane stalks and feeding them through a machine to squeeze out the juice. We loved drinking the foamy cane juice, especially after it was chilled. Many people used mules to turn the cogs on the press to squeeze out the juice. Our dad was a good inventor and he rigged up a gasoline motor to turn the wheels on the press. In later years he hooked up his tractor with a belt to the cog machine.


The juice followed a sluice from the machine to the vat where it was filtered through a piece of burlap before going into the syrup pan to be heated. The material collected in the filter was dumped into a large wooden barrel called the "Pummings" barrel. This was collected for several days during syrup making (daddy make syrup for all the neighbors). After a couple of warm days, it started fermenting and was covered with honey bees. One day we went to the area where the cane mill was located to milk the cows nearby at the cowpen, and the hogs were rolling all over the place and squealing and acting funny. They were drunk!! They had gotten into the pummings barrel. They started chasing my granddaddy and one actually bit him and he had to go to the doctor.
While the cane juice was cooking for 4 or 5 hours, a large dipper was used to skim the foam off the top. When it became dark syrup, daddy would remove the "stopper" at the end of the vat and fill tin buckets with the thick syrup. It was so good on cold winter mornings, and we ate it with hot buttered biscuits, sausage, and I really like pouring it over salmon patties (which I still do today). We would put a hole in the side of a biscuit, add a little butter, and fill the hole with syrup and this was a delicious snack when we came home from school. I must show my granddaughters how to make "syrup and biscuits" when we get together again. It's difficult to find pure cane syrup anymore. And when you do, it's very expensive. The empty syrup buckets were put to good use. Many were used as lunch buckets for school. They came in handy for picking blackberries and huckleberries. After a few months they would start to rust and new ones would have to be bought for the next syrup making.


When we retired and moved to the farm in 1996, the old syrup cooking vat was still there and we cleared away the vines, etc. to expose the brick fireplace where the vat sat on top. The old fire grates were still inside the brick structure, and the old metal chimney rusty so it was taken down. The metal pan had rusted and fallen apart so we removed the remnants and made a flower bed inside the structure. I'll post a photo when I can locate one in my collection.

The cane mill was sold to my Cousin Coleman Redmond when my father died. He set it up near his home and every fall would grind cane and make some cane juice. He gave us some and I liked it but Jim had a hard time trying to drink it. Maybe it's because he never had any as a child and it wasn't a special treat for him. I'll admit it didn't look very appetizing!

People I've met along the way

In July, 1984, I went to Los Angeles to attend the American Home Economics annual meeting as a delegate from NC. I took some extra time to tour Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knotts Berry Farm and some other sights. It was Donald Duck's 50th birthday and also mine in 1984. I had my photo made with Donald for James. Right away he wanted to go to the "real" Disneyworld. He had been to the one in Florida but knew there was one in Calif. long before there was on in FL. Later we took him to Disneyland and that is another story for another time.

On a VIP tour of Universal Studios, we were taken "behind the scenes" and got to see things and people the public doesn't normally get to see. We were traveling in a trolley when we stopped for traffic and guess who was walking to the studio right beside our trolley. None other than Arnold (from Different Strokes TV show) and his pal Michael Jackson. They were on their way for Arnold to tape one of his programs. I had seen Arnold on his TV show but I had no idea who this Michael Jackson fellow was. That is until I showed James this photo, and he said, "Michael Jackson!"This was before he became well known. We were told by our tour leader that Michael and Arnold were best friends.

While living in Haleyville in 1986, I was a Chairperson of a national committee and attended the Amer. Home Economics annual meeting in Kansas City, KS. Senator Nancy Kassebaum sat at our table at a luncheon one day. I had lived in Kansas in the 1950's and enjoyed talking to her. She was at the meeting to speak on behalf of the Equal Rights Admendment. She was the first woman to be elected to the US Senate without succeeding her husband into the job. She was a Kansas Republican Senator for three terms. She told me that her father, Kansas Gov. Alfred Langdon, ran for Pres. against Franklin Roosevelt and was badly beaten. He was proud of her for winning her senate seat. After graduating from college and working awhile at Hallmark as a receptionist, she stayed at home and lived on their farm and raised her children. Then she decided to enter politics and she separated from her husband and left Kansas and took the kids to Washington, DC. I was fascinated with her ambition. I have followed her political life with great interest since that day. She later married Howard Baker and is now Nancy Langdon Kassebaum Baker. She left the senate in 1997. She is only 2 years older than I.

On being the first grandchild

I was the first grandchild for both sets of grandparents. I was born at home on November 25, 1934 in the Curtis community between Elba and Opp, AL. My parents were living in a small frame house next door to his parents. Not long after I was born, we moved in with Mama and Papa Wilson.

They then rented the frame house to sharecroppers who helped on the farm. One family was the Stewarts, parents of Alberta Martin, the last surviving confederate widow, who is buried with her parents at New Ebenezer Baptist Church (Curtis) cemetery. Her father played the fiddle. I don't remember them living there. I just remember people living there but don't know much about them. When I was around 10 years old, the house was torn down and my father built a sawmill on the site.

My dad was one of the few people in our area who owned a car. He was a good mechanic and kept all the neighbors cars running. When I was a baby, I was told that he and mother would put me in the car and ride around in the evenings when it was so hot, so I would go to sleep. The roads were not paved so it must have not been a very smooth ride.

My mother was one of the oldest in her family so she had lots of siblings at home when she got married. The younger ones were very jealous of me (they told me this). They did not want their mother (Mama Smith) to leave home to help take care of my mother and me when I was born. My Aunt Ida, was was 15 when I was born, tells me that she had to prepare Thanksgiving dinner when I was born and she didn't really know how to cook. Mama Smith was not a good cook and didn't teach her daughters how to cook either.

I was not the only grandchild for very long since Christine was born on Christmas Day, 1936. Eventually there were 6 girls and 1 boy in our family, with the boy in the middle. I ended up with 25 first cousins and I was #1 (the oldest that is)!!

My First Christmas Memory - 1937

Nell and 1-year-old Christine - Dec 1937

When I was 3 years old, I received a "Little Mother's Laundry Set" and I remember that so well. I remember setting up the little folding ironing board and mother heating the little tin iron (I wonder what kept it from melting) and I would iron and iron. And we considered that fun? There was a clothes line and some little wooden clothes pins in the box and mother would tie the clothes line between some posts so I could hang out my "laundry". Kids would not be happy receiving an ironing board and iron in these modern times!

We were living in this big house with my paternal grandparents. The two big arborvitae bushes (evergreens) at the edge of the doorsteps were also useful when ironing. Mother would break off the end of a limb about the size of her hand and place it near the end of the ironing board to smooth her hot iron when the starch started sticking to it. She would place the iron on the greenery and I can still remember the

fragrant odor from the hot evergreen limb. These irons were very hot when she would take them off the stove or from in front of the fire in the fireplace. They were called "sad irons". One meaning of sad in nineteenth century dictionaries was "heavy." Although many of these irons were small, they were very heavy. Thus the name "sad irons'. I used to think they were called "sad irons" because people were sad to have to iron! So you can see my fascination with owning my own iron and ironing board! I was mother's little helper.

My mother's ironing board was a board about 12 inches wide and about 5 feet long, tapered at one end and wrapped with an old sheet for the ironing board cover. She placed the board between two ladder-back chairs or placed one end on a table and the other end on the back of the chair. She would lower the ironing board for us to use as we got old enough to handle the hot iron. We used a folded cloth to hold the red hot handle. Some irons had wooden handles but they were more expensive. I always burned my hand or arm when I had to iron. I DID NOT like to iron when I got older and this chore was assigned to me. I was the oldest of 7 so I had to do a lot of ironing. We didn't get electricity (REA) until I was in the third grade. And much later we got an electric iron.

Probably that red wagon was a Christmas gift also. We always had a red wagon around when I was growing up, but never got one with wooden "sides" on it - and I always wanted one of those. I guess they were too expensive. Looking back at the photo, those shoes I was wearing had buttons for the straps, not buckles. I remember how hard they were to fasten and I was glad when my new shoes were not "high tops" and had buckles, not buttons. When I was 4 or 5 I got some black patent leather Mary Jane's and I loved my new shoes. We would use a left-over biscuit to "shine" our patent leather shoes (I guess all the fat in the biscuit made the shoes shiny).