Last fall, Mary Sue Rodgers Dildine and her
daughter visited our library
Last fall, Mary Sue Rodgers Dildine and her daughter visited
our library.
The former Miss Rodgers cherishes her days at a country school
and was kind
enough to share them with us:
"Some of my fondest memories of school are of the country school
called
Greene. It was located in the small community of Iron in White
County, Ill.
The last time I was through there, the old building was still
standing.
When I began school there at the age of five, it was 1941. My
great-aunt,
Mildred Hoskins, was the teacher.
She had moved back to
White County after
teaching for years at the Mary Hardin Baylor College for young
women in
Belton, Texas.
The school was a wooden structure of two rooms. At the time I
went to
school there, we had only enough students for one room.
It
had a huge coal
furnace in the front of the room.
There was a cloakroom and
a small
library off the main room.
We had an upright piano.
On
really bad days, we
used the other room for our recess room.
Of course, there
were the two
outhouses.
Some of the students I remember were Phyllis and Donna Bishop;
Howard
Austin; Delmar McGhee; Ronnie and Marilyn Austin; Clarence
Smith; Dee
Howard and Frances Hoskins; Dean Pearce; Patsy Buttry; Glen
Wilson; Sybil
Wilson; and Jackie Sutton. And I am sure others.
I remember Aunt Mildred had to build her own fires and do the
janitor
work.
Every year a school board member would come and have a
talk with her
about whether she would take the school the next year. They
would walk
around out in the yard until they came to their conclusion.
One of the things I really enjoyed was the Christmas time that
Aunt Mildred
piled all of us in her car so we might listen to the Nutcracker
Suite on
WGN on the car radio.
On Washington's birthday, she always
baked cherry
pies and brought [them] to school to celebrate.
These were the war years, so she took us on field trips to pick
milkweed
pods.
These were used to make parachutes for the
paratroopers.
We also
saved newspapers and tied them up in bundles.
I'm not sure
what they were
used for, but it was for the war effort.
One of the techniques she used in teaching reading was that each
one read
on his or her own level regardless of the year in school.
This kept
reading classes very interesting.
On Fridays, we had such activities as spelling and math bees,
and this was
the day that we generally had any ball games with other country
schools.
They would either come to our school or we went to theirs.
Everyone played,
because there weren't enough people for a team otherwise.
Aunt Mildred taught at Greene until I was in the sixth
grade.
Maurice
Mobley taught the year I was in that grade.
Aunt Mildred was
teaching in
either Springerton or Mill Shoals at that time.
James Rankin
taught the
year I was a seventh grader.
Then Aunt Mildred began taking
my sister,
Patricia Rodgers, and me to Norris City to school.
My sister
was in the
fourth grade. We finished grade school there.
I have very fond memories of my days at Greene School--even the
days it was
bad weather and we had to walk to school because Aunt Mildred
got her car
stuck in the mud.
I would have to say now, after retiring
from teaching
school myself, that I would put my country school education up
against
anyone's education.
(The author's address is
Route 1, Box 150A,
Patterson,
MO 63956)
The Genealogy Library will be closed until Feb. 4, 1998.
We continue to be comfortably busy with letters and visitors to
our
Genealogy Library. We're open from 11 to 5 on Wednesdays. Come
join us.
Notes from the Genealogy Library
White County Historical Society
located downstairs in the Ratcliff Inn, downtown Carmi
By CHARLENE SHIELDS
Posted with permission from
THE CARMI TIMES
and CHARLENE SHIELDS
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