hello i am a great go and this is senior perspective thank you for joining me today senior perspective is a program by senior adults but for the entire community we would like to share with our younger friends information and knowledge that many viewers can only wonder about we've been around for quite a while and we have seen a lot have you ever consider what it was like to remember seeing the first television set coming to a home and just a few years later watch a man walk on the moon we have seen many changes taking place in our world and we thought it would be fun to share some of our experiences with you from a senior perspective today with taking a walk back in time to the one room schoolhouses in peter's township i mean do you think there are stay tuned because it may surprise you but be prepared for one thing none of the schools is still a school most are now businesses and hundred twenty eight ruth roby was a school girl at the right school which was located and still is on the corner of brook wood road and sugar camp fred ruth and i had a grand time reminiscing about the old days we even remembered our favorite games of hopscotch and andy andy over but when you think it was that we went to school here when i think it was in the early thirt know i had the pleasure of attending two of the one room schools in this community and sometimes it seems like yesterday the school in which i spent the most time was one located at the top of well there are two of our when room school passes i wonder how many of you dealing with us today have memories you could share sadly some things don't stay the same as we will see when we visit the mcmurry school this school used to be located on thomas read anna mae mcmurray remembers it well even though the building is no longer there my name is and i'm a man larry and i'm and from a long generation of my flurries to have lived in this community for years and this is the this fraud for the old with mary school was it was a white frame house and a white framed school house and it had a pump and we didn't have indoor plumbing and there was a pond by his side which we which we got our drinking water from and there was a playground where he didn't have much for a ground equipment we didn't have a say so when i started in the merriest grade school there were four there were four kids was i went to this school for three years and the second grade teacher in the third grade was mrs becker and and she boarded it and it is some home nearby them not just sure which one here's sons was killed in the first world war and at that time they had planted the tree they didn't have planted but the neighbors or the school here at this tree in favor of remembrance of a oh so you can figure out how old this tree is this does this the first world war was back in nineteen eighteen and it youngster at that time and also on the other side here they had ones that went to high school and their parents and that they had built sheds for their arses because there was side of me over there they used to walk right straight soon down see this high school and they had more than a mild waltzing with through from here up to live place and then i'm off on their own and also the outside breweries was built on the other side over there to there used to be an old fellow lived over on the other side here he always said it was really good he said that he done the man's eyes and he said he had done the business outside and that's what everybody had to do and then a day when is that they'd come through sometimes their little earlier because they know they was going to get something to eat what holidays well we always had they always had thanksgiving and christmas new years and easter and i was about the main holidays and anybody had often m and m day so at that time why the holidays wasn't in the celebrated as much as they are a daughter at christmas time and and my younger days why it had to be either a little bit of fog corner and some apples or something  else hanging on a christmas tree and a lot of them didn't have christmas trees but i was one of those lucky that did have because we have christmas trees out in the yard and none of my family went to high school and neither did go to california or mustang somewhere someplace or right get there and that's where they studied to be teachers and which i think at that time many years ago g q used to get thirty dollars a month and thought that was a big school located just off the route he has really sat quietly and it will become a restaurant called the classroom but sure now let's visit with gina wagner and she reminisces about her classroom of the thompson deal school and i was fortunate enough to be here from nineteen twenty nine to one hundred thirty four so i know a lot about the school when i went to it now it with buil said in an eighteen eighty that there seventy nine years that i don't know anything about that when i came to school we had a teacher by the name or horner and she was one of the finest ladies and teachers she played teacher and nurse and principal and recreation director and music teacher an art teacher and she did everything he had a groove in the school when i first started in a few years after that they can exact down to six six grades because they had so many pupils  warner was wonderful with all the students when we had school we had an outhouse but the boys back here we had a wooden shed that she kept going in for our pot bell a because she felt everybody should get out and run around the limits but she would come out of doors and she would teach the younger children all of the games like no ring around the rosie farmer in the  handkerchief you name it and she taught everything and everybody took part in it and as we got older we kind of went off on our own and we would go on it he'll make you  it's so beautiful behind us and in the summertime springtime would take all kind of wildflowers and when she rang the bell she rang at once and she give us five minutes to get into th have to wear this is one issues that you know that the boys didn't foam expect too often and on a pot belly stove in the wintertime we used to put our sandwiches and with toasts that we had toasted sandwiches we did everything with that pot bellies and then toward the back of the school she had a big say in box that when we got done with our work we could go play in the sandbox and she brought extra clothes to school one of the ladies i talked to mary during said that when her they walk to school and when it was raining or snowing bad and they can grab thing wet this is horner hand they box the clothes and she'd make them take teacher that came maybe once every six weeks is name was mr some mystery and we always look forward to his coming in and telling us about music but every day this is one who played the organ in she had time for music every day and in the morning we started out we would have bible reading we would have pledge allegiance to the flag and then we started the school day she is i started with the first grader she had a big chart with all the words on it that she wanted you to learn we didn't have walks in the first grade and i don't think we had tablets until we were maybe in the third grade we were given papers to use but we never had that stuff ourselves in till we got more sophisticated about having tablets and pencils and all this and we did most of our work on the chalkboard and she's taught always taught the basics reading writing and arithmetic and then through in geography history and this is horner to teach us to memorize poetry and she was always having a play we had a spade all the own schools had a spades and we had a big red herring that went all the way across and for every holiday we would have some kind of a play and everybody in the school had to take part whether they were shy or not even if they said two lines and they would have to get up in front of this class in the middle not theirs and they had that happen to count and say there are few lines and it helps it helps in a way that we were able to get over the stage fright in front of people and so it even helps me today when i'm standing here talking to this camera our next one room schoolhouse is located off the beaten path and my guess is most of the residents of this community would never know that it was once a school the turkey with school on the corner of turkey road in church it will be our this is turkey food school my name is harold webster i attended the first second and third grade here beginning in one nine hundred twenty nine this was pretty much the eye line of the building as it is were consistent consisted of two buildings one for the girls back on the right hand corner and the boys were a little further away on the left hand corner behind the school the school was heated by two point belly stoves the call she had was somewhere i hear i don't remember exactly where but each morning we carry and buckets a call and file those two stows was the first thing that that had to be done there were a total of about thirty pupils here consisting of one first grade through eighth grade and so we learned as much when we were in the first grade from the from the teaching of the fifth sixth seventh and eighth as we did from our own lessons the sports consisted of two sports i remember one was soccer and the other  was it wasn't softball and there was baseball it was a sponge rubber ball because that was the size of a lot and you hit a home run why a you couldn't hit it that far if it was a softball if even adam that it i guess i like the variety of if you didn't like this the subjects you were learning you could you could learn from from some of the other pupils when they were reciting here yes we had we had that i think we returned i reports and i think we did certain exercises and then sent them in and then got the results a little later ye s math math was always my favorite i can remember talking about math and figures this school closed i think it was in one hundred thirty two we saw in a book that it was thirty five but but in order to a finished in forty i had to attend the knishes school which is where we went from here i had to attend that in one thousand nine hundred eighty two so somewhere around one hundred thirty two this thought i thought that was more money than there was in the whole world at that time i remember on this end of the building first of all there were the windows that had the briars on but there were a large benches here and when the weather with a lot to where we would sit out if we had pictures to be taken usually they were sitting on the benches the pump that i mentioned it was up clear up at the end here beyond that tree but it was off limits we weren't allowed to drink out of it i guess the teacher brought it from home i mean i never had to come up with a water i and as i remember none of these trees were here this was more or less a muddy lot of some kind if you see pictures of of people who were going to school back around that time to places like this  they were all were boots up to their knees to keep from to keep out of the mud the boys rest of the girls restroom was somewhere up in this area and it seems like when we when we played ball home plate was was right around here somewhere and that pole with where as far as we could usually hit the ball but sometimes we could hit it beyond that the  mind when we think of the pleasant family school today it is a home of the veterinary clinic any nature store called backyard wildlife how would be it remembers it as pleasant valley school and he's going to fill in the gaps for us  when we became school age a path to grandma's which is almost the same path that we took to get the school we simply extended the path to get the school and dad  floorboards on the fence around the school house at that time there were four boards and dad took us one board lose that opposed and lowered it enough that we could get through that dance right there at the end of the path and get into the school yard our teacher was miss beveridge at that time miss beveridge taught me all three years that i attended this school we did have a other teachers we had cliff her who taught music and he was here only on occasion he traveled throughout the township teaching his music he would stop i think it was oh maybe once a month or maybe less than that there was also was first three years in school we later moved to mcmurray and right across from the old high school in the murray and i went from fourth grade graduated from high school there in one nine hundred forty one opportunities that you don't have in the classroom today we've got to listen to older children reciting and and often times we learn things from the other kiddos our classmates quicker and easier than we did from the teacher there were a lot of chores and everyone seemed to be willing and anxious to do them we watched blackboard carried called to the we had a pot belly stove in the middle of the school room that  fired the teacher had the responsibility of keeping the maintaining the temperature of the proper draft on the fire and so forth but that pot bellies dove adequately heated the room for we had  a bottled water fountain out in the vestibule and that they had a little paper cups that were actually flat envelopes and if you squeeze them on each side they would open up and then if you put some water in them they would remain in an open position until you could drink most of the water and there was a a a wastebasket there to dispose of the paper cups after you use them but outside we had especially when the weather permitted we had activities that were enjoyed by all the classes the teacher usually supervised the first and second grade activities herself the older boys played softball they had a had marked out a diamond and  they had access to the soft ball and bat and they would do usually have a game at recess and then the i v i was only in third grade with the last year i was here and one of our popular games was an e m t over we had a whole house out back of the school the set between the out houses and school proper and that  house afforded an obstacle for us to throw a ball over and we holler any any over and throw the ball and then when the ball came down on the other side you were to catch it and go around the building and then throw it at whoever and then she added the throw in the beginning and if you hit them then then they were out of the game but that was a very popular game outside  when the weather was implement then we did something inside the teacher had different activities and games schools and general fun here we  we learned to associate with each other and and respect the other's desires and wants and and we learned our alphabet too but  i i can't i can only remember that when school started there was a big bell in the tower at the top and that bell was rung in the morning to start the school day but at recess the teacher had a little hand bell and she would come out in front of the school and ring that hand bell when when the recess was over and then we would return to the classroom and i can only say that i enjoyed my time here pleasant valley do you know the name hackett well if you've ridden down the nation where i can tell you that this i never missed a day for all during the time that i went to the true clover here and and the sahm part of it was that when i went to high school bed before christmas i got the flu and i i was going to try to make it in high school you know too but it didn't go so good the fact that i was there all the time i wasn't there for eight years you know because the i just had to i just  i was fortunate that i didn't get sick or anything until i got that that look so of course i was out about three weeks and i thought to myself you know they should you know i would have to stay home you know but in the school to keep the warm at the see if we had to i love to go to just ever just nothing more than that that she had had in that they were not she didn't have to take care of them very much because they were gas furnace is you know first each side and  that there was there was nothing like the great jet that teacher you know that there were some of them that were in two or three different grades you know because after she had to take care of all  see we've been schooled by our hero mcmurry thompson phil turkey for what the high school pleasant valley and the two hackett schools if my school days will pay off now that seems to be nine one room schoolhouses and we have one more to visit finish a school located on finish a road was where eric lutes collected many of his childhood memories we had the pleasure of talking with eric at the home of his niece peters township resident jerry chapman