Third Grade

Third grade was just across the hall from second grade and the teacher was Miss Geddes. I have the vague feeling that later on she married someone locally.

I specifically recall only one incident from being in third grade. One time we has a drawing (art) assignment and it consisted in part at least of snowflakes falling from a dark blue sky. The sky was the blue of the blue composition paper that had been furnished us for the exercise and we were making the snowflakes with a white crayon or a piece of chalk. Most members of the class, including myself, proceeded to do this with quick, vigorous stabbing of the crayon on the paper but two members of the class (the Stillman twins) proceeded to draw in a more deliberate fashion. Miss Geddes noticed this and brought the difference to the attention of the class, comparing rather negatively our approach to that of the Stillman twins. I felt vaguely chagrined. Whether pictorially our efforts were not as good as those of the Stillman twins I don’t know at this point – certainly out approach was less a considered one.

In the art classes which I have had in retirement, there has always been an emphasis on spontaneity as being a highly important, if not a dominant factor in producing a superior artistic statement. I haven’t always “bought” this concept, concluding that consciously or unconsciously there are mental decisions that control what is being produced.

The conclusion has probably been influenced by the attitude engendered in my training as an engineering where there us a premium placed on the deliberate approach. So I am not sure if art instructed would agree with Miss Geddes’ opinion although I would tend to agree with her.

I recall playing with the Stillman twins a couple of times — they resided about a block west of my grandmother’s house. The family left Gowrie sometime when I was still in the elementary grades; one of the twins died in WWII and the other has also died I think.

In the third grade my seat was on the right side of the room, facing the teacher and very close to the back of the room. I might mention at this point that the first three grades had recess all at the same time (recess lasted fifteen minutes and was at bout the middle of the morning and afternoon parts of the school day). I think we were also expected after recess to line up in a queue fir a drink of water at the water fountains (which were in the hall) before going back into the classroom. I think we were also expected to make a stop at the rest room in conjunction with recess.

Recess for grades 4 through 6 was at a later time. When the weather was nice recess was always out of doors. The playground was to the south of the building and had swings, a merry-go-round and perhaps a slide.

Originally the swings had two steel rods for the two attachments of the swing to the bar above, but these had a tendency to be bent (from children “pumping” up so high that some sort of torque was placed on the rods near their point of attachment to the overhead bar). The replacements were linked attachments, the links being 6 to 8 inches long. The swings were not of a type really suitable for young children.

Second Grade and the “Corn” Show

Each classroom through junior high, had a cloakroom or closet along the side or the back of the room. These had sliding doors I seem to recall. Probably the cloakroom had little use on early fall or late spring days, but in winter it was filled with overshoes, coats, caps, etc. Children living within the town walked to the school; bus service was provided only for rural children. And generally children in town went home for lunch.

The school day ran from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an hour off for lunch. Getting home for lunch and back to school by 1 p.n. was easy for us as we were only a couple of blocks from the school For my relative Harold Renquist who lived at the far east end of Gowrie it was a different matter but he always (I was given to understand) went home for lunch. Harold was enough older than I that I never remembered him in a school setting.

My friend Howard Nelson also resided on the east edge of Gowrie, but somehow or other he and his two cousins Beth and Faith Blomgren (who lived near him) were permitted to ride on the school bus. Perhaps they were just outside the city limits. In the first grade the cloakroom was along the north side of the room, in the second grade on the south side.

One of my recollections of the second grade was of the only time I recall of being kept after school for disciplinary reasons. It happened in connection with the annual “corn” show which was held in various rooms in the basement of the school building. While the show was in progress the rooms it occupied were off limits to the pupils during school hours — they had a guided tour of the exhibits, etc., and perhaps they could freely attend after school was out (I don’t remember specifically as to this).

One of the boys in my class, Dale Hauser, inveigled me into going to one of the exhibit areas during a noon hour; we were observed and Mrs. Woods kept the two of us after school and reprimanded us. It was a pretty mild reprimand, in retrospect, but I was quite frightened at the time. The exhibit that had lured me to disregard the attendance ban was a rather elaborate mechanical construction from an Erector set.

As I mentioned the “corn” show was an annual event. It included both agricultural displays and home-making projects. The agricultural exhibits included displays of ears of corn which farmers had submitted in the competition for the best corn. There were also chickens in coops and, I believe specimens of hay, oats, etc.

Who judged the agricultural exhibits I don’t know, perhaps the ag teacher in the high school did, or it might have been the county agent. Maybe the exhibits were judged as a class project by the ag class of the high school.

One year my mother entered a coat that she had made for me, in which she had used a discarded one from one of my aunts as raw material. She won a prize for her project and I seem to recall in one of the picture albums that I have there is a photo of me wearing that coat.

In addition to the sewing projects there were I think displays of canned goods, perhaps baked items also. The corn show was sort of an anachronism of times past and it didn’t survive after the first few years I was in school. In a way it was sort of a fair on a very local basis, less extensive than the county fair or of course the state fair.



Schematic of first floor of Gowrie school (not to scale)

School Desks

Second grade for me was taught by Mrs. Esther (?) Woods, who as I have mentioned was the only female married teacher I had all through the years at the Gowrie school. As for the first grade I have some recollection of where I sat in the classroom. In first grade it was, at least part of the time on the very left side of the room (as the teacher faced it) and two or three seats from the front.

In second grade Mrs. Wood had her desk on the north side of the room but the rows of desks ran past her rather than toward her — the pupils faced east. I was in the second row away from her desk, about midway in the row.

The desks were movable, each desk being a unit in itself. I think the desktop could be adjusted as to slant, but of this I am not sure, and it could only be adjusted slightly if it were possible. The desk could only be entered from the left side and underneath the seat was a little drawer, which could be pulled out form the right side, where books etc. could be stored. Perhaps there was also space under the desktop. This kind of movable desk was used all through the sixth grade.

The desktops bore the marks of earlier students — scratches, initials carved into it, etc. The janitor probably did some maintenance on the tops, such as varnishing, during the summer months. On the desktop there was space for an inkwell, but it was never used, either in the elementary or junior high grades. I think the classroom would be provided only with the number of desks required by the number of students, the excess supply was probably stored somewhere in the school building.

Academic Performance

Recently in looking through some relics from my past, I ran into my report cards, which are complete for the first 12 years of my schooling. I noted that my record was no better than average in many respects, though I seem to have done well in spelling and arithmetic. Generally the poorest record was in the first grade and there was a gradual improvement through junior high and the first year of high school.


First grade report card

At that point I seem to have entered a new phase in which I usually had “A” grades. This continued through junior college but when I went to the university there was a dip in my performance during my first year there. But of my last three terms at Iowa (my senior year and the following summer to complete the requirements for graduation) I had all “A’s” for two of them and the third was marred only by a “B” in organic chemistry.

All my life seems to have been rather a similar pattern — of meeting a new situation of phase in my life and performing only moderately well at first with a gradual improvement to a good, but not exceptional level thereafter.

I should mention I think that during my first seven grades in Gowrie the superintendent was one P. A. Leistra, who was a stickler for academic performance and achievement. So the standard by which the students were measured were more exacting than in the small neighboring communities. Indeed I think this may have been one of the reasons why in the end public sentiment sort of turned against him and resulted in the end of his tenure in Gowrie. Certain people in the community became dissatisfied with the emphasis on academic achievement and he finally got tired I think of keeping up the battle.

He was a life-long bachelor. When he left Gowrie I think he had some position in either state education or in some private institution related to education.


Death notice for P. A. Leistra, Sioux City County, October 8, 1953

The reading instruction in Miss Rice’s class was divided as to learning ability and performance and though my performance left something to be desired I think I was in the group of better students. The two groups were labeled bluebirds and redbirds — at this time I’m not sure which was which.

I’m not sure whether if I encountered Miss Rice now (as she was then) that I would recognize her. Physically she resembled my aunt Ruth a little, moderately tall and willowy; and I think she wore her hair in a similar style.