I started first
grade in the fall of 1926 when I was six years old. My older sister
Clarice had preceded me two years earlier, but she was only about
5-1/2 years of age when she started. Generally children started first
grade in the Gowrie school when their parents thought it appropriate
— there weren’t the cut-ff rules as to age that usually apply
now.
There was no
kindergarten class for Clarice and me, nor I believe for my younger
sister Vivian who was next in line of the Strand childen. (Vivian had
since informed me that she had half-day kindergarten.) Vincent
followed Vivian and for a few years there was a kindergarten and he
was enrolled in it. He, like Clarice, started school at a relatively
early age — he was about 4-1/2 years old when he entered
kindergarten. I recall that because of his age he didn’t proceed
too well in school and there was some desire on the part of the
teacher to “hold him back” for a second year. I guess this was
solved in discussion between the teacher and our mother, at any rate
he went into the first grade the next year. After Vincent the
kindergarten was apparently discontinued, perhaps because the
Depression resulted in funding being tight in the county.
The Gowrie
Consolidated school was organized sometime in the early 1920s and the
red brick building which housed all twelve grades was built in 1923,
or perhaps that was the first year it was used. Rural school
districts, such as the schools that my father and mother attended for
eight years, had the option of voting to enter the consolidated
district. Some did, others didn’t. The farming area where the
Peterson farm was located voted into the district. My uncle Reuben’s
farm was in a township that opted to keep its one-room country
schoolhouse and my three Strand cousins (all older than I) had their
first eight grades in the Bliss schoolhouse, where their father and
my father went to elementary school. I believe my dad taught country
school there for a time.
Across the road
from my uncle Reuben’s farm was my grandfather Strand’s farm and
this area voted to join the Lanyon consolidated district. The Lanyon
school was smaller than the Gowrie school, as were several of the
other consolidated schools in Webster Country (all probably
consolidated at about the same time). My Strand cousins, after
finishing country school, had the option of attending Gowrie or
Lanyon high school. They chose to go to Gowrie and the youngest,
Clifford, was in high school when I was, though of course at a higher
grade level.
Note: The Lanyon school after
consolidation was considerably smaller than the Gowrie school. After
the three small districts of Harcourt, Burnside and Lanyon underwent
a further consolidation in the post-WWII era, the Lanyon school, a
two-story brick edifice, was abandoned. Some farmer bought it and
used it as a barn I believe, a sad end. The town of Lanyon also
declined and whether it has totally or mostly disappeared (like Lena,
the little stop on the M&StL railroad, not far from my uncle
Reuben’s and my grandfather’s farms which now consists only of a
few isolated residences). Burnside and Harcourt still exist as small
county hamlets.
The Gowrie school
was located about two blocks directly south of the “little brown
house” which my parents had purchased when I was quite young. So it
was an easy walk for us Strand children between home and school.
Rather different than had been the case for my parents who faced a
walk of a mile or more, each way, on every school day — as was the
case for my Strand cousins.
For us we walked
first past Nellie Scott’s on the right and Mel Rosene’s on the
left, crossed the street, then proceeded in the next full block past
the Gowrie city park on the left and Albert and Molly Rosene’s, JET
[?] Johnson’s, the pink Stenholm house and Sig Anderson on the
right, thence across the principal thoroughfare of the town of Gowrie
(the so-called Market Street that ran due east and west) past one
more house on the right before reaching the school grounds.
The school day
started at 9 a.m. and ended at 4 p.m. with an hour off for lunch. For
grades 1 through 6 there was a 15-minute recess period both morning
and afternoon. Children living within the Gowrie city limits were
generally required to go home for lunch, only those children arrived
from rural areas on the various school buses stayed at the school and
had their lunch on the school premises. This rule was not rigidly
enforced particularly if the weather was inclement. I recall at least
one occasion when my sister Clarice and I, observing what seemed to
be the start of a cold snowy winter day convinced our mother that we
should take a noonday lunch with us. That day we carried our lunch in
a couple of little two-quart tin pails that had originally contained
either molasses or dark-colored Karo syrup. As it turned out the day
turned bright and sunny by noon so I felt a little foolish at having
brought my lunch.
For us Strand
children, living only a couple of blocks from school, it was rather
easy for us to walk home, have lunch and return to school for the
start of the afternoon school session at one o’clock. As always we
were joined for lunch by my father who walked home at noon from the
bank where he worked. For a relative of the family, Harold Renquist
(a second cousin of my mother I believe — his grandmother was the
“Auntie Callestrom” of my grandmother Peterson — it was a much
longer walk at noon since he resided at the far east end of Gowrie,
about a mile from the school building, which was near the west end of
town But he made the walk home for lunch winter and summer.
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