Starting Out
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| With Dick on my first day of school. |
The first
week of September 1939 is a time of change. My sheltered mother-hugging
home-based existence is at an end. At not quite six years old I am faced with
two new realities: my first day at school and Canada at war. School is a big
unknown, and I know the war could be scary because Mom’s fiancé was killed in
the First World War. (My experience of
the years of World War II is described elsewhere.)
Upon leaving
the comfort and security of our cozy farmhouse for the mile and a quarter walk to
school, a pang of anxiety erodes my parent-inspired enthusiasm. My brother
Dick, with one year of schooling under his belt, trudges along beside me down
the rutted dirt road to Salisbury Corner. It is the heart of the community with
its little white United Church and Richardson’s General Store. There we meet
other kids and together set out on the final mile east on the Wye Road to Salisbury
School. We are the only traffic on this sandy gravel surface as we pass the two
Ball farms, the only buildings along the way. Dick says I will like school and the
knot in my stomach eases a bit. Besides, I have met Mr. McConnell, the teacher,
who is known to Mom and Dad, and he seems friendly enough.
Salisbury School today exists only in
memories and old photographs. The site took
up one acre on the north-west corner of what is now the Wye Road and Sherwood
Drive in Strathcona County, Alberta. The rectangular parcel lay east-west along
the Wye Road with the school building at the east end, and the teacher’s
residence or teacherage at the west. Behind the school were the boys’ and
girls’ barn-red outhouses and the six-stall horse barn. A shallow well with a
hand pump and a pair of teeter-totters lay on either side of the cement walk
connecting the school porch to the Wye road in front. A white picket fence and
a row of planted poplars graced the roadside on the teacherage half. A
weathered horizontal board fence around the school building area helped keep
the “inmates” and soccer balls off the road.
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| Salisbury School - 1921 (Brothers Tom and George are on either side of the building corner) |
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| Grade 4 desk looked like this |
At recess
and noon hour I am out of my age-group cocoon as the seated segregation dissolves
into a multi-aged mix in the hall and play areas. I feel lost in this group where most kids are older
than me. The teenagers are especially intimidating. I have no such older
siblings and infrequent visits with older cousins doesn't help me relate to
these people who are neither adults nor children like me. The teenage Hunter
sisters must think me a cute kid because they serenade me with their version of
the popular song “Oh Johnny Oh” which becomes “Oh Donnie Oh”. I am sufficiently
embarrassed by this unwelcome attention that I resort to a strategy from my younger
years. When the Uncles teased or tricked me, and then laughed along with all
the other adults, I was humiliated and withdrew into myself, silently sobbing. Although this action stops the attention here
at school, it comes with the additional humiliation of being called a “bawl-baby”.
Still, I decide that this means of escape is the best option. Besides, my
behavior just confirms that I am an unusually sensitive person.
For the
first few weeks of school I am a keen grade one student ready to learn and ask
questions. School is almost enjoyable as we engage the three R’s. But this is
about to change. It’s October and we five “grade ones” are practicing writing.
Mr. McConnell asks us to write a short sentence about Halloween. I choose to write “I like eating the apples”
but am unsure of how to spell “the” when it is pronounced as “thee” as when
talking about apples. So, I boldly ask Mr. McConnell, “How do you spell “the”
(pronouncing it “thee”)? He wisely asks me to use it in a sentence and I share
what I am trying to write. He responds, “t-h-e”. Innocently I seek
clarification, “I know how to spell “the” (thuh) but how do you spell “the” (thee)?
Dear Mr.
McConnell explains that, although the word is sometimes pronounced differently,
the spelling is the same. Then it happens. It’s no longer just me and the
teacher involved in this exchange. My grade one bubble is burst when I hear big
kids laughing from that alien corner of the room behind me. A panic strikes when
I realize that the amused focus of thirty-five mostly older kids is on me. Why
are they laughing? Was it a stupid question? Am I that dumb? I feel like
crawling under my little desk as I retreat into silent sobbing. I also make a
decision that will affect my entire school life: I will not ask a teacher
another question – ever!
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| Salisbury School - 1939 I am second from the right - Bobby Daly and I conspire not to participate. |
Despite my
own unfortunate event, school remains bearable. Dick, one grade ahead of me, is
a constant buffer to my feelings of not fitting in. Also, Harvey Ball and I
become best pals. He is my age and lives just across the road, so we make the
trip to school together. Along the way there are diversions to be enjoyed: in
summer crawling through culverts or taking a “shortcut” home through Ball’s old
gravel pit. In winter trying to stay afloat atop roadside snowdrifts, or hanging
on to the back of a sleigh-borne load of hay, gliding along on the packed snow beneath
our buckled felt overshoes.
Harv
supplements my school learning with other kinds of important information. One day as we trudge along the gravel road on
the way to school I share with Harv a hunch based on my experience. I say to
Harv, “I don’t think women fart”. To me this is a reasonable conjecture because
I had never known a girl or grown woman to audibly pass wind. Harv, with two
older sisters, has obviously had a different life experience and responds in
surprise “The hell they don’t!”
A winter
cold snap or blizzard makes the half-hour walk to school an ordeal. We then walk
with our backs to the wind to avoid those pale spots on our faces indicating
frost-bite. Upon arriving at school with winter coats and boots to shed, boys
and girls go separate ways from the entrance landing. Stairs down on the right
lead to the boys’ section of the basement and those on the left to the girls’.
Down there I kick off my overshoes, hang my sheepskin coat and fur-lined
leather helmet on a hook, and race upstairs to the warmest spot in the building
– the heat register at the back of the room, right above the furnace. Others
are already there holding their chilled hands over the brown enamel four-foot
high curved grille, absorbing its satisfying warmth.
When the
temperature dips below -25⁰ F (-32⁰
C) school is usually
cancelled. Getting the school building to a comfortable temperature with the
old coal furnace is almost impossible; and some kids have more than two miles to
travel. Instead of walking they might come bundled up in their horse-drawn sleigh
or on horseback, but even then, there is risk of frost-bite.
Very cold
weather confines us to our gender-specific basement play areas. However, visiting
the basement quarters of the opposite sex is taboo, so the boys make use of a
knothole in the dividing wall to check on the girls, who may be playing
hop-scotch or just giggling in groups. (Most of the knot-hole use is unidirectional.)
Incidentally, the boys’ section is not as nice as the girls’ because it has the
barred off furnace area and the coal bin.
The coal
bin! Once when I am in grade three a truck-load of coal is dumped from outside
through the coal chute into the bin. A few lumps spill over the five-foot
wooden bin wall into the cement floor of the boys’ play area. I join others in
tossing the errant coal back into the bin. I throw one too far and hear the crack, tinkle, tinkle of breaking glass
as a window pane at the back of the bin shatters. It is an accident, so I am
not worried until one of the older boys says, “Now you are in big trouble!”. It
seems obvious to me that to avoid trouble I just need to keep quiet about this.
Back in the classroom someone has already told Mr. Lundy, the teacher, and he
asks the class, “Who broke the window?” I think, “Good, he doesn’t know who it was,
so maybe I’m in the clear”.
But someone
rats on me and I feel this panic in my chest. Mr. Lundy asks me what happened,
and I answer through tears, “I was just helping to clean up the spilled coal
and it was an accident”. The only “big trouble” is him saying, “You must try to
be more careful”.
In the Classroom
In my early
school years, I have no idea of the challenge that thirty-four pupils from six
to sixteen and across nine grades must present to one single teacher. I later see
that breaking the room into three teaching divisions helps meet this challenge.
There are three Divisions: Division 1 – grades 1, 2 and 3; Division 2 – grades
4, 5 and 6; and Division 3 – grades 7, 8 and 9. Lessons are taught by Division.
In Division 1, Grades 2 and 3 get the same content, with Grade 1 receiving
special attention. In Division 2 all get the same lessons with assignments
tailored to each grade. In Division 3 all get the same lessons with special
regard for grade 9’s that must face departmental exams. Under this arrangement
the total content within each Division is spread over three years with succeeding
grades receiving specific lesson material in different years.
Sitting in a
room where I can eavesdrop on the lessons directed to more senior students has two
opposing effects on my school performance; first distraction and then boredom. When
I spend much of my time absorbed in the more interesting material of the senior
grades I ignore my own assignments. This results in being kept in after school
to complete them and getting a report card where the “not making efficient use
of time” box is checked. By the time I get to the senior grades I am so
familiar with the material that I am utterly bored with school because there is
now nothing new to learn. Homework? - never do a lick of it, yet manage to get high
marks in every test, partly because I have heard the Division 2 and 3 contents
so many times.
Being bored,
I find the large west-facing windows in the classroom a magnet for my wandering
attention. They frame the teacherage in the foreground backed by the George
Ball farmstead with its imposing hip-roof barn and windmill. I love watching
the weather develop in the west as it moves in over the distant skyline of
Edmonton with its three ten-storeyed buildings punctuating the horizon. Over the
years I invest much time in day-dreaming as I stare at the freedom beyond these
paneled panes.
Two or three
times a year the stern grey-haired inspector, Mr. Leblanc, visits the school.
Our teacher knows when he is coming and warns we will be tested on how much we
know and understand. Convinced that it is us who are being evaluated, some kids
are on edge awaiting the inevitable tough questions from this imposing figure
of authority. Most of us are not aware that the results of this visit will show
up on the teacher’s “report card” and not ours.
Social Structure
The kids
from the one large family are a force to be reckoned with. In general, they are
very self-assured and are leaders in our social group. Because they are better dressed than most kids, and always seem to have nickels and dimes to spend at the Salisbury Store, I see them as being “cool” and important to
find favour with. They are influential because of both their demeanor and their
numbers. During my first few years at school one in five students is from that
family. Although all different, they share some common characteristics. Some
that are not scholastically inclined make up for it with athletic prowess. Others
are uncomfortably assertive, often to the point of aggression, or what to me is
bullying.
During my
time at school some in the family are not among the high academic achievers.
Given their status and my wanting to be liked, I see no social benefit in standing
out by doing well in school. In fact, the opposite is true, because when I do,
it shows them up. One time when I perform better that one of the older family members
I am met with the defensive comment, “Yeah, well your mother was a
schoolteacher, wasn’t she!” as an explanation for the gap in our performance. Meekly
and weakly I agree that this must be the reason.
When in
grade six, five of us boys not from that family decide to do something about the
bullying by their more aggressive members. It is a classic case of “belling the
cat”. Not one of us is willing to risk confronting any one of them without the backing
of the rest. We agree that if any one of us should get into a fight with any
one of them, the others will come to his aid and put the bully in his place. Eventually
one of us gets into a fight with their toughest. While the two roll around
wrestling on the gravel road in front of the school, what does our alliance do?
Nothing! We just stand around and watch. Afterwards our guy asks us, “Why
didn’t you join in?” We look at each other and someone says, “We thought it was
just between you two guys”. But my real reason is, like the rest, an unwillingness
to risk either my health or my standing with this family.
This family affects the school culture in both positive and negative ways. A plus is
their enthusiastic participation in sports, both on the school softball team
and in leading the school games at recess and noon hour (see below). They are team players and their energy inspires the rest
of us to do our best. What I see as a negative influence is their regular sharing of dirty
jokes with me and fellow innocents. It is low humour with some polluting my
memory to this day. Perhaps the source is the father who, I an told, spends a good deal
of time in a Strathcona pub where I assume he picks up jokes to share
with his boys in the already rank all-male (except for the cows) barn.
Games
Noon hours and recess periods are game times. In the fall we play Steal Sticks, Pom Pom
Pull-away, Red Rover[1],
and Soccer. When the snow comes it’s only soccer, and whether the snow is
squeaky in the cold or icy after a thaw, we play all winter, except on the very
coldest days. The goal post markers are short sticks of firewood stuck into the
snow. When the ball sails over the goal marker there is often an argument about
whether the kick is inside or outside the imaginary vertical extension of the
goal post. The more aggressive usually win the argument. The other winter game
of Fox and Geese uses a thirty-foot spoked wheel stomped out on a virgin snow
as a template for this version of tag.
In the spring after the snow goes and
the weather warms up, the older kids’ favourite game is Scrub - a simplified
version of softball. It goes like this: Someone yells, “Let’s play Scrub; I’m
‘one’”. As fast as we can, the rest of
us shout out the next lowest number not yet called; “two”, “three”, etc., until
all have a number. There is nearly always some disagreement about who called
their number first. Again, the aggressive kids will either win the argument or
settle it.
We start the game by arranging
ourselves on the field: “One” and “Two” are the first batters; “Three” is the
catcher; “Four” the pitcher; “Five” the first base person, and then the
fielders in sequence. If a batter does not strike out, and hits the ball,
several results are possible. They can be thrown out at first base; or at home
base if they try to return. If they only get to first base, the second batter
is up. When either batter is “out” they are relegated to the field in last
place and all positions move up to provide a new batter. If a fielder catches a
fly ball, he and the batter change places. The object of the game is to be in
the preferred position of batter for as long as one can. The younger kids and most
girls prefer group games such as Red Light, Freeze Tag, Mother May I, and
Anti-I-Over. The cement sidewalk in front of the porch is the site of Hop
Scotch and skipping rope.
By grade three I am hooked on the teeter-totter. As soon as
the teacher hits the bell on her desk proclaiming recess my pal Harvey and I
break for the door and, and instead of immediately joining a group game, race
to claim one of these two wooden plank steeds. On we jump and take off on our
gleeful ride. I grab the board and push both feet hard against the ground to
rise as fast as I can, tucking one leg under the board as I reach the top to
avoid being bucked off when Harv’s end hits the ground. He does the same at his
end and we simply fly up and down. This lasts a glorious few minutes until
other kids manage to convince us that they deserve a turn.
Nicknames
I don’t know
why so many kids have two names; their given name which the teacher always
uses, and their imposed playground alias. At least half the boys have a double
handle, and even one of the girls. Some nicknames have an obvious origin. For example,
Gerald with prominent front teeth is “Squirrel”; ginger-haired Glen is “Red”;
overweight David and Elburn are “Fat” and “Porky” respectively; diminutive
Arthur is Audie; William is “Bud” and Harold is “Buster” probably because they both
have their dads’ names. Shy and awkward Bob is “Shadow” because he follows his
cool older brother everywhere. I think it’s because he wants to be more like
him.
The source
of the other nicknames is less clear: rotund Ron is “Oatsy; athletic Derek is “Ikey”;
aggressive Lloyd is “Scoop”; clumsy Walter is “Poopdeck”; cool Roy is “Deepsy”;
skinny Ian is “Sam”; handsome Dick is “Chief”; insecure George is “Johnny”; and
quiet Marjorie is “Bunny”. Even if the nickname has no obvious physical connection
to a person somehow each seems to fit some aspect of their personality.
End of School
One frigid
February morning in 1947 as Dick and I are downing our porridge the phone rings.
We wait to see if it is our number; one ring, a pause, and then three rings. (There
are thirteen families with thirteen different ring patterns on the same party line,
so the call could be for someone else). It is our number and Dad answers. It’s twenty-five
below this morning and I’m hoping that school is cancelled. Dad’s cheerful
morning mood gives way to serious questions: “How did it happen?”; “Who was
there last?”; “When were they there?” He hangs the receiver on the side of the
old wooden kitchen-wall phone and announces in a solemn tone “There is no
school today, it burnt down during the night “.
I am shocked
and have mixed feelings. Now in grade eight, I have spent my whole school life
in that building. As a teenager more in control of my life at school, it is a friendlier
place than it used to be. I’m sad to see
it go. As a small compensation, it does mean that we get a holiday until a
temporary classroom can be set up somewhere. Two weeks later we reassemble in a
makeshift classroom in the Salisbury United Church basement with its low
ceiling, drafty windows, poor lighting, no library, single outdoor toilet and
no playground. Again, I have a mixed
reaction. It’s a lousy school environment but is located right at Salisbury
Corner, a mile closer to home.
A question
lingers in my mind. “How could the school burn down?”, I ask Dad. He explains, “The
coal furnace must have exploded”. I am a bit concerned – we have a coal furnace
in our basement. “But how could a furnace explode?”, I persist, wanting to know
the details. Dad, who has been stoking coal furnaces since he was a boy, patiently
explains. “When a lot of new coal is added on top of glowing embers, it must be
banked on one side of the firebox. This allows the edge of the new coal pile to
immediately catch fire to provide an open flame. If the embers are completely
covered with new coal and there is no open flame, the volatile gases released from
the new coal by the heat of the embers below are not burned. They accumulate
until a flame breaks through the newly added coal causing them to explode. In
this case the impact of such an explosion must have knocked off the stove pipe
leading to the chimney. The hot flue gases would then have burnt the basement
ceiling and started the fire.”
Although I know
the answer I need affirmation, “You always bank the coal fire in our furnace,
don’t you?” Dad smiles, “What do you think?”
A new one-room
frame and stucco school is built on the site of the old one during the
following summer to open in the fall. Mom and Dad however have decided that
Dick and I will get a better education in the city so in September we are
enrolled in University Elementary School in Edmonton ending our days at
Salisbury School.
[1] See http://www.oneroomschoolhouses.ca/the-games-they-played.html for descriptions of some of these
games. Salisbury’s version of two games varies from the descriptions here. Our
Steal Sticks play is based on a combination of Steal Sticks and Prisoner’s Base
rules. The way we play Scrub is also different
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