School Days in Lowell, 1900 - 1909
Oral History, Tape #3, Part 1
Interviewed by Janet Granger
Janet Granger:
This is Janet Granger speaking, and I'm taping an interview with an early Lowell resident. She lived in Lake County and she was born March 17, 1894. Her name is Mrs. Ray Bailey. Mrs. Bailey, what was your maiden name?
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
All right. And where did you live about in 1900?
Vernice Bailey:
In 1900 we lived in Illinois near a town by the name of Beecher, Illinois, of Will County across the Indiana state line, and that would be possibly not more than a mile west of the state line.
Janet Granger:
I see. And then when did you return to the Lowell area to live?
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
I see. All right. And then where did you go to school, when you were in Lowell in 1905?
Vernice Bailey:
Well now, my first school days were in Illinois. I started school there in 1905 and the school was known as the Worman's School.
Janet Granger:
Vernice Bailey:
Worman's School. And we had about a half a mile to walk to school. And I was approximately five and a half years old when I started school.
Janet Granger:
Did you go right in the first grade or was there a kindergarten type class?
Vernice Bailey:
No, we had no kindergarten, but I went along with this teacher that boarded with my parents and roomed there. She took me with her and then I went, you know, right into first grade; we didn't have kindergarten. Her name was Mae Cox.
Janet Granger:
Mae Cox. All right. And now about how many were in the school that you went to? Was it one of these one to eight grades?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes. And it was a one room schoolhouse and it had steps across the front -- front I would call it. And we had a wood shed, and, of course, in those days we had no restrooms so we had two outdoor toilets, and in the school room we had a little pot bellied stove that we, as a rule, used wood mostly. Sometimes coal. And that's the way we warmed it.
Janet Granger:
Was it fairly warm or what kind of clothes did you wear -- long johns?
Vernice Bailey:
Well now, we wore long johns, underwear I mean, down to the ankle and mother made home-knitted wool stockings that went over the knee and we wore round garters and we had homemade gloves or mittens and caps and scarves and then we wore leggings over our overshoes. And in the winter, I had two flannel dresses. One I can see it. It was a gray flannel trimmed with a red rick-rack. And the other was a two-toned blue plaid. And with that we wore a little pinafore white apron that had the ruffled embroidery over the shoulders.
But when we got home at night, that was all removed and we got into our chore clothes. We never run around long in our school clothes. We got into our chore clothes and then went about our home duties.
But getting back to this school, you didn't ask, but the transportation, as a rule, we walked. If the weather was bad, then my father hauled milk to a little creamery that's Greenburg. Then we would ride, but the teacher preferred to walk if we two could, because it was just about a half a mile. So then we would walk to school. And we had a boy who was about ten or eleven and he drove his billy goat. And he had a little cart and if the weather was nice and sometimes severe, either one, he would come to school with his little cart and that billy goat and if we were real nice to him and he felt like it we would all have a ride at recess time.
Janet Granger:
Well that sounds like that was fun. And did he just tie the billy goat up at the school?
Vernice Bailey:
They put the billy goat in the shed. Oh no, and he had a bale of hay with him so that that billy goat had something to eat.
And then we had our iron pump -- you'll see the same in that picture -- with a tin cup. And in the winter when we could not go out and get that water because it was froze, we'd have a pail. And that pail was a granite pail with maybe some chips knocked off and a bit rusty. You know how that will happen. And we had a granite dipper. Well that got kind of . . .
Janet Granger:
Did you sort of set it in back of the stove to keep it warm?
Vernice Bailey:
No, no, we kept it in the hallway. But you can imagine around that water pail when we all got around it -- one would dribble and one throw some water at the other one and what a mess we had by that water pail in the hallway.
Janet Granger:
Vernice Bailey:
Well, that was our water in the winter time. Course in the summer and spring we would go out to the pump.
Janet Granger:
And you, of course, took your lunch to school. What did you usually bring to eat for lunch?
Vernice Bailey:
Well now my lunch pail -- begin with that -- was a gallon syrup pail that folks bought syrup in. Then we'd take the label off. Mother would never let see the label on it so we'd take the label off and clean it up good. And if we could scratch our name on the top or something, because they all sit in line in this hallway.
Well, we took all the way from homemade bread, always, and cookies and cake and we always had our homemade sausages because we never was in want of meat. We had our own beef, our veal, our pork, our chickens, ducks, and geese and even guineas. So we all had our own meat and our own sausages that was all homemade. And we also raised our own sugarcane and made our sorghum. And I loved my bread sometimes soaked with sorghum, you know, then take it to school. And we had our own bees.
Janet Granger:
Pardon me but wasn't this bread soaked in sorghum kind of messy to take?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes it was, but I loved it.
Janet Granger:
I'm sure it was good but it just would seem to me that it would sort of get sorghum all over everything. Am I wrong?
Vernice Bailey:
Sometimes, yes, it was messy. And then we had our own honey because we had several hives of bees and all kinds of fruits from raspberries, blackberries, plums, grapes, cherries, apples, peaches, and mother made a lot of jelly out of grape and currants we had. So we always had our own jelly. And once in a while, a chicken leg. Or if mother had been to town and was generous, we'd have a banana or an orange.
Then when we'd open our pails and got to sitting around, if we could, we would go out and sit on his steps or on the lawn to eat. And in the winter, of course, we'd all have to go to our own seats to eat. Then maybe somebody would say, "Oh, I would like that chicken leg. Would you swap with me and let me have the banana?" Well then we would swap.
And I had one that was quite good at that to swap with things till it happened one day that one of my bananas was missing out of my pail. And I couldn't cover it up so I reported it to the teacher. Well, she rounded us up -- there was fifteen of us in that school and she rounded us up and found out who the little thief was. Well, that was stopped.
Janet Granger:
Yes, well in those days a banana or an orange was really a special thing, wasn't it?
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
All right. What did you do when you had recess? About how long was your recess period and what games and things did you play at that time?
Vernice Bailey:
Well now, at recess we had about fifteen minutes -- that is, at first recess. And then at noon we had an hour. Well, at recess we couldn't accomplish a whole lot; it didn't pay us to get dressed up to go in the snow. So we'd play something in the hallway like Blind Man Bluff, you know. We'd push our pails all out of sight and then blind somebody and then we'd crawl behind the clothing and they'd have to feel who we was. And sometimes if they knew we had rings on we would change with someone else so they couldn't find out by that who we were.
Well, we done that and then, of course, if we could go outdoors then we would play Penny High Over and Pom Pom Polloway, and if we had snow, of course, it was Fox and Goose. And Ring Around the Mulberry Bush and London Bridges Falling Down and Crack the Whip and Drop the Handkerchief.
And then in our later years, we come up with this rather famous game -- course we thought it was cute -- that Post Office game. See we was getting older, getting older. These little games were going out.
And then the boys, in the spring more so, when it got nice, they'd come along with a pocketful of lovely marbles. Play marbles, most generally on the porch or somewhere.
Janet Granger:
Did the girls marbles at all?
Vernice Bailey:
Not too much. Not too much. And then Mumble Peg. And as I got older.
Janet Granger:
Vernice Bailey:
Oh dear, you open your knife and that blade, and you flick it this way. I never really got into that game. If it goes over there and it sticks in the ground a certain way, you get a point or something on it.
Janet Granger:
Oh, it's really played with, like, a jack knife.
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
All right. And now, what type of discipline did they use on you?
Vernice Bailey:
Well, I was in the first grade. There were three first graders and I got so naughty one day and I annoyed them and Miss Cox looked at me and I thought, oh well, that finger up she'll forget all about it. I poked the other one and she screamed.
"All right, Vernice, you may come up here in the front."
I had to go and stand in the corner on a box and look right into the wall and wear the Dunce cap.
Janet Granger:
And about how long did she keep you there? I know, I bet it seemed forever but . . .
Vernice Bailey:
I thought it was ten minutes. And I didn't dare to look around and I despised that Dunce cap. That was my punishment.
Janet Granger:
That was your punishment. What type of textbook did you have? What were some of the subjects you studied?
Vernice Bailey:
Well, now of course in the first grade, that was mostly reading and a little writing. We had to learn how to write. And a small amount of arithmetic. And, of course, in the other grades, there we had (well, maybe I'd better read it here) arithmetic, reading, writing, physiology, grammar, geography, history.
Janet Granger:
You had quite a well-rounded program.
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
Did they teach you any special style of writing? When I went to school it was all the Palmer Method. Did they use any special -- did they have a name for the method of writing that they taught you?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes, and I wonder if I can tell you what would that be. We had to write not this way -- it had to come this way.
Janet Granger:
Well, maybe it also was also the Palmer you wrote in a circle.
Vernice Bailey:
And we had to use the wrist.
Janet Granger:
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
No, I think that's the Palmer Method with the circles.
Vernice Bailey:
That could be. I remember.
Janet Granger:
Did you use ink or pencil?
Vernice Bailey:
We used mostly ink. We had the little ink wells that we'd have to fill right in the little holes in our desk there.
Janet Granger:
Did some of the children play with the ink wells?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes they did, and then they would be spilled and run over on the desk. Of course we got credit for how clean we kept the top of our desk and also how the arrangements of our books was. The teacher would check on that and if we just stuck them in there we'd get a mark "untidy." So if ink was spilled on our desk, which were quite light colored, it had to be cleaned up.
Janet Granger:
I see. Now, I know you had some special school activities. What were some of the special programs you had in school?
Vernice Bailey:
Well, we had spelling bees some. And then we would always look forward to having a box social. And then we would have a generous program for that box social. And I know one year at the box social the mumps came out. And some of the older ones that was in the program got the mumps. My brother and I didn't and a few other ones didn't so we went to the program. The older ones was so disgusted that they couldn't come, but I got a big bang out of box socials. So that was one thing that we looked forward to.
Janet Granger:
I see. And what kind of Christmas party did you have usually?
Vernice Bailey:
Well now, Christmas parties, there we'd have a little program and maybe a -- of course I didn't know it I was twelve years old before I realized there was no -- Santa. But we'd have a neighbor man or somebody dressed as Santa Claus, and of course he'd fall in the door and stomp the snow off, you know, and had a sack which we thought he'd brought but it was something that parents had put in there. And of course, there would always be a little box of candy, you know, and it was decorated with Christmas . . . with a little stringy across the top.
Janet Granger:
Vernice Bailey:
And that was a great treat. And then, of course, Santa Claus, when we'd speak our pieces, well then he'd dish out his little presents. Then the teacher would have maybe nuts and popcorn for us and a tree that we had at recesses had string cranberries and popcorn and make the chains out of paper.
Janet Granger:
Yes, yes. I remember what you mean. And then did you usually close the school with a summer picnic or a spring picnic?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes. When school was closed, oh, how I remember when we would gather a spring bouquet of apple blossoms or whatever we could get and we would have a nice bouquet for the teacher. And if we had an apple or a choice candy that we knew she liked that would be our treat for the teacher.
And then we'd have a school picnic and then the parents, some of them, would attend and we'd have a kind of a potluck then. And we just enjoyed that to be together and then she would hand out -- I still have them -- they call them, oh, little cards Reward of Merit. Yes they would hand those out. I still have mine.
Janet Granger:
For things you did especially well in your grade. That was fun. Did you have a favorite teacher?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes. I liked this Miss Cox because I had her two years and then there was an Edwin Booker. That was when we was in Illinois. And I liked him very much because, well, they both were good. And I had some that I didn't like, of course. We all have that.
Janet Granger:
Yes, I'm sure of that. And what was your favorite subject?
Vernice Bailey:
Well, my favorite subject was reading. And now today I've got away from it. Isn't that something?
Janet Granger:
Well that happens, I think. And did you have music and art? Did the teacher that taught you teach you music and art or did you have a special teacher?
Vernice Bailey:
We had a special teacher and her name was Jessie Michael. And she drove a horse and buggy and she would go to the different schools and teach music. And as to art, oh we had cards with designs of dolls and chickens that had holes stuck around and we had red thread and we would embroidery that around in there. And we were graded on who had the least knots and mistakes and then the teacher would pin them up.
Janet Granger:
Well that sounds interesting. But you didn't have, like, a separate art teacher that came there and taught you art. This was just your regular teacher. And what kind of sports -- did the girls have any sports that they participated in?
Vernice Bailey:
No, not too much.
Well, sometimes if we were in the school room and couldn't go out we'd have pencil games like, oh, we'd have little games we'd mark and then have to guess the number you had under your hand, what the number was and we would do that at recess time or at noon.
And even as I got older some of the girls, and I was one, would bring hand work. I done some cross stitch on a little bedspread for a single bed that was a big star with blue and white cross stitch. And mother said, "Well being when the weather's bad and you can't run around outdoors and you shouldn't be outdoors getting all wet and chilly and cold, you just get busy and work on your cross stitch."
So some of the girls brought handwork of their own. They had hooks, you know, and embroidery.
Janet Granger:
And what would the boys play?
Vernice Bailey:
Well the boys sometime would get kind of rough; they'd bang around out in the hallway, you know, and one thing or another or scuff, you know, and hit each other and maybe get out on the steps and snowball or something like that.
We did have one great sport when we went to Bruce School, that was the later years. We went out and picked milkweed pods and let them fly all over the school room, those thistles, I call them. Oh, Mr. Michael was so aggravated at us, and you know they [blow]. We'd blow them and didn't pay attention to our work. And he had quite a time with us and that was a great sport.
The other one, we made mud balls. And, I don't know, I guess we put them on, flicked them right up under, the ceiling. And you want to remember in those days our walls and ceilings were whitewashed; they were not painted. And up with those mud balls under that white ceiling! Well, this teacher, Mr. Michaels, oh, he got so perturbed and made us all take our seat. "And I'm going to find out who is the guilty one in this class!"
Well I had a cousin, Bert Bruce (his wife lives in Lowell), and he said, "Now don't you take any blame. I'll take all the blame."
So he took the blame for the mud balls. I probably threw about half as many as he did. And the teacher took a book, and he threw that book, and he missed him. We all got to giggling and laughing, and he got so perturbed and he was a great hand to stutter and he couldn't talk he was so angry and he stuttered and stuttered away until he said, " Well, you can all leave the room and come back tomorrow and behave yourself."
Boy, we went out of there clapping our hands that's all we got.
Janet Granger:
You were kind of lucky, but you probably gave the teacher almost a heart attack. Did you have any sort of a library in the school? Was there any library or any library service at all?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes, in the Bruce School there was a case maybe not as high as the door -- I can see it yet. And it was painted almost a hideous black. And that had dictionaries and a . . .
Janet Granger:
But there weren't, like, story books?
Vernice Bailey:
Yes. There were story books in there.
Janet Granger:
Do you remember any of the story books that were in the case?
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
Well, which ones do you remember?
Vernice Bailey:
Cinderella and Snow White. Oh, I just loved them.
Janet Granger:
Were those your favorites?
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
Those were your favorite books. Okay. You stayed, of course, in grade school until you were in the eighth grade, I believe.
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
And then did you have a graduation ceremony?
Vernice Bailey:
No. No. We had kind of a nice picnic that last day of school and the parents attended and, of course, we got our report cards. And the teacher would give us a good send off. And that's all we had them days. So there was no graduation dinner, supper, or exercises or anything like that.
Janet Granger:
All right when you got out [of] school in the eighth grade and you went on to school, what school would you have gone to?
Vernice Bailey:
Well, I would have went to Lowell High School. But I didn't go to high school.
Janet Granger:
Most of the people stopped at the eighth grade, didn't they? Most of the students stopped at the eighth grade.
Vernice Bailey:
You know, I was thinking the other day . . . yes, there was high school in my eighth grade graduation. But it seemed like in my area they was not so many of my students that went to high school. We either got a little work and worked out or something like that.
Janet Granger:
So your formal education almost usually in those days ended in about the eighth grade.
Vernice Bailey:
Janet Granger:
All right. Now what stands out the most? What things do you remember most about your school days? What's the most outstanding thing you think that happened?
Vernice Bailey:
Well, in my school days I did enjoy, like I say, reading. And I always looked forward to the last day of school because that was a great day because we knew we was going to be separated you know and not be together and we looked forward to fall to come and all things like that. And I would keep in mind what I had been doing that whole year in school. So then my school mates, some you know, was not coming back next school year. Well, I regretted that, but that was school life.
Janet Granger:
Is there anything that I forgot to ask you that you would like to tell about?
Vernice Bailey :
Well, in our vacation days between our school days, between spring and into fall, then our recreation was we had to herd cows along the road, my brother and I. From maybe a mile stretch, so they didn't get on a crossroads and get away.
And then we had another errand. At nine in the morning and three in the afternoon we had to take lunch -- a jug of hot coffee, some more homemade bread sandwiches and donuts or something -- to the field men that were working. And we'd put our jug in a little express wagon and our dog, and down the road we'd go.
And then evenings, you want to bear in mind there was no TV, no radios, and no telephones. Then in the winter my dad would get the sled out and put an extra board on the top . . . put blankets over it and we'd have soap stones, bricks to keep our feet warm, cover our heads and maybe go to a neighbor. We had neighbors not too far apart and spend the evening.
Well, we'd do that Christmas Eve sometime, and then of course Santa Claus would come in and we'd all have to speak a piece. And we all had to speak a piece before Santa would give us a gift. And I remember one party we were at, and Santa Claus fell over a door sill and there was snow and he stomped off the snow and he had a pack on his back and my little piece was, "Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are."
And I was shy and mother said, "Well, if you don't speak your piece you don't get nothing from Santa Claus."
So I got up in front of Santa Claus and spoke my piece and he said, "You're a good little girl."
And I looked at him and then I thought the voice sounded familiar. You want to remember, now, that I was getting up to about eleven years old. And the next morning I said to mother, "Well I didn't see our hired man there last night. Where was he?"
"Oh," she said, "I think he went to a town by the name of Sallet."
And she said that's where he went. Well, I didn't quite believe what she told me. But anyway, I let it go at that.
And then on these special evenings I would . . . if it be at our home or somebody else's home the children would have to go down in the basement get a pan of red apples, shine them well, so they just shine, pile them on a platter. Then we all had our apples and hard cider -- maybe hot coffee -- and donuts and popcorn or popcorn balls. And the men would play cards and the mothers and the dear old grandmothers would just chat. And us youngsters show what we had got you know. As a rule, we didn't get like we do today. We'd get a nice orange, which was precious, and maybe a stocking with a few nuts in the toe. And a doll that was well dressed or something and that was probably it because we was satisfied with one or two things those days.
Janet Granger:
That sounds like that was a real happy Christmas.
Vernice Bailey:
Oh, that was really a happy Christmas. Our summer days we had to herd the cattle and take lunch and do the chores, pick up the eggs and water the chickens and maybe some calves that had to be put in the barn and taken care of. So that was it.
Janet Granger:
It sounds like you had a nice childhood. Is there anything else we've forgotten?
Vernice Bailey:
No, I think you have just about covered everything.
Janet Granger:
Well it certainly sounds nice, and thank you for coming Mrs. Ray Bailey. Mrs. Bailey does wish to make one correction to the little talk. She wants to say that her school days were really from 1900 to 1909.