Growing up in small town America...Sadorus, IL., USA

First Grade

It was the fall of 1949 and I still remember how excited I was to start school and to be in the first grade. In those days, kindergarten had not yet become a part of the elementary program and first grade was where your educational experience began. Our small farm community had one public grade school and it was a nice brick building on the south edge of town, surrounded by a big school yard and the town's ball diamond sat behind the school. My grandfather, Bill Moore, was the custodian at the school as well as the grounds keeper, and he kept both the school and the school yard immaculate. I was very close to my grandmother and grandfather Moore. Being born during World War II, my mother and I lived with my grandparents while my father was overseas serving in the Navy. Those years also prepared me well for the first grade because I was surrounded by a large extended family who read to me constantly. By the time I was old enough to start school, I could recite most of my story books by heart as I had learned to recognize all the words on the pages from having them read to me so many times. Needless to say, I was eager to move on to new books and was anxious to actually learn how to read for myself and to learn to spell and write. I'm not sure I knew about arithmetic at that stage of the game, but I'm sure I could count by the time I started school. It was the reading I was most excited about learning.

I remember the first days of school and how intrigued I was with the school buses that brought the country kids to school. Those of us who lived in town were accompanied to school by our moms during the first few weeks. I was lucky to have my grandfather at the school and always felt quite comfortable being there. My first grade teacher's name was Mrs. Jackson and she was a well respected teacher and woman in our community. Her husband was the principal of the grade and high school in our town and she was also the mother of several children. She was a very gentle woman, yet her classroom was conducted with an earnest focus on the compelling task of teaching the principals of reading, writing and arithmetic to the 20 plus youngsters under her watch. Mrs. Jackson stands out in my memory as one of my all-time favorite teachers, and my educational career went on to span nearly 40 years. She truly helped all of us first graders establish a sound educational foundation from which we were able to grow.

Mrs. Jackson's first grade classroom was the first room on the right as you came up the school's central stairs to the main floor. It was a large room that featured a shiny wooden floor and large chalkboards lined the front and back walls. At the front of the classroom was the American flag and Mrs. Jackson's big wooden desk and chair, from which she conducted the business of taking daily attendance, leading the Pledge of Allegiance, collecting school work, grading papers, counseling students with their school work and comforting students during times of distress. A small round table, with several small chairs, was also located at the front of the room where groups of students would be called to read during reading class. There was a separate cloakroom on the right side of the room where we hung our coats on wooden pegs that ran the length of the room. We would also use this room to play tag or other games when we were unable to go outside for recess. The left side of the classroom was lined with windows. Four rows of wooden desks lined the room, with each desk containing an ink well, although in first grade we only used pencils, and a long pencil slot than ran across the top of the deck. Extra books, paper and other school supplies could be kept on a little shelf under the desk top. Along the top of the chalkboards were posters of each printed letter of the alphabet in both capital and small scale. It was a room that fostered positive learning, long lasting friendships and memories of a wonderful woman who we, as a class, are forever indebted for the solid educational groundwork she fostered in us.

Unfortunately, the Sadorus Grade School was struck by a tornado in the mid 70's which severely damaged its structure and the building was eventually torn down. The ball diamond was also moved to a newly developed town park in the 1980's. The last time I visited the former school site, it had been returned to a green space, with no visual landmarks of the Grade School to be seen. Gone was the stately school building, the playground with the merry-go-round, slide, and hand bars. Gone was the spreading thorn tree that used to stand tall at the south edge of the school yard. Gone was the laughter and squealing of small children running and playing. Gone were all the flowers that my grandfather had so carefully tended. One could only imagine how it all used to be amid all the memories that pressed so gently on the mind.

1949 Sadorus Grade School First Grade Class

Bottom row (l-r): Johnny Bill Goers, Lois Neal, Spencer Henderson, Ruby Bialeschki, Robert Styan, LaVergne Henry and Robert Deedrick.
Middle row: Joe Goodmann, Marijo Luhrsen, Larry Woods, Sarah Wheeler, Nancy Hartman, Janet Kobel, John McCarty and Mrs. Jackson.
Top row: Mary Clark, Ed Phillips, Ginny Williams, Dick Gady, Linda Coty, John Moon and Nona Fluck.

1949 FIRST GRADE CLASSMATES WHO ATTENDED THEIR 46TH HIGH SCHOOL REUNION IN 2007

Let's Build a Snowman!

Now, as the Winter of 2009 is in full swing and we are bracing for another round of the 'deep freeze' with a predicted ice storm soon to arrive, memories of days long ago of kids gathering to build snowmen, skate on frozen creeks, or go on sleigh rides on snow packed streets come streaming back to mind.

For those of us who grew up in the cold winter regions of the country, snowmen are special creatures that we fondly remember creating on those cold wintery days when the snow fall was of the right consistency to roll into giant balls that would 'pack' and hold their form. Neighborhood kids would don their warmest apparel and race outside to congregate in yards to begin the task at hand of building 'Frosty.' Moms would keep an anticipatory eye on the youngsters as they engineered their snow packed pals into friendly fellows that stood watch over the neighborhood until warmer temperatures arrived and their eminent demise was unavoidable as they melted away into happy distance memories.

From the yellowed, crumbling pages of an aging picture album, put together by a loving mom who was ready to rescue us kids from the freezing cold at any given moment with hot chocolate and warm dry clothes, I found a few wonderful black and white photos that were snapped to record those precious moments one winter day long ago when my younger brothers and our two next door neighbor girls built a great snowman in our front yard. The photo is none less than 'picture perfect.'

However, I cannot limit the fun of playing in the snow and building snowmen to childhood, as on a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, a few years ago, my husband and I arrived in time for a rare snowfall in that area of the country. Much to our amazement, we found the grown locals having a great time doing what else, -- but building snowmen! With interest we observed hundreds of folks driving to mountain slopes, loading heaps of snow into the beds of their pickup trucks or piling it on the hoods of their vehicles where they then built their snowmen right in their truck beds or on the hoods of their cars and paraded up and down the roads and streets displaying their wonderful snow sculptures. It just goes without saying, we never outgrow the kid in ourselves and the desire to play in the snow.

Here a snow couple nestles in the back of a pickup truck with their snow deer companion. This picture was taken in Sedona, AZ.

HAT'S OFF TO SNOWMEN!