FIRST SCHOOL MEMORIES—CHORES
“Memories are perfect to them who are doing the remembering.” MLJ
I suppose in this day and age, it would be unheard of to assign students clean up chores at the end of the school day, but not so in a one-roomed schoolhouse. Someone had to pound erasers and take a wet sponge to the blackboards. I still like the smell of sweeping compound, that oily red substance made of sawdust that caused the dust and dirt to stick to it so it could be easily swept up.
I recall the time I thought it would be a good idea to throw a sponge at a wasp on the window over the exit door, and it landed on the back of my neck as I ran “hollering” into the classroom. What an embarrassment!
Ringing the bell to signal the end of recess and lunch hour was an honor, but the best job of all was burning the waste paper outside in the burn barrel. This was a privilege only allotted to the older boys like Dale First and Johnny Schilling.
If you remember anything on this subject, feel free to share it with the rest of us.
Mike Jewell FS GROUP FB 9 1 2018
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FIRST SCHOOL MEMORIES—PAW PAWS, RAMPS, MORELS
“Memories are always perfect to them who are doing the remembering.” MLJ
The first time I ever heard of paw paws was when John Schilling showed me a paw paw tree growing below the hill of the school. He also pulled a wild onion once (called ramps) and cut off a sliver of the bulb with his jackknife for me to taste. I also mention the wild mushrooms (morels) he and Dale First would gather in the springtime from some secret place; some of them as big as my fist. We were just country farm kids going to a one-roomed schoolhouse, but we had a depth of learning that is sorely lacking today. All three of these items are prized culinary foods in the gourmet’s kitchen.
Mike Jewell FS GROUP FB 9 5 2018
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FIRST SCHOOL MEMORIES—BUTTERNUTS
“Memories are always perfect to them who are doing the remembering.” MLJ
About this time of the year in Pipestone Township, the butternut, a cousin to the black walnut, would “rain down” upon the gravel country roads making them easy to gather by schoolchildren whose fingers were often stained brown by them. Butternut trees grew up and down Wolf Road, especially the low dark places between First School and the swampy area just south of Mary and Patty’s farm. I remember these trees well—very tall and seemingly ancient, their pecan-shaped nuts tasting richer than the black walnut, making them a delicious addition to cookies, cakes, and fudge.
The butternut with its fruit, bark, wood and roots, had other uses, i.e., as a folk medicine by the Indians and early settlers, and as a clothing dye, and even homemade ink for writing. We just ate them, however, and enjoyed them. Then, they seemed to go away, probably stricken with a fungal disease known as butternut canker.
Perhaps some of you that attended First School in those days remember the butternut and picked up a few on your way home from school, to crack with a hammer on a flat rock, and enjoy the rich buttery nutmeats within.
Mike Jewell FS GROUP FB 9 9 2018
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MEADOWBROOK ROAD MEMORIES/ HOUSE OF DAVID DAIRY, NOW THE BLUE DRESS BARN
Sometimes, things that are significant to our family’s history exist only in short quips and memories. These photos stir up such remembrances for me. When I was a kid and lived on my dad’s farm on Meadowbrook Road, Uncle Warner Moore would come to visit. He was a very godly man and was the heart and soul of the Moore side of our family, but that is another story.
Uncle Warner came over one day and he and Dad went to the House of David Dairy (c.1961) which was still operating at the time. The place appeared pristine in those days. Now it looks like “the big barn in the big woods” with a jungle of trees about it.
A remarkable woman by the name of Charity Sassman ran the whole operation. She lived in the big white house on the hill behind it. She seemed to be about 90 years old at the time and was as cross and cranky as they come. When we pulled into her driveway, she came out and led us down the hill to the barn. We carried several glass gallon jugs and put them on the straw strewn floor and Charity opened a walk-in cooler and took out a large milk can and funnel. She filled each jug with authentic cold fresh buttermilk (not that fake cultured stuff you buy today), constantly scolding us for whatever seemed to irritate her. We then purchased some fresh butter which came in one-pound blocks wrapped in waxed paper. This butter was a darker yellow than store-bought and had a subtle earthy odor of its own.
I don’t know why it closed down exactly. Maybe Charity could no longer handle it by herself. I had heard the health department had something to do with it, but today, it is only a memory. MIKE JEWELL FB COUSINS SITE 9/02/2018
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MEADOWBROOK ROAD MEMORIES/ FISH HOOKS
In the 1960’s, when Dad had a farm on Meadowbrook Road, there was a small shallow pond there in the “back forty”. It was well stocked with bluegills and made fishing a fine pastime for a young farmer boy. Fishhooks could be purchased in Sister Lakes for about two or three cents apiece. However, I eventually ran out of them, and got the bright idea that I would make my own out of wire. The steel being untempered, caused the wire not to hold its shape very well and being barbless, they had little hope of keeping a wriggling fish on the line. I showed my “hooks” to Uncle Pete. He smiled and helped me shape them as best he could. One night, he came over with a bucket of bullheads (a small catfish that God made for young boys to catch) and poured them into the pond. I never did catch one, but to this day, I wonder if there are still any descendants of those fishy “immigrants” still swimming around in that little pond. (photo from Google Maps shows the old farm as it appears today with the pond in the center)
MIKE JEWELL FB COUSINS SITE 9/16/2018
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FIRST SCHOOL MEMORIES—THE OLD COW PASTURE
“Memories are always perfect to them who are doing the remembering.” MLJ
What would country kids do without a cow pasture? In those days back in the early 1960’s, on the northwest corner of Black Lake and Wolf Roads, there was a large green-grassy pasture where Holsteins whiled away the sunny afternoons in relative contentment. Teacher at First School would let us out each day for our morning and afternoon recess breaks where we could play “kick the can” for our meager fifteen minutes. Noon hour, however, was a more precious time, causing us to inhale our sack lunches, to rush across the gravel road, climb over the fence, and play softball to our heart’s content, loathing the sound of the bell, too soon calling us back to our studies. The herd of Holsteins always guaranteed that we would have a steady supply of ready-made bases. (Just be careful about sliding into home plate!)
The most fun, I believe, was in the wintertime. This particular pasture had high hills in the back, just steep enough for sledding and tobogganing. At the bottom of the hill was a stream that flowed across the pasture, and if you got up enough speed, it was possible to “fly” over both sides without ending up in the water.
Johnny Schilling and Dale First, enterprising as ever, cleverly built for themselves “bobsleds”. I remember wooden boxes for the seats and barrel staves for the skis, sanded down and well coated with wax; they sailed down the long hills of the pasture across the deep snow with ease. A rope was attached for steering and to pull it along.
Today, the pasture has overgrown into a forest, the black and white Holsteins are gone, and the narrow creek has been dug out into a pond, but what great times we had in those days. Mike Jewell fs group fb 9 26 2018
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BAKING BREAD AND OTHER THINGS
One Christmas Eve many years ago (1965 or 66 I think), us kids were getting ready for the annual service at Calvary Bible Church in Benton Harbor. Pastor Roger F. Campbell, a very talented author, always wrote the plays that the older kids performed and the memory verses to the programs in which the younger children participated.
I remember looking into the brightly lit kitchen of our home where we lived at 1642 East Empire and my dad was very busy baking bread; he had worked as a baker before going into the army and displayed his talents. Large coffee cakes, some filled with poppy seed, others with brown sugar, butter, and nuts to make butterscotch, sought out places to rest themselves and cool in the large kitchen.
He made éclairs filled with custard, and cinnamon rolls drenched with white icing. My favorites were his white bread and oatmeal bread. The large loaves, hot out of the oven, were brushed with melted fat to keep the crust soft. The first slice burst forth with steam and was quickly slathered with butter. The house smelled so good.
My mother who was a registered nurse was working at Mercy Hospital and would be home in a few hours.
Uncle Jim Amundson came by in his black 1959 Ford sedan with Lois. It was snowing hard, of course! Sharon was at home with Aunt Maxine because she was just a toddler at that time.
So, off to the Christmas Eve program we went: John, Nancy, Lois, and myself. At the close of the evening service, the kids would be given gifts of oranges, candy, and boxes of animal crackers.
Later at home there would be a table full of treats and delights, my mother would be home, and the Christmas tree in the living room stuffed with presents to bring us joy the next morning. –MLJ
(cousins fb page and FSP blog site 9 30 2018)
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ONLY A BREADBOARD?
August 31, 2018
Many years ago when I was a lad of about seven or eight, my dad purchased an old sixty-acre farm on Meadowbrook Road in Pipestone Township. There was a red barn, a silo made of baked-clay blocks, and several outbuildings on the property. The only thing left of the old house was a set of concrete steps leading to nowhere.
My dad set out to build our new house on this same spot, and as a young boy, this gave me plenty of opportunity to explore the ancient treasures left behind by the previous owners, that in my young mind were just ghosts. I found an old wooden oxen yoke (which I still have) and other things, particularly an old wooden board about two feet square. It wasn’t just a board, but had been constructed with some skill, pieced together using mortise and tenon joints.
Not sure what it was, I showed it to Dad who promptly identified it as a breadboard. Some farmer’s wife of days gone by had apparently used it quite often to make her family’s bread. Stained with fat and oil, it had old flour in its joints and cracks that probably acted like plaster.
Coming from a family that grew up with good homemade bread, I can understand how the mere sight of “mom” taking this board out from behind the kitchen door and setting it on the table was enough to make mouths water in contemplation of hot brown loaves from the oven. Thick slices of steaming bread slathered with freshly churned butter went quite well with bowls of creamy tomato soup, fragrant with celery leaves.
Was this breadboard just another vintage kitchen tool to this farmer’s family or was it more like an “altar”, storing up many sweet memories to recall? Bread baking was usually a weekly thing in those days, a duty and a charge like laundry and canning, done with the love of a mother for her husband and children. How many mountains of dough had been mixed and kneaded on this board over the years?
Do you have something in your home from days past that elicits dear memories every time you look at it? Tell your kids about these things so they don’t just toss them out when you’re gone. Teach them the value of remembering. MLJ
First School Press 