WHY IS IT CALLED “FIRST SCHOOL PRESS”?

 

THE RUINS OF FIRST SCHOOL AS IT APPEARS TODAY (2013).

FIRST SCHOOL WHILE STILL IN ITS GLORY (CIRCA 1966).

I am thankful that I was privileged to be born during a time when our country still shared some of the positive aspects that made it great.  The little one-roomed school house was one of these things. My father, Burton Zara Jewell Jr., had a sixty acre farm on Meadowbrook Road next to Jarvis Lake in Pipestone Township.  He built a split level house there and he was a farmer. He grew corn, cucumbers, potatoes, several varieties of pears and raised hogs. We had a large red wooden barn that housed hay and had a hemp rope for kids to swing on. There was a wonderful old corn crib and a pond for swimming and catching bluegills and bullheads. A row of tall pines served as a winter’s roost for pheasants and our Christmases were grand.
We attended a one-roomed school house at the top of the hill at Wolf Road and Black Lake Road. It was called First School after the pioneer family that donated the property. Fifteen students attended with one school teacher. Start of classes, recess, and noon lunch hour were commenced with the ringing of the bell in the belfry attached to a long rope.  The school had a girls and boys restroom, a cloakroom for hanging your coats and what not and a long shelf for your brown paper sack lunches.  Class sizes were small. My third grade class had three students including myself. Teachers were stern but loving and fair. The last hour of the day was usually spent quietly listening to the teacher read one of the Little House books or something similar.
The walk home for me was approximately one mile and seven tenths. (I know what you’re thinking: “uphill both ways!”) I have a thousand sweet memories and stories and I miss it dearly. It breaks my heart to see what has become of the old school. If I was wealthy enough I would purchase and restore it so that other kids could see how it was.  This is why I publish under the name FIRST SCHOOL PRESS.   –MLJ