Ward School

Recently I've been thinking about Ward School where I went to first and second grade. It was a two-room schoolhouse, and I have great memories of Jenny Anderson and Helen Koebke, my first and second grade teachers. At the time, kindergarten was taught in the bigger school in town, which housed both elementary and secondary classes. Contact with a townie who is involved in the Spring Valley Historical Society led to getting this picture of Ward School from the 1930's. I hope to get additional photos from closer to the time that I went there when Julie has time to look through more archived photos. The school was turned into a duplex years ago. Amazing that it's still standing!

I wrote a piece about going to Ward School for the second volume of Mark's Hometown Stories collection. I went back through the titles of all of my blog entries, and I can't find the story, so that may mean that I haven't put it out for late-night I-don't-have-anything-else-to-read reading. I'll copy it into this entry, and you can ignore it. I would.

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Going to Ward School

(Cue music)

Good morning to you!
Good morning to you!
We're all in our places
with sunshine-y faces.
Oh this is the way
to start a new day!

Growing up in a small town like Spring Valley offered childhood bonuses that I didn’t recognize until I was a grown-up. One enormous benefit was attending first and second grade at little Ward School, a two-room neighborhood schoolhouse on North Hudson Avenue. The friendly and once-familiar building was converted into apartments long ago. I sometimes wonder if the current tenants know about the learning and play that saturated the property for so many years, and the many lasting friendships that began there.

Living only a few blocks from Ward School, I walked each morning, often meeting friends Merry and Cindy along the route. Cindy’s last name was Ward, creating an unavoidable connection – Cindy Ward School.

Jenny Anderson and Helen Koebke were my teachers the two years I attended Ward School. Each morning they took turns ringing the school bell, a large metal bell with a wooden handle, to signal the start of the school day. We rushed to line up at the front steps in a girls’ line and a boy’s line. I was never quite sure why we had to separate that way, since we all ended up in a classroom together a few minutes later. Mrs. Anderson, tall with regal posture and elegant white hair, dressed in dark rayon dresses festooned with sparkly costume jewelry pins, and emanating a violet-scented fragrance, taught first grade. Mrs. Koebke, whom we affectionately referred to as “Mrs. Cupcake” when she was out of earshot, was our second grade teacher. Mrs. Koebke was short and cushiony with cherubic cheeks and tousled hair, and she often seemed out of breath. I have a vague recollection that she suffered from asthma, which I prefer to believe rather than thinking we were a tough group to handle. On occasion, the principal would make his appearance. There was something a bit intimidating about a visit from Mr. Werner Tesmer, although I have no evidence or memory of him being overly authoritarian or stern. I imagine it was the idea that he was The Man in Charge, and we were little kids.

Wava Snyder, the elementary music teacher, was another presence at Ward School. I’ve never been able to carry a tune, and I’d like to blame it on my early music education, but that would be unfair to Mrs. Snyder. I felt an attachment to her, because my family had lived in an apartment next door to Wava, her husband Bob, and their daughter Barbara when I was a pre-schooler. I’m sure if Wava could have taught me to sing in tune, she would have, but I was a hopeless case. Apparently the music pedagogy of the day was to test our skills individually by a call-response method in which we were match the notes that Wava sang to us. Wava asked each of us to pick a hiding place in the classroom. We didn’t actually hide; we just imagined we were hiding. Then Wava sang questions to each student to check intonation as well as to “find” each of us. The process went something like this:

Mrs. Snyder (in a vibrating, high-pitched singing voice): Ji--ill, where aaaare you?

Jill (in an out-of-tune kid voice): I’m hiiiii--ding.

Mrs. Snyder: Are you in the iiiinkwelllll?

Jill: No, IIIII’m not.

Mrs. Snyder: Jiiiiii—illlllll, are you in the pennnncillll sharrrrrpennnner?

Jill: Yes, I ammmmmmmmmm.

The occasional prankster hid in a place so secluded that Wava was forced to guess six, eight, or more locations. By the time she “found” the student, she was exhausted and the rest of the class was in giggles. To this day I can hear Wava’s warbly voice whenever I think about Ward School.

Bluebirds, Robins, Sparrows, and other Midwestern birds clustered to form the high, middle, and low ability reading groups at Ward School during reading instruction time. Now, as a teacher myself, I know what a mistake it was (and still is) to label students by reading ability so publicly. In the 1950’s, many children who struggled with reading were labeled as poor readers and clustered together without fluent readers their own age as models for good reading. The gap between the strong readers and the struggling readers widened because strong readers saw themselves as capable, and struggling readers did not—a self-fulfilling prophecy. As someone who loved to read, I sped through the charming Dick, Jane, and Sally books, smitten with the stimulating dialogue that went something like…

“Oh! Look, Dick! Look in here. Do you see what is in here?”
“Yes, Sally! I see it. I see what is in here.”

While the basal reader stories lacked in plot, none of us who were at Ward School will ever forget Dick, Jane, Sally, Mother, Father, Spot, Puff, and Tim the Teddy bear!

Lunchtime was either a walk home to 608 North Huron Avenue for a sandwich, soup, and a glass of milk with Mom, Mark, and baby Mary Jo, or cold lunch at school. While a brown bag would have been adequate for cold lunch, a long siege of begging produced a really great red plaid lunch box/bag combination with a drawstring at the top for me to carry to school. There was plenty of room inside for a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper, an apple, some carrot sticks (also wrapped in waxed paper), and milk or hot chocolate in the matching red plaid Thermos bottle. Of course, it didn’t take long to find out that the “country kids”—kids we walkers were in awe of, since they got to ride the school bus every day—had a choice of bringing cold lunch or ordering hot lunch. Hot lunch was delivered late in the morning from the high school kitchen to our lucky classmates. Its mystique remained untarnished until I went to third grade at the bigger elementary school on the hill and discovered that I wasn’t so keen on mashed potatoes and hamburger gravy, a staple of school hot lunches.

After lunch at Ward School meant recess, so I hurried back on the days I went home to eat. Swings, teeter totters, and monkey bars adorned the playground, with one side of the building designated as the first grade area, and the other side for second graders. Whether this was a rule or an unspoken agreement, I’m not certain, but I remember that being a second grader was a big deal in the world of Big Deals. Second graders ruled the playground and dominated the equipment. One of the more risqué uses of “the bars” involved the girls giving “free shows”, which meant twirling over the bar, head down, and flipping back up again. Since these were the days before girls were allowed to wear slacks or jeans to school, we all wore skirts or dresses, so our athletic moves invariably gave a quick flash of underwear to other kids who happened to be playing nearby. We were so brazen as to advertise for customers, roaming around the school calling out in singsong voices, “Who wants to see a free show? No boys allowed.” When Mrs. Koebke and Mrs. Anderson got wind of the free shows, they put a quick stop to our boldness, letting us know in no uncertain terms that nice girls didn’t show off their underwear. I wish I’d have overheard their private conversations later on to find out if they were amused or shocked by our lack of modesty!

We were lucky to have experienced the familiarity of a small, two-room schoolhouse in a neighborhood where we knew everyone and where everyone knew us. We took for granted that we would be safe and cared for at school and that homemade cookies would be in our lunch boxes. At the end of the day when Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Koebke dismissed us, we walked home with friends, changed out of our school clothes, ate a quick snack, and then hurried out the door to play until our moms called us home for supper.

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