Schools

Sunbeam

Similar to Sunbeam

Sunbeam was a one-room country school for grades K-8. I believe it was the first school for all three of us, meaning Kay, Jim and I. By the time Terry, Tammy and Jill were old enough, country schools in our area had closed. Sunbeam was 1 1/2 miles straight north of the Trautman place. When the weather was poor Mom drove us there in the car. The rest of the time we walked or rode our bikes.

Kindergarteners were five years old and started in the spring, so Kay started school in 1955, Jimmy in ‘56, and me in ‘58. I can’t say much about it before I started, so I won’t try. We all had the same teacher, of course, though she taught each grade different things. In 1958 our teacher was Mrs. Rose Danburg. In 1959 it was her daughter, Derla Danburg.  In 1960 Rose was back because Derla had married our neighbor, David Simons, and was pregnant with the first of her dozen children. 

The building was a white square, similar to the photo above. There were some steps up to the door, and then more inside, like the layout of a split-level house. There was a dirt basement that fit the footprint of the building. I don’t recall going down there. It seemed dark and scary to me.

The stairs were centered, leading to the main floor. On either side of the stairway was a cloak room where we put our coats and lunch boxes. Also there was a toilet on each side. There was no plumbing in the building so the toilets were like outhouses. Whenever the smell got bad, one of the fathers came to school and put lime down the hole. I think they might have cleaned them out at the end of the school year. I’m pretty sure the school sat empty through the summer. 

There is the black potbellied stove, a piano in the corner for music, and desks just like what we used at Sunbeam and SLGS. There was a round hole in the upper right corner of each desk for the bottle of ink. It was called an inkwell. In my time ink wells were no longer necessary for writing.

One of the walls was lined with windows, as the photo indicates. Opposite that wall was the entrance and cloak rooms. The two end walls were slate blackboards, as the interior photo illustrates. Heat was from a pot-bellied stove and the smoke was piped out just as shown. There was a piano at Sunbeam, though some schools had pump organs. I remember doing a lot of singing when Derla was our teacher. I was a first grader, and I still love a song I learned then - “Let There Be Peace On Earth.” 

The school sat at the corner of a section. At one time, each six mile by six mile township had a school. A quarter of a section, 180 acres, was ceded to each school as a financial resource and a school site. 3-5 acres was used for the school building, playground, and horse stable. The rest of the land was farmed by the township. The farmers worked together to plant, tend and harvest the crop. The resulting cash went to the upkeep of the school and teacher’s pay, though the county contributed too. 

The school year was divided into six week quarters, and kindergarten was only held for the spring six weeks. I’m not sure exactly when the school year started and ended, but I’m certain we had all of June, July and August free.  In the 1950s South Dakota was very agrarian so farm work took precedence over school. 

 Lines for a parent's signature were on the back.

At the end of each quarter we were given report cards that look very much like the photo above. They were maybe 3“ x 5“, and slipped into an open envelope of the same manilla color and material. We took the report card home to Mom and Dad. We did receive marks on things like pensmanship, citizenship and more. Mom was usually the one to sign the report as proof she had seen it, and then we brought it back to our teacher. 

We brought our dinner to school in a lunch box. (On the farm, breakfast was eaten in the morning, dinner at noon, lunch in the field at mid-afternoon, and supper at the end of the day.) Our school lunch included a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. There must have been an apple or something else too. I remember in winter having tomato soup in a little thermos bottle that came with the lunch box so it fit into the rounded top. For a treat, we sometimes got a frosting/cracker sandwich. Mom stirred up a little powdered sugar frosting and spread it between two saltine crackers. It was really delicious to us! 

Tin Lunch Box just like ours.

The school grounds included swing set made of galvanized steel tubing. The wooden board seat was suspended by thick rope. I don’t remember anyone riding a horse to school but there was a shed for them. It probably got a lot more use in previous decades. Ground cover was  simply the native grasses that grew everywhere.

The shed was quite small. Perhaps it had room enough for four horses inside. The roof was slightly rounded and low, eight feet at the highest point. It was perfect for playing Annie-I-Over. In addition to Annie-I-Over and swinging, we had ample space to play softball. I remember lots of softball games, with the Big Boys playing.

The Big Boy I remember best was Bobby Cell. I think he was a 6th grader when I started. He had  very black hair and I thought he was incredibly cute. I think Kay had a crush on him. There was also Gary Grey and a Nielson boy. The Nielson boy was the biggest, an 8th grader!  

I remember warm late spring days and riding my bike to school with Kay and Jimmy. I had a little bike since I was only five years old, and struggled to keep up with my sister and brother. Mom admonished them to go slow enough for me, and that lasted about half the distance to school. By then Kay and Jimmy were racing and I was left far in the dust. 

When Kay finished 5th grade, Jimmy 4th, and me 2nd, Sunbeam School was down to six students. We moved to the Heinzerling place after school got out in the spring. That took us out of the township, and since we had made up half the student body, Sunbeam School closed for good at the end of the 1960-61 school year.

St. Lawrence Grade School Wolves

(Grade Schools are now referred to as Elementary and Middle Schools.)

About 1990.

Moving to the Heinzerling place put us into the Burdette School district, but it had closed and the St. Lawrence School enlarged to take us, and our neighbors who had also gone to country school, into a new-for-us school, a Big School.

We began with our first school bus rides. The bus was similar to the image below. It was very cold and drafty. The Big Boys on the bus, the Petermans, pushed us around and the driver didn’t provide any discipline. Mom and Dad and our neighbors whose children endured the same behavior, finally went to the school board demanding better treatment and a better bus. 

 Early 1960s school bus.

I think facing the school board was difficult for Mom and Dad. It probably took some courage to stand up to the men gathered around that table. Their efforts worked. We no longer had the oldest bus and could arrive at SLGS in a reasonable amount of comfort.

St. Lawrence is a very small town in central South Dakota on U. S. Highway 14, between Huron and Pierre, a mile and a half east of Miller. According to the 2010 U.S. census, St. Lawrence had a population of 198 souls, and covered 1  1/2 square miles of land. St. Lawrence High School closed in 1962. Dad attended SLHS for a time, but transferred to Miller High School to get his diploma. St. Lawrence Grade School closed in the 1980s.

St. Lawrence School was a brick, two-storey building in a setting of two full blocks. It included a kitchen and lunch room, eight classrooms, a big assembly room, and gym, stage and locker rooms. To us, it was huge, busy, crowded and noisy!

There were two grades per classroom, with one teacher. There were 25 other children in 3rd and 4th grades with me, and 28 in 5th and 6th with Kay and Jimmy. My first teacher was Mrs. Dorothy Marshall, Kay and Jimmy had Mrs. Johnson. Below are our actual class photos from that first year at SLGS:

Kay is in the middle row, and Jimmy in the top row.

I'm in the middle row. Mrs. Marshall is on the right end of the middle row.

I loved Mrs. Marshall. She is still one of my all-time favorite teachers. I was shy, timid and afraid. I didn’t know what to make of all those children, and I’d never known any “town kids” before. Mrs. Marshall was kind, thoughtful, and patient with me. She gently helped me integrate into the group. 

St. Lawrence was noted for excellent school food, a rarity in any time. Mrs. Klapperich was the head cook, and her specialty was barbecues on Thursdays. Barbecues in that time are known as sloppy joes today. Even the “town kids” who went home for dinner every day, ate at school on Thursdays. 

St. Lawrence Grade School was where I first ate fish sticks with tartar sauce. I had eaten bullheads caught in creeks near home, but they didn’t taste or look at all like fish sticks. Food processing was minimal, so we ate seasonally fresh, frozen and canned foods.

See the side entry where we played Annie-I-Over?

In my eyes the playground was immense! There was a big swing set, teeter-totters and my first Slide! I learned new games that I’d never played before. There was Hopscotch, 4 Square, and jump rope. The building had two entrances leading to the basement that had been added on to the sides, in addition to the main entrance at the front. We used them for playing Annie-I-Over. They were about 8 feet high and projected out from the side of the building about 10 feet. They weren’t as good as the horse shed at Sunbeam because there was only one side to race around, but they were sufficient.

We had morning and afternoon recesses, in addition to noon. At noon we lined up and marched across the hall into the lunch room for our meal. In the afternoon before recess, we marched in again for a glass of milk. At the end of a recess, the big iron bell rang and we ran to the front sidewalk to line up to go back into our classrooms. There were plenty of arguments, pushing and shoving about who got to be next to who in the line. “Backs” were ruled out, (Letting a friend get in line behind you, and in front of other students.), but “fronts” were allowed. (Letting them get in front of you and everyone else behind you.)

In November 1963 I was a 5th grader in a class on the upper floor of SLGS, with Mr. Ufen. Our principal, Mr. Bride, came rushing in. Mr. Bride did not knock and looked like something was wrong. Us students were very silent as he whispered to Mr. Ufen. We could tell by their expressions that something very serious had happened. Mr. Bride quickly departed again, while Mr. Ufen faced us. I don’t remember his exact words, but he told us President Kennedy had been shot and killed. It was very difficult to understand. To us presidents were no more real than the portraits of Washington and Lincoln that hung on our walls. We didn’t know what it all meant at the time. We sat in stunned silence, along with Mr. Ufen.

About 1965 or ‘66, SLGS hired a teacher named Mr. Darrell Brown. I’m not sure what he taught, but he coached the boys basketball team. (That was the only sport we had.) He seemed to genuinely like us, and there were some girls, including me, who began to pester him about creating and coaching a girls’ basketball team. There were no sports at all for girls in central South Dakota in the 1960s. Title IX mandated equal opportunities for female athletes, but it was not passed until 1972. 

"On St. Lawrence, on St. Lawrence, 

fight, fight on to fame!

Take the ball right down the floor

and make a basket - U - rah - rah - rah!!!"

(To the tune of "On Wisconsin.")

Mr. Brown did agree to coach us, and we played five games against other local grade schools. We won every game for an undefeated season! (In one game I scored 24 points, an amount I managed to tie once in my college basketball career, but never surpass.) The only part we all objected to was the little skirts that were our uniform. Ick!

Yup, this is what our uniforms looked like.

 There were grade school graduation ceremonies in the 1960s. It was not unusual for rural adults of that time to lack a high school diploma, so completing grade school was an occasion to mark.

Kay graduated from SLGS in 1964, Jimmy in 1965, and me in 1967. The commencement was held in the school gymnasium. The girls wore their best dresses and shoes while the boys wore good shirts and slacks. Parents, grandparents, and siblings attended. I imagine there were speakers and prayers, followed by the 8th graders receiving their diplomas.

Terry started at SLGS in 1964, but I rarely saw him. We did not have recesses or meals at the same time and my classes were on the top floor while his were on the bottom, so I can't speak of his experiences. Tammy and Jill also attended SLGS through the 8th grade.

The school closed in the 1980s and was used for private purposes. In 2010 one of the tenants caused a fire which burned the building to the ground. It was a fine place for a child’s education.

Young Citizens League

YCL was not a school in itself, but it was a Hand County Public Schools program. We participated while at Sunbeam and St. Lawrence.

This is a brief statement from the South Dakota historical website about YCL:
"With the goal of improving citizenship and character education in the elementary school child through learning by doing in the form of a school-based club, the Young Citizens League (YCL) appeared in rural South Dakota early in the twentieth century."

There were competitions of various kinds encompassing art, recitations, knowledge and athletics. Part of every school district’s mission was to help promote good citizenship and active participants.  It was the heart of the Cold War, and the adults and schools took their mission seriously. I learned the South Dakota state song in grade school. The title is “Hail, South Dakota.”

“Hail South Dakota, 

the best state in the land,

Health, wealth and beauty, 

that’s what makes her grand.

She has her Black Hills, 

and gold mines oh so rare.

Hail South Dakota, 

no state can compare.”

YCL Day in the last week before summer was a day off from school. We got to go to Miller play and with other children. Students from all the country schools in the county participated. Our drawings, stories, and projects were displayed along with the ribbons we won. There were foot races, jumping contests, and throwing competitions for the children. The one I remember best is the softball throw. (It was called kittenball then.) I won sometimes. My drawings did well too.

Miller High School Rustlers

Going to the Big High School in the Big Town of Miller, population 2000, was even more intimidating to me than St. Lawrence Grade School. There were a lot of kids I didn’t know from all over the county. I especially found the town kids to be intimidating. They had so much money! And clothes! And the girls were so pretty.

There were 100 students in my class. That was jaw-dropping to me. Kay and Jim had friends and routines and knew their way around. They weren’t interested in being bothered by a goofy little sister, so I was on my own. I clung to my grade school chums, especially Sue Borkhuis. I became friends with Ginger Herman too.

Kay, Jim and I drove together to school in 1966-67. That year Kay was a senior, Jim was a junior, and I was a freshman. We fought over the car, especially Kay and Jim. Who gets to drive? What are we going to do after school? Jim always wanted to go straight home so he could get to work. Neither Kay nor I did, but we usually lost that argument. Mom and Dad supported Jim’s efforts to earn money over our desire to “Cruise Main.”

The building was the biggest I’d ever been in, with three floors of classrooms. The gymnasium, the National Guard Armory, was several blocks away. I had a locker in hallway, and the necessary combination for the lock. I’d never had either before. I didn’t have my own desk or classroom. I had to walk from class to class every period, within a too limited period of time. At first I sometimes got lost, and believed everyone was laughing at me when I finally found my way into the correct room - after the tardy bell had rung.

The food was terrible! We had to leave the school and walk across the street to a house which had been converted into a lunch room. While everything at St. Lawrence had been contained in one building, here we had to leave the school to eat and for physical education classes.

I started high school in the fall of 1967. At that time girls still had to wear skirts or dresses to school, regardless of weather. Yes, really. I didn’t like to wear such clothes because they felt too constricting and limiting and uncomfortable. Females also wore girdles or garter belts to hook our stockings to. I’m so glad those times have passed! I was lucky that culottes were popular then.

Culottes were the like big, loose shorts that men wear in the early 2000s. Gramma would have called them bloomers because they were very similar to what she wore in the early 1900s. Culottes were decently comfortable and girdles were slowly fading away as proper clothing for a woman or girl.

I took Home Economics class, also known as Home Ec. Boys took Shop. There was no overlap, or I might have been in shop class. I didn’t want to take Home Ec because I wasn’t interested in any of that cooking and sewing stuff.  However, there were few other choices and Mom encouraged me to try at least one year of it. Ugh.

 I remember learning how to “pull a thread” to get a straight line for cutting. I remember Barb Robertson cooking Welsh Rarebit. I think it was cheese sauce on top of crushed crackers. Really. I remember that Sandy Gerdes had the perfect oval face. We learned about makeup and face shapes, accessorizing, sitting and standing correctly.We had to do things exactly right so that we would become “ladies”.  I think it’s fair to say that I disliked pretty much every minute of it. After fulfilling my part of the agreement with Mom about Home Ec, I never darkened the door of that classroom again.

Kay always made the “B Honor Roll”, and frequently the “A Honor Roll.” She was smart and studied hard. Kay also participated in Declamation contests, known as Declam, about public speaking. There were contests among schools in the categories of Humor, Poetry, Dramatic Reading and others. She was  successful in that.

Kay was also a good singer, and participated in various permutations of choir. She acted in school plays. Kay was a very gifted, talented and intelligent individual.

Jim was a mediocre student, though he did work at it. He took the usual boy classes, like shop. He built a sewing cabinet for Mom. Sewing cabinets were popular at the time, and Mom needed one. It was a wooden box on legs, with a movable section on top. He attached Mom’s sewing machine to that movable section. The machine could be tipped up and used, or turned down, the lid closed, and a solid surface for other purposes revealed. Mom was pleased to have it.

Jim was not a good reader. Mom blamed that on the fact that when he was a grade schooler learning to read, phonics was not in vogue so he didn’t learn that way. Reading is so essential to school that he did struggle, though he was smart enough.

Jim didn’t participate in extra-curricular activities because he was focused on earning money through work. He worked for a neighboring farmer, Adolph Mast, after school and in the summer. One year, maybe when he was a senior, Jim did try out for track and football, but decided he’d rather use the time earning a paycheck.

I wanted to play everything all the time. I couldn’t. Title IX mandated that any school on any level that received government funding, had to offer equal opportunities to girls in everything, including athletics. It was passed in 1972. I graduated in 1971.

An English class included a debate by students on whether or not girls ought to be allowed to participate in school sports. Really. It was serious topic in those times. There were questions about girls’ proper place and the ability of the feminine body to withstand hard workouts. Really.

There were intramural opportunities, and a cadre of girls who wanted to play games. We were lucky enough to have a teacher who organized a basketball tournament for us. It was 3 on 3, and my team got second and a small trophy.

We had a track team in the spring of 1970 and 1971. That was my first school sports team. We had uniforms, practices, a paid coach, bus trips to track meets in other schools. It all felt incredible to me.

 I threw things, most notably, shotput. For several years I held the school record. The longest race girls were allowed to run was 440 yards. (We weren’t using the metric system for track yet.) The men in charge of sports in South Dakota were afraid longer distances might hurt us. (The men running the Olympics said the same about a women’s marathon until 1984.)

I earned my way to two state track meets, though I did not receive a medal in either one. There were two big, strong girls who always finished one - two. The winner was Mary Pat Liepelt, from a small, southeastern SD town. And Deb Ackerman, from Mitchell. They both grunted as they threw, especially Mary Pat. She was a mountain of a girl who seemed mean and was definitely intimidating. She scared me. Deb A. was nice girl and a skilled thrower.

I had two years of high school without Jim or Kay. I eagerly anticipated Jim’s graduation, because I knew that I had the car to myself! I could drive myself to school, and do what I wanted, within reason, after school. I thoroughly enjoyed that freedom.

I was a good enough student. I usually made the “B Honor Roll.” I didn’t study all that hard, and any math class mystified me. I was never able to really understand how that number stuff  worked. I did take two math classes though, because I wanted to go to college. In the early 1970s colleges in SD did not require every student to take math classes. If I took two math classes in high school, I could avoid them in college. I felt that I had a better chance of surviving a couple of high school math classes. I didn’t think I’d have a chance in college.

I took Algebra I and then Geometry. I worked harder at those classes than anything else. I studied, I did my homework, I asked questions in class. I just couldn’t get it. I got As and Bs in other classes, on considerably less effort. I got a C in Algebra I, and a D in Geometry. It was enough. I had passed them and wouldn’t have to take math in college. Yippee!!

As time went on and I became more comfortable at MHS, I goofed off more. In my senior year I skipped more classes and got to spend some time out of school, especially on spring afternoons. Still, high school was not a really pleasant experience for me. I always felt as if I was on the outside looking in at people who were having a good time that I was not a part of. I have not attended a high school reunion, and don’t feel an urge to. That’s okay.

I got my diploma from Miller High in May, 1971. Terry started in August, 1971. Tammy and Jill followed later. All six of us are Miller High School grads. Mom and Dad both graduated from Miller High School, same building, in 1946. It was our high school.

The old building was torn down in 1995, replaced by a new, safer school. Nothing looks the same there now, and that's as it should be.