Some One-room school history...
Ms. Zena Alexander was a teacher in many of the one-room schools around Montgomery County during her forty-eight years of teaching, thirty-two of which she spent in Montgomery county.
She started teaching at the Sulphur Springs School in the 1903-04 season, she was 17. Many of her students were older and larger than she was. Zena was known to be very strict, and when she told you something she meant it.
Zena was born in 1886, at Black Springs, Arkansas to Judge Isaac and Martha Ann (Timms) Awtrey. She married Carmon E. Alexander, also a teacher, on Oct. 1, 1910. During the years Ms. Zena taught almost every child in southern Montgomery county. She later taught their children and grandchildren. She loved teaching, or as she once said, “It was all I knew”.
During the days of one-room schoolhouses, like the Manfred school shown above, they dotted the landscape every three or four miles. This was considered about as far as the smaller children could walk to school, and nearly all of them did walk. They went to school mostly in
the hot summer months, after the crops were “laid by” and there wasn’t as much work to do around the farm. Every child, even the youngest, had chores to do and school came second.
A school day usually started with an early rising, a quick breakfast of leftovers from the night before or a bowl of hot mush, oatmeal, or grits. One might be lucky enough to have a hot biscuit to go with it, but more than likely it was a cold biscuit. Not much thought was given to bathing, hair combing, and other modern grooming habits. The bathroom consisted of a one or two “holer” at the back of the house or school, and to wash up one used the water bucket, dipper--likely made of a dried gourd--and a enamel or metal washpan. These all set on the back or front porch and were shared by the entire family, as water had to be carried from a nearby creek or, if one was fortunate, from a well or spring close to the house.
After all the “doings” were over with, the children started off to school, usually while it was still dark or near dark. Once they arrive the girls and boys separated and each joined their friends for a game of some sort. However, more often they arrived just in time to take their seats, boys on one side and girls on the other. Some designated boy, or the teacher, had already built a fire in a wood heater if it was a cold morning.
The school day started with a song, Bible verse, Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and a prayer--in no particular order, but the same order each day. Then lessons “commenced” and the class, which held from first to eighth grades, was broken into groups. One class was called to the front for study--say the first grade readers (which might include children much older than five or six. ) Sometime during the day the teacher covered the subjects of “Readin, ‘Ritin, and ‘Rithmatic or the three “Rs” as they were called. There was also a period for “reciting” and a front bench was reserved for students while they waited their turn to recite for the teacher.
At noon the children took out their lunch box, which usually consisted of an old metal lard or syrup can and contained something like a cold biscuit and sausage, cold baked sweet potato, fried pie, piece of fruit (in season) or whatever had been left from last night’s dinner that could be sent to school in a lunch pail. There were no school lunches back in those days. One ingenious teacher at Sulphur Springs School, Ms. Lora Carpenter, would bring a large iron pot each day and in it she would put water and whatever she had brought from home, a piece of bacon, slab of cured ham, or piece of chicken or some vegetable. She sent notes home and asked each child to bring some type of vegetable, like carrots, onion, potatoes; and one family always sent a jar of home-canned tomatoes. Added to the pot, and allowed to simmer all morning on the stove, the children had a good hot lunch. This may have been the first “cafeteria” in the county.
There was also one or two recesses during the day. All the children had recess at one time, not by grades as they do today. After all, there was only one teacher, so they couldn’t be left on the playground alone. During these few minutes the kids played various games and took time to use the “outhouse” and get a drink of water. In the later years, each child was taught to fold a paper cup which they used for drinking. Some students had a metal cup or a collapsable cup and at times they went to the spring or well to get water. At Black Springs (a two room school) there was a large ceramic crock which held water and set on the front entry porch to the school. It was filled from the nearby spring for which the town took its name. The spring had large black rocks in it. The water was cold, clear, and clean.
Shirley Shewmake Manning