Only one day at Harwinton Center
School from 1940 – 1948 as I lived it.
It is 8:30 a.m. and myself and my sister Pauline, my two
brothers, Martin and John, our neighbors, the Connors
kids, Joy, Kenneth, Peter and Larry are all bundled up
and starting out to walk about a mile and a half, on this
cold, drizzly day to school. On our way we meet up with
Judy and Marilyn Poole, the Easton twins Virginia and
Louise, their brother Danny. Down Center Hill we go. I
know I will be able to warm up in school because I see
smoke rolling low across the road at the foot of the hill.
Genevieve Schmitt, who is in my grade, has the job to
get to school about six o’clock and make the wood
fire in the furnace. I have a clothes hook in the entry
room and a space for my lunch box on the shelf with everyone
else. Just as I enter the classroom my teacher greets
me with a good morning and allowed me to stand on the
grate of the furnace to warm up.
As the assignments for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades
ere written on the black-board, I take my seat and study
for my book report while I listen to the teacher as she
teaches the two little first grade students how to read
the Dick and Jane book.
The spelling words the first grade had to learn today
were taken from the reading lesson and were written on
the board. Every day the teacher had each grade, one at
a time, sit on a bench up in front of the classroom with
her and do their lessons. After she finished with the
reading and spelling lessons it was about time for recess.
We all had to go out and play for the fifteen minutes.
Some of the games were for all grades and some were group
games. The little students played, ring around the Rosie
or London bridges falling down, tag and many other games
with a ball or race games to keep them warm and moving
if it was cold. Today, because it is so cold I am happy
to play Prisoners base, a fast moving game. The schoolyard
has a line drawn in the dirt by a stick to divide it in
half. The half towards the road has a telephone pole up
next to the road that is the prison where you must go
if you were tagged and touched by one of the other team
members, some of the team members are guards by the pole
to make sure you don't take the chance to run all the
way back across the line to your side and be free. If
a team member from your side can get all the way through
the guards and touch you while you are in prison you can
be free to go back to your team. The other prison base
was a fence pole of Mr. Capell's that was the border of
the school property and Mr. Capell's field that we were
never allowed to venture into because that was sure to
get you some after school time. The team with the most
students in prison when recess was over was the winner.
The teacher just rang the bell, recess is over, and we
lost. Back into my seat, now it is time for math and the
teacher has each grade, from the first to the fifth, one
at a time up front doing adding and subtracting examples
on the blackboard. I have my timetables to study and write.
The teacher will come to each one of us before lunch and
check our morning work to help us or answer any questions
we might have. Lunch time is here and we all get our lunch
box and sit in our seats to eat because it is to cold
to eat outside today but nice days we can go outside for
lunch. Lunchtime is so great, we can chat and play games
if we have some time left. The bell just rang, lunch time
is over, now it is time for history and we have a bookcase
in the back of the class room with books if you want to
look something up or want to find information that you
can't find in your text book. The teacher is writing our
assignments for tomorrow on the blackboard and al the
lower grades are coloring and drawing and some are helping
each with math flash cards. I am doing a book report that
has to he turned. in Friday . I want to be a teacher just
like Miss Wheeler, She is getting married to Mr. Reynolds
and I hope she still will be my teacher. Now it is time
for our afternoon recess and play outside again, it is
warmer and we are going to play baseball. The teacher
is standing on the little porch, keeping an eye on all
twenty-four of us. The younger students are playing tag.
The teacher let a first grader ring the bell to let everyone
know it's time to go in. Back in my seat, I check my assignments
the teacher is writing on the board, I like to get a head
start for tomorrow. All my work for today is completed
and passed in, my duty for the week is to clap the chalk
erasers and wash the blackboards. Each week the teacher
will assign certain jobs to students such as clap the
chalk erasers and wash the black-boards, sweep the class-room
floor, sweep the entry room, wash out the water cooler,
empty waste baskets, go out and raise the flag on the
pole and take it down at the end of the school day and
fold it up carefully, every morning two students would
have the job of getting a pail of drinking water from
Mrs. Browns, whoa house was the other side of the bridge
and across the road, there were other jobs the teacher
had on her list also that would help keep the school running
smoothly. Now that all the students have done their jobs
and back to their seats we are dismissed for the day.
Just before our summer vacation we would have a very special
day called Field Day. This was a picnic that we would
have at a place where we could swim and play and have
a real cook out with hot dogs. Sometime we were able to
go to Mt. Tom if we had transportation. My mother and
other mothers would help with the transportation and be
a helper at the picnic with preparing the food and serving
it so they would be sure all the students had plenty to
eat. We also had some Field Days at Mrs. Brown's back
yard and we were able to swim in a little section of the
Lead Mine brook.
Another very special day was graduation day. We had ours
at the town hall on South road or the Congregational Church
on the corner of North road. We would decorate with fresh
mountain laural and other June flowers and make it look
so nice for the big night. All the parents would be there
for the program that was all planned by the teacher. The
students would be at their very best and do their part
to make the parents proud.
We also had special programs on holidays such as Christmas
when we would sing carols and put on a play about the
first Christmas. All the students took part and the parents
would come and we would serve cookies or some little snack
that was made by our parents. We always had a live Christmas
tree that the older boys would be allowed to go cut from
the woods. Each student would draw a name of another student
from a special box made by the teacher and would give
a gift on the day of our party. Each student would give
the teacher something and she would get each student a
gift such as pencils, note pad, color crayons and other
useful items for school.
