When our family moved from New
York City to Harwinton in 1939, my twin Louise and I attended
Center School. We loved our teacher “Miss Wheeler”
every year she taught us and when she left to be married
to become Mrs. Alva Reynolds, Mrs. Freda Fredsall taught
is our last two years and she gave us a great start especially
in algebra, which helped us have a love for the subject
in high school.
Our school had eight grades and was certainly a challenge
to two very shy girls! Now I can understand it was certainly
a challenge to our teacher too. Because some of the older
boys had to work on their farms during the fall and spring
seasons, some of them graduated when they became 16 and
it was from the eighth grade! They helped by keeping the
furnace full of wood in the cellar below the vent. Our
school had the only running water because our grandmother,
Mrs. Roger Dennett, had a pipe installed from a well on
her property to a tap for drinking water at the school.
We had an outhouse below the school that you could use
during school by raising you hand and being excused for
a dash outside. I remember on Halloween nights it was
always tipped over.
Everyone walked back and forth to school and sometimes
we would walk to another school for a softball game after
school.
We have some happy memories of friends and experiences
of our years at Center School
