Mamie and Ellen--Two Special Country Teachers

Can you imagine being a rural school teacher in Wisconsin in 1920 and having to agree to not ride in a carriage or an automobile with any man except your brother or father? You shouldn’t consider leaving town without getting permission of the chairman of the trustees either.  And, of course you wouldn’t even think of getting married; it would nullify your contract.  If you considered leaving your home between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., it had better be because of a school function.  It would also be a good idea to wear two petticoats if you wanted to keep your job, and your dresses needed to be no more than two inches above your ankles. And here’s the “topper”—loitering in ice cream shops was totally discouraged. I would have had a hard time with that.

Those teaching restrictions seem unbelievable today, but they were the “norm” in the early 1900’s.  Recently I had the opportunity to visit Reed School, a rural school outside of Neillsville, Wisconsin.  My Aunt Ellen taught there for several years in the early 1920’s and earned about $75 a month.  Today children from the surrounding area have an opportunity to visit and spend a day there as a student from that era.  During the summer the school serves as a part-time museum.  It was fascinating to learn about the changes it had gone through during its 36-year existence, from 1915 through 1951.  It closed because there were fewer than 10 students. I came away from that experience wanting to learn more about rural schools in my home state during the early part of the 1900’s.

Because my grandmother Mamie had also been a rural school teacher in 1900, I went out on a discovery mission.  What I learned was that she became a teacher at age 17.  I was astounded that she could be a teacher with a minimal education of her own.  There were county teacher institutes where young women could learn in a short time what was needed to become a teacher, and it wasn’t expensive—just a few dollars, which most women could afford.  These institutes were not run by professionals, but the prospective teachers learned to teach arithmetic drills, grammar, reading, spelling, human anatomy, and various other subjects.  I was excited to obtain a copy of my grandmother’s scores in various fields of study.  I studied a little information myself—she did well in orthoepy, a Greek word emphasizing the study of the way words are pronounced, and orthography, the study of correct spelling and how letters are arranged.  That had been part of her testing as well.  As a teacher she earned a little less than $40 for three months in 1900.  Most of the teachers in rural schools were women because men had more career choices. If men did become teachers in rural schools, they were paid substantially more.  Many women teachers lived in areas away from their homes and stayed with farm families.  Some of them wrote about experiencing loneliness and homesickness.  Often pupils were not able to attend school because they needed to work on the farm, and at times there was a great deal of sickness.  Despite all this, by 1900 illiteracy was dramatically reduced in Wisconsin, as well as other Midwestern states.  Teachers were expected to be role models for their students, and most of them lived up to those expectations.

I discovered that my grandmother had taught at Merry Vale School in the Town of York, near Granton, Wisconsin.  She had 54 pupils in 1901-02, but within three years the enrollment had dropped to 35 students.  I don’t know about all of her responsibilities, but often teachers were required to build a fire early in the morning.  Teachers often acted as janitors, including scrubbing the floors.  I was surprised to learn that teachers even used Sears Roebuck catalogues to enhance reading and math skills.  Of course there were plenty of fun activities as well—box socials, Halloween and Christmas programs, Thanksgiving dinners, picnics, which included ball games between pupils and parents, and reading and spelling contests.  There was even a bit of square dancing. 

I feel exceptionally lucky to have learned more about the early teachers in my family.  I never saw them in the classroom, but I remember them as gentle, kind, dedicated women.  My grandmother’s school bell still sits on a ledge in my room, as well as the old country phone that she used.  Call me sentimental and a bit old-fashioned, but I could easily jump back in time and fit right in, at least for a day.