I’ve been working on my New Years Resolution. You should be very proud of me – it’s only taken me till the 27th of January to get started on it. I picked just one resolution this year because it’s a big one and it will probably take me at least 37 years, 5 months and 13 days to accomplish it.
I have vowed to organized every last photo in our house!
I know – insanity runs rampant in my family but I have resolved to do this so I must get started.
I decided it would be smart to start with the old photos – we have a lot of them – some from my side of the family and a bunch from my husbands’ family. When my father-in-law passed away a couple of years ago we ended up with 6 VERY LARGE boxes of photos, newspaper clippings and a variety of other documents that desperately need to be preserved so being the overachiever that I am I decided the best thing to do would be to scan them and make CDs for my hubbys’ brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, 2nd cousins twice removed and any neighbors and total strangers who want one.
I can be so ‘Martha’ sometimes.
But tonight, before I even looked into the first box of my husbands’ family photos I found this one in my grandmothers’ old photo album.
This is the Meyer School. It is where my grandmother – Lulu taught before she got married. It was 6 miles from Huron, SD and these are the children who went to school there in 1934 – 1935 (at least that’s what it says on the back). Since I was born in 1961 I don’t think I know any of these kids but I do know the school. It was called the Meyer School because the Meyer family lived right across the road from it and I would bet real money they had a lot to do with building it. This is where Lulu was teaching when she met my grandfather, Russell. He was very handsome and he drove the horse-drawn road grader pulled by his team of horses back and forth in front of the school. I’ve heard he spent a lot of time grading the road in front of the school. In fact someone once mentioned that he just about wore that stretch of road out in front of the school. I’m sure it was just because he took his job very, very seriously and that stretch of road must have needed work very, very badly.
Yeah – I’m sure that’s why he did it.
Here’s a photo of Grandpa Russell and Grandma Lulu on a date.
Someone wrote on the back of the photo: “Russell and his girl taking in his rye field.”
Exciting, isn’t it? Grandpa really knew how to show a girl a good time.
“My, what nice rye you have, Russell… It’s really… tall. Can we go now?”
Look at her. She’s just about to throw her arms around his neck, kiss him passionately and roll around in that field of rye with him – isn’t she?
OK – Maybe not.
But Grandma married him anyway and she moved to the sod house at the farm 1 mile from the school. My Uncle Don and my father, Jim were raised there and eventually both were students at the Meyer School. They married nice, young gals and raised their families next door to the home place (also 1 mile from the school). My brother, sister and I grew up on the farm and when we got old enough to go to 1st grade this is where we went too.
I only went to country school for 2 years but I have some vivid memories of it.
My cousins were students there too along with the kids from several families near by but there were only 2 kids in my grade – a boy named Roger and myself. He was weird.
We didn’t have running water just a cooler that was filled every day and placed on a table in the small coat room just inside the door. It was cool.
Because there wasn’t running water we had 2 outhouses out back – one for the boys and one for the girls. They were cool too – especially in the winter.
One day I went to the outhouse and found a huge garter snake stretched out and soaking up the sunshine in front of the door. I just about peed my pants right then and there. I ran back inside and told our teacher who quickly sent my big, strong and incredibly brave cousin, Marla (with a baseball bat in hand) out to take care of the snake. The poor little snake must have been just as scared as I was because he disappeared before we got back.
We played lots of baseball during recess and rode the merry-go-round and swings too. And we would take turns ringing the bell when it was time to come in.
I distinctly remember a Christmas program where I had to recite a poem. I was scared spit less but got through it without too many prompts from our teacher. If I remember right.
I hadn’t thought about that for a long time. Isn’t it great how old photos can bring back all those memories?
Unfortunately, I now realize I’ve just spent the last 2 hours reminiscing and have only scanned 2 photos.
Damn.
I guess you better add a couple more years onto my timeline for this years’ resolution. Help me Martha!!!
RanchDaze 