The year 1914 was a memorable year, not because it was the year of my birth, but because it was the year the "war to end all wars" was begun. Too young to recall the hardships of a people at war, I have, nevertheless, memories of the disciplines, sacrifices, and deep feelings of patriotism that resulted from a wartime environment. There is only one emotion that comes to mind that was directly related to the war: the anxiety of the possibility my father would be drafted. As the war ground on, the draft age escalated until my father, then age forty, was eligible to serve in the army. No one ever discussed with me the likelihood that he would become a soldier, but somehow I knew, and fear permeated my deepest feelings at age four. Relief came with the announcement in November, 1918, that the war was over. Dad and Mother were jubilant, and no one ever knew of my concern.
We lived on a farm seven miles west of Muskogee, Oklahoma. The war years taught everyone to conserve and to "make do." Our home continued to be a center of activity for teaching rural housewives how to use well whatever was available. String was an important item, and as I reached school age, one of my responsibilities was to wrap all used string into a ball.
School was one and one-half miles away, reached by walking US Route 62. Children took seriously the search for tinfoil along the road, much of it from discarded wrappers of chewing gum. Like the string, it was made into balls that were given to our parents when they reached the size of tennis balls. I have no idea what it was used for.
School was an exciting experience. Students varied in age from six to an occasional sixteen in grades one through eight, all in the same room. Beginners were not known as kindergartners, but were said to be "studying the chart." The chart was similar to newsprint on an easel with the lessons printed in large bold type. The first page was the "At Family." The challenge was to make words by placing a letter in front of "at" as in bat and cat, etc. I don’t recall when I learned the alphabet, but it was probably before I started to school, but I recall the thrill of realizing words could be built by using different combinations of letters.
School began at 9 A.M. and closed at 4 P.M. Weather permitting, we were not allowed in until the teacher rang a melodious brass bell to signal us to stop talking and to line up in front of the school steps...boys on the left, girls on the right. On command, the girls marched in first, followed by the boys. The girls marched to the "girls’ cloakroom" and the boys to the "boys’ cloakroom," which were nothing more than partially enclosed areas with hooks upon which coats or jackets could be hung.
School usually began near the first of September and ended on Memorial Day, May 3lst, but there was a two-week period in the fall that the school closed to allow many of the children to help pick cotton. The blackboards, made of slate, covered most of two walls. A fingernail drawn across one would send shivers up and down the spine. To "dust the erasers" was a privilege granted daily to the two most exemplary students of the day.