SCHOOL DAYS

I never went to kindergarten, I started right in at first grade. I was living on Stevens Street so I went to Harbor School. My father did not want me to go to an "inner city" school. Can you imagine back then there would be an inner city school. A vaguely remember first grade I liked school very much. Sometime between the first and the fourth grade the music teacher told my mother that I could not sing. I simply could not make nice music with my voice. I was a good little student.

When we moved to Chester Street I went to Mt. Pleasant. The principal was an old classmate and friend of my mother which made a little difference in the attention I got. I was frequently called "the little Holt girl". In elementary school they would weigh and measure us and I would always get a blue card that would say I was underweight. Then my mother would have to take me to the doctor who would report that she can not grow two ways at once and right now she is growing tall. The principal lived in Hudson and came to school by horse and buggy. The horse would be tied up in the school yard all day. At that time the school yard was quite rural. On the last day of sixth grade I got to ring the bell for the last time and then they tore the school down and built a new one on the same site.

The next years are mixed up in my mind. I think I was sick quite a lot during those years so I missed a lot of school but I was bright enough so I didn't have to stay back. I had a teacher named Ola Dunlap who was a cousin of my father.

I liked high school, yet again there were teachers that knew my parents. I was a good student but nothing unusual. My favorite class was German. It was a very easy language for me to understand. I also enjoyed physics. I would take an advanced class after school. Partly for the physics and partly for the male teacher who taught it. In my senior year, the members of the senior class all wore purple and white capes for assemblies. I can remember going to football games at the stadium. I think my high school was on Spring Street but a lot of things have slipped my mind so I am not sure. I was a writer for the Tattler Magazine and I also helped write the class will. I can remember some sort of guidance counselor.

Most of the time I was in school, I went home for dinner. School got out at noon and we went back at two. I think towards the end of my education they started providing lunch at school for children who had no other means of getting food. I always walked to school except when I was in high school my father would sometimes let me drive the old Ford car. I would pick up some friends to ride with me. I would pick up the judges daughter and some other friends.