Hanging out in the Seventh Grade

Dear Grands,

May 1, 2020

Back to my school days.  In the school year, 1949-50, I had turned 12 and was in the seventh grade at Lattimore School and our room was in the basement of the high school building just as when we were in the sixth grade.  Mrs. Hugh Harrill, a preacher’s wife, was our teacher. 

One thing that stands out in my mind is how we would have reading class.  Students would have to take turns reading in the order of how we were seated, and the teacher would call our name when it was our turn to read.  It seems that my row was the last row and I had to listen while most of the others read in their turn. I would read much faster and would go ahead and read further along, but I also had to be sure I knew where we were as a class so that when it became my turn I would be in the correct place. Today this seems more frustrating to me than it did at the time.  If we were called on to read and didn’t know where in the story we should begin reading, the teacher was not happy.  I wonder if I remembered anything about the reading lesson of the day. Despite that awkward way of reading, I never gave up my love of reading. 

Back in the day, perhaps it is still the case, 12 and 13 year-old girls formed little cliques.  There were five of us that usually hung out together and would go spend the nights with each other on occasion.  For some reason, our clique often had someone in our little group that we would decide to shun.  I was occasionally the odd man out in our group, but there was one girl that we regularly shunned.  I will call her “J”.  J would get very upset and hurt and would cry so that once when we were shunning J, our teacher called the others in the clique in during recess, one by one,  and scolded us and Mrs. Harrill would sometimes cry she was so upset about how were acting.  I think maybe she would read a passage from the Bible to us.  Looking back, I think that was the only time I can remember being mean to someone, and I so regret it.  By the time we were in high school, we were no longer forming cliques and J was one of the more popular girls in the class. 

Martha Mason, my friend who had polio, returned home that year spending most of her time in an iron lung.  She had missed the sixth grade while she was hospitalized, so after she was back the teachers would go to her house (she lived near the school) and teach her.  Sometimes I and some others would go visit her and she could be out of the iron lung and be on her bed for a short time as we visited.  I recall she was always cheerful and interested in what we were doing.