Hanging Out with Grandpat in the Fourth Grade

Letters to my Grands:  

Fourth Grade at Lattimore Elementary School

Miss Lyda Poston, a tall and lanky woman who had once played basketball in high school was the, shall I say, notorious fourth-grade teacher.  She was well-loved even though she was known as a rather strict disciplinarian. Over each of the two doors that one would enter or exit the room was a chinning bar, and each time a student passed through the door, she would have to chin.  Even going out for lunch or recess, we had to line up and each person would chin and then go through the door.  We could do it pretty fast after a few weeks of practice.

 

Miss Poston's coupe except it didn't have white-walled tires. 

Miss Poston drove a black coupe with a rumble seat in which she would arrive each morning.  I often wondered how she with her long legs could fit into that car.  How I hoped that one day I would miss my bus and Miss Poston would have to take me home.  “Please may I ride in the rumble seat, Miss Poston?” Never happened.

Geography was introduced as a subject in fourth grade and we had a book devoted just to geography.  The one thing I remember was we studied the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and Mesopotamia the Fertile Crescent that lay between those two rivers.  We even put on a program in the auditorium of the high school where we were dressed as Arabs and we ate dates.  I had never eaten dates before, and as a fourth-grader, I did NOT like them.  (I like them very much now.) When the Iraq war happened and I read about the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers it reminded me of my fourth-grade geography class.

Polio was running rampant during the 1940s, and President Roosevelt himself had polio.  He started a campaign to raise money for research into finding a vaccine for polio.  He figured that even during the depression anyone could afford a dime.  At school, we were given little cards, with slots for placing dimes, and we would collect as many as we could.  I would get a few from my Daddy, and maybe one from Grandma and maybe one or two from Aunt Emma. I would always try to fill up the card before I turned it into the teacher.  These would be mailed to the March of Dimes headquarters.

 My little sister, Martha, entered the first grade this year, and she was assigned to a teacher that I thought was not the best teacher. So every morning I would take her to the other classroom and would tell her to stay there in Miss Magness’s room.  Of course every morning she would be taken back to the room to which she was assigned.  For some reason, I thought Miss Magness was the better teacher and I wanted Martha to be in her classroom.  Finally, I saw that she would not be in Miss Magness’s room so I gave up.

 Martha was very unhappy with school during the first days and because her room was diagonal across from my fourth-grade class, frequently her teacher would come to get me to go sit with Martha when she was upset.  I hated that.  First of all, I did not want to miss what was going in my classroom.  Secondly, I had outgrown the small chairs that were used in the first grades and it was very uncomfortable for me to sit there.   Finally, she became accustomed to school and I was relieved of my duty as a big sister comforter.

Grandpat Misbehaved in Second Grade

Dear Grands,  The last letter I wrote about school I was finishing first grade.  Now here is what I can remember about my second and third grades. 

Aerobics with Miss Nina in the Second Grade

Second grade found me in the room of Mrs. Nina Toms, known affectionately as Miss Nina, although she was a Mrs. Nina.  What stands out most of my memory of second grade was what perfect posture Miss Nina had.  She always stood up very straight and urged us to do so as well.  In fact, every day we did a regimen of a sort of calisthenics where she had us stand up and go through different exercises.  One exercise required that we stand up on our toes and reach for the ceiling, and we would take deep breaths and exhale.  She was way ahead of her time in that respect.  Second graders doing aerobics in 1944-45, perhaps unprecedented!  This was in addition to our recess which was held outdoors.  There should be more of this in the classrooms of second graders today IMHO.

She was a rather strict teacher, and if someone misbehaved she would make them go to the blackboard and draw a circle a bit higher than their head on the board, and then the naughty child would have to stand on tiptoes and keep his nose in the circle.  Maybe that was why she had us doing exercises every day. I watched jealously as I saw my classmates, mainly boys, going to the board for this “activity”. I was usually a very obedient and polite child, but once I thought it might be fun to have to plant my nose in a circle on the blackboard.  So I deliberately did something for which I was chastised, and bingo I was up at the blackboard with my nose in a circle.  I would sometimes try to look around and face the class while still standing on tiptoes, but without my nose in the circle, obviously.  I giggled quietly and tried to get my classmates to giggle too.  I had to be quick, because as soon as I saw Miss Nina turning around towards me, back in the circle went my nose. I have to tell you standing on tiptoes and keeping your nose in a circle was not easy.  I didn’t misbehave again. 

Third Grade and Changing Classes: Not students but teachers

My first cousin, Virginia Greene, who was eighteen years older than I became one of my third-grade teachers.  I guess you would say she was my “homeroom teacher.”  She was a talented musician in voice and piano and had recently graduated from Meredith College and had studied at the Julliard School of Music in New York City.  Her father was my father’s oldest brother, and his family lived across the railroad tracks from our house, but in the summers when she was home I could sometimes hear Virginia going through her warm-ups for singing.  “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah”, and then a key higher “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah” and so on.  Then she would burst into song that carried beautifully through the air to where I was outside climbing trees or chasing butterflies.  Music was never a talent of mine. 

I had to call her Miss Greene, which seemed unnatural to me, since I had always called her Virginia.  She was actually hired as the music teacher for the school.  So off she would go to some other class to teach them music while their teacher would come to our room to teach us some subject.  I can’t remember all the teachers and what subjects they taught, but I remember the math teacher, I think a Mrs. Brown.  We were learning our multiplication tables and she would divide the class into two teams for arithmetic “baseball”.  The first person would go to “bat” and they would be given an arithmetic problem,  like 5 x 4.  If the student got it right she would move to first base, and this would continue until there were three misses (or outs) and the home scores would be tallied.  During that arithmetic class, we also learned to count money using play money we had made.  A “store” was set up in the room where we would be pretending to buy things.  Students had to take their turns as clerks and shoppers. 

In the spring of that year near the end of the school term, all the classes participated in a program out on the playground that parents could attend.  We third graders were Chinese and our Mamas made us little pajamas that resembled kimonos, and we had some kind of black   “rat” in our hair to resemble a Chinese hairstyle.  We performed some kind of dance and song.  

Love, GrandPat

April 7, 2020

Cleaning the Back Porch/Patio in Early April

To My Grands  
From Grandpat

Saturday, April 4, 2020

I’m trying to stay busy during the “stay at home” orders, because of the COVID, and I am certainly obeying orders.  As an 82-year-old I suppose I fall under the category ELDERLY, which makes me more susceptible than most to the virus.  You know our beloved long-time friend and biweekly housekeeper Bea has retired.  My friend, Boguska, who sometimes helps me is staying away per my request, so there are things I will have to do myself.  So be it. Now I have the time. 

With trees producing an unusually high amount of pollen this spring, the back porch and everything on it were covered in yellow. As you know our back porch is an open-air porch in a recessed area at the back door that is covered with a ceiling and the wide eave of the house. It is completely open to the outside. Every spring that porch needs a thorough cleaning! Rain early in the week washed away most of the pollen on the patio, but the porch remained covered in pollen. Since I prefer working outdoors to house cleaning indoors, I tackled the porch this week.

Cluttered back porch covered with pollen.

Move everything to the patio. 

Now isn't that spotless? That's Maggie's tail.

The weather prediction was for at least three sunny days with no rain.  That permitted me to transfer everything under the porch out on the patio so I would have three days to work on this project. How nice it would have been to have some or all of you helping.  I remember each of you helping around the yard from time to time when you were just young kids. Did I pay you? I can’t remember, but I always appreciated your help.

Open-air porch cleaned!!! Boguska and  I made each curtain from a painter's dropcloth some years ago, and should I have a backyard party, I can close them and hide things. The curtains need to be thrown in the washer.  On my bucket list. 

The area on the west of the patio where I stored the wood for the firepit which I no longer have, I also cleaned. I stored the tools where they belong. I gave all the wood away on Next Door Neighbor.  It was gone within 20 minutes of my posting. 

A messy pile of wood and tools on the west side of the back patio. 

Wood and tools gone. 

Tools stored like Dan would store them. 

The patio was next.  There were lots of male catkins from the Southern Red Oak in our backyard, so I swept and hosed that area off.  I also cleaned the Adirondack Chairs and put the bright green ones out in the side yard so I can sit under the dogwood tree there. Brunch under the umbrella is now possible since I've cleaned all the pollen off the table and chairs.

Oak catkins all over the back patio.  This is where much of the pollen came from. 

Chairs in my side yard where I can now sit under the dogwood tree. 

Table and chairs and umbrella up ready for an outside meal. I just noticed my outside speakers.  If I can remember how to turn them on to the stereo seat, I'll play some outside music, a little loud, and see if I get any response from my neighbors. 

I’ve attached a few pictures to show the before, after and a few of the steps in between.  Each day I devoted a couple or more thirty-minute sessions to the PROJECT!!!  Did I enjoy it?  Actually, I did and I think all the moving around has improved my balance.  I finished up today.  I estimate that I spent a total of 8 hours over the three day period.  Not bad for your 82-year-old Grandpat. I hope you will keep the photos so you can remember our backyard when you are old like me.  My grandmother had a lovely open-air front porch where I visited many, many times.  What I would give for a photo of that.  But I have a pretty clear memory in my mind of that porch. 

How I wish you could come to sit on the back porch with me now!!!  God willing you will be able to visit before it becomes covered with pollen again next season.  Love, love, love you, GrandPat

p.s. Dang, I worked hard!

Hanging Out with Grandpat in the 1948 Polio Epidemic

The front of the book that Martha authored with a photo of her and Gaston on the front. 

One of my friends asked if I would write about the polio epidemic of 1948, so here is the letter to my grands that describes what I remember about it.

 Letters to my Grandchildren:  

Summer of 1948 in Cleveland County, NC

In May of 1948, my classmates and I finished the fifth grade and were looking forward to a fun early summer before we returned to begin the sixth grade in mid-June.  However, the poliovirus changed that summer for us and changed one of my friend’s life forever.  My classmate, Martha Mason, contracted polio. *

I remember that summer we did not go to school, churches were closed and everyone was warned to pretty much stay at home.  For my sister, our friend Betty Jo, who lived next door, and me polio interrupted our summer very little.  We were out in the country where we played outside as we always had, but we did listen to a Sunday school lesson on Sunday mornings broadcast by WOHS, the local Shelby radio station, rather than going to Double Springs Baptist Church. My parents read the daily papers and commented on the many cases of polio that were occurring in the county, mainly children, and often there would be mention of a child dying. It really didn’t hit home to me, because these were children I did not know.   I don’t remember being frightened but I can imagine my parents and other parents were terrified of the epidemic (I don’t know if it was a pandemic then or not.)

Neither we nor my Grandma had telephones but received news through the newspapers or through the grapevine.  One Sunday my Aunt Frances who lived in the Pleasant Ridge community, closer to Lattimore, brought us very bad news via the grapevine. She had learned that my classmate, Martha Mason of Lattimore, had contracted polio and that her older brother Gaston had died from the disease. She knew that Martha was in a hospital, in Asheville I think, but she was not aware of how sick she was. Now that someone I knew, someone who was my friend had the disease, polio suddenly seemed real to me.  It was pretty sobering to eleven- year- old me.

Another event that occurred because of polio, perhaps the same summer of 1948, but it could have been during another outbreak, really scared my parents. We did not have a washing machine at the time, so whenever we had a load of dirty clothes (once or twice a week) Daddy on his way to work would drop these off with a lady who lived across from Eskridge Grove Baptist Church and who laundered our clothes.  The basket would be returned with the clothes clean, beautifully ironed and folded. Then one of her children contracted polio while a basket of our clothes was at her house.  When Daddy brought these home, although they were clean, ironed and folded, he built a big fire under a black wash pot that belonged to Grandma, filled the pot with water, and boiled them for a long time, before he would let us near them. (That washpot is now in my yard filled with pansies.) One of you will undoubtedly inherit it so please cherish it.)

The polio epidemic of 1948 is the only epidemic I experienced before this current 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.  I think many more people are going to die from this one.  Our state is now on lockdown where citizens are encouraged to “stay home”, and I am following those suggestions. 

Photo from the internet of some unknown patient, not Martha, but the iron lung is like the one she lived in.

*Martha not only survived, but she led a remarkable life despite being a quadriplegic and spending most of the rest of her life, she lived to her early 70s, in an iron lung.  She graduated from Lattimore High School, Gardner-Webb College, and Wake Forest University with honors (Phi Beta Kappa) and lived to write a book about her life.  I have several copies of her book so I think there will be one for each of you, and please read it. What an inspiration!

There will be more letters about my friendship with Martha.

Hanging Out With Grandpat in First Grade

Lattimore Elementary School in 1943 ( Copy of line drawing by Wilson Brooks). 

I've started writing letters to my grandchildren during this Covid 19 lockdown, and I find that I am actually enjoying looking back at my life.  I am writing somewhat chronologically, but if I think of something that's out of sequence that I simply must share I go ahead and write about it. This is the letter I sent them about my first grade.  Photographs of me at that age, I don't have here in Raleigh.

Patsy Goes to School

We lived out in the country, on Route 4, Shelby, NC to be exact.  Since most families in these parts were cotton farmers, school was a six weeks summer session to make up for the six weeks that school was out in October during the cotton-picking season where children provided much of the labor for gathering the cotton crop.  (More about picking cotton in a later letter.)

For some reason, Daddy had the task of taking me for orientation at the Lattimore Elementary School. Mama was probably home caring for my baby sister.  Lattimore was a village about six miles from our house whose school served a radius of several miles around the village including Route 4.   At the orientation,  I vaguely remember being in a room with other children (I was only five at the time, I would have been six the last of August and this was probably June.) and teachers were calling children up to the front for some purpose, maybe getting vaccinations.  According to Daddy, the teacher called out “Patricia”, and I just sat there.  I had never in my life been called Patricia, my nickname was Patsy and that was all I had ever been called. Daddy said he nudged me and said, “That’s you, Patsy.”  Daddy used to laugh and tell me that one of the teachers said, “Oh my goodness, there is one child that doesn’t even know her name.” 

I might not have known my name, but I knew a lot of things, as the teacher would soon learn. Our reading books were the Dick and Jane series.  Our teacher, Miss Dedmond, would flip over a large chart in the front of the room printed with big black letters “Dick” and then one that said “Jane”, “Sally”, “Spot”, “Puff” “See” “Run” ad finitum.  Then we would get little Dick and Jane books.  “See Dick.” next page “See Jane.” next page “See Dick Run” “See Jane run.” And eventually, there would be a short paragraph “Look Spot. Oh, look, look Spot. Look and see. Oh, see!” This was not the “look and see” method but “the look and say” method for learning to read back in the day, and I was bored. I apparently went through all the books she had so she sent me over to the right side of the room where I was to help some of my classmates who were having difficulty reading. (Guess I was destined to be a teacher from first grade.) 

Once I remember Miss Dedmond gave me a page out of a newspaper and I was to circle every word that I knew.  I was circling almost every word, and to show off, I walked up to the teacher and circled the word “agriculture” and asked, “Is this word agriculture?” We took two daily papers, The Shelby Daily Star and The Charlotte Observer, so I knew how to read newspapers.

Once my teacher loaned me a book that I could take home and read.  It was about a duck who gathered corn and who swam, and I was very proud of the opportunity to take the book home.  I read it to my parents, and then I remember running up to Grandpa Greene’s and reading him the book.  I adored my Grandpa Greene and I was so pleased to be able to read that book to him.

 At some point, each child was required to stand before the class and count to one hundred.  Of course, I knew how to count to one hundred, but I liked getting up before the class so when it would be my turn, I would count up to maybe forty-something and then deliberately miss, so I could get up the next day and count again.  Next day “fifty-six, fifty-eight?”  Sit back down. I did this for quite some time, but then I didn’t want to be the last one to accomplish this so one day I got up and rattled off the numbers just like I could have done all those times I missed.  I remember the prize for counting to a hundred without missing was a multicolored pencil.  One that looked as if it had been swirled around in a can of different color paints.

The lunchroom was on the basement floor of our three-story school.  I don’t remember eating in the lunchroom in the first grade, but I do remember taking my lunch in a metal lunch box with a thermos bottle for my drink.  My favorite sandwich was a tomato sandwich on white bread (the only kind we had) with mayonnaise and by lunch, it would be a bit soggy with that earthy aroma that only a soggy tomato sandwich gives off.  To this day, a soggy tomato sandwich still reminds me of first grade. In cold weather, Mama would mix sweetened coffee with milk about half and a half in my thermos, and I loved it. Guess that was my first latte.  But strangely enough, I never became a coffee drinker to this day.  (Beer, on the other hand, is a different story and a different letter.)

Before Christmas, Miss Dedmond challenged us to memorize the Bible verses Luke 2:8-14. “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch…..” The first student to master this would be given a Bible storybook.  I went home and told Mama and started practicing.  For days I would repeat the verses with Mama’s help and finally one day I went to school and told the teacher I had memorized the selection.  So I got up and said the whole thing with perhaps just a few mistakes.  I don’t remember any other student even trying.  I proudly went home with the Bible storybook.

At the arrival of cold weather, I got new shoes, brown oxford lace-ups with hard leather soles, especially the heel.  When I wore them to school and walked on the wooden floor of the classroom it sounded to me like the sound of my teacher’s or my mother’s high heel shoes.  I became very self-conscious about the sound of my shoes---I thought my classmates would think I was wearing high heeled shoes---so I learned to walk very carefully and softly so that my shoes would not make a clicking noise.  One day Mama picked me up from school before school was dismissed, and when I walked to the door to go out with her, I was walking as I usually did softly.  When we got out the door Mama asked, “Patsy what’s wrong with your legs or your feet?”  She later told me she thought I had developed a serious problem of some sort.  “Nothing,” I said.  “But you were walking funny*.” Then I told her I thought my shoes sounded like high heels.  She assured me that nobody would think I was wearing high heels.  After that, I stopped walking “funny.”

*walking funny:   someone who is walking in a way they normally don’t walk.

Actually, I remember first grade fondly, and I was especially fond of my teacher, Miss Dedmon. And that became the beginning of my life- long love of learning.