Chestnut Street School, Sharon Springs, NY
Audio Excerpts | Current Photo | Historic Picture

Interview Transcript: audio excerpts in italics

Speaker: Sylvia Lane

Background: Sylvia Lane was the last teacher to teach in the Chestnut Street School. She shares memories of being a teacher in a one-room school.

Interviewer: When did you teach at the Chestnut Street School?
Lane: I started teaching school in 1923, so it was the next year I taught at Chestnut Street.

Interviewer: For how many years?
Lane: Well, one year at that time. And then, the teacher who had been there, decided she wanted to come back. So they hired her and that's when I went to the reformed district and I stayed there for four years.

Interviewer: But you came back here.
Lane: Yes.

Interviewer: Then how long did you teach there?
Lane: One year.

Interviewer: How many different grades might you have at one time?
Lane: I would say five.

Interviewer: What did the children of one grade do while you were teaching a different grade?
Lane: Well, I would give them some things to do. Like, practice on their writing, because children sometimes couldn't write very well, we had what we call Palmer method writing that needed practice, then they would have lessons to do in arithmetic, and books to read, then I would ask them questions about what they read.

Interviewer: What subjects did you teach?
Lane: Writing, spelling, reading, geography, history.

Interviewer: What kind of school supplies did the children use?
Lane: They brought their own pencil and pad of paper.

Interviewer: What type of pen did they use?
Lane: They didn't use a pen, they used a pencil. There were no ball point pens then, and most desks had an ink well, but they weren't used too much because it causes too much trouble, cause it would spill all over their paper, and the pens they used had a very sharp point that you would put down unto the pad and it was not easy to write with. They used a pencil.

Interviewer: What were the pencils made out of?
Lane: I think they just brought their own pencil. Nothing much was given to children.

Interviewer: How did you use the blackboard?
Lane: I would put assignments with pages in history and things like that on the board so they would know that. Do sums and arithmetic. And it was used in history, if we were studying about George Washington, I would write that across the board and then maybe two or three things under it and then I would ask them to study it or find out the answers.

Interviewer: What time did school start in the morning?
Lane: School started at 9:00.

Interviewer: What time did school get out in the afternoon?
Lane: At 4:00.

Interviewer: Did the children have recess?
Lane: Yes. Usually from ten til ten minutes after, and three til ten minutes after.

Interviewer: Where did they have recess?
Lane: They would go outside and play in the schoolyard.

Interviewer: What games did they play during recess?
Lane: They played tag and they had races.

Interviewer: Where did you and the children eat lunch?
Lane: If it was nice, we might sit outdoors, there was no chairs or places to sit except on the ground. But I guess most of the time, at their desk.

Interviewer: What might a child have at lunch?
Lane: A sandwich, or apple.

Interviewer: What kind of lunch pail did the children have?
Lane: They had usually a tin pail that had a cover that fit down over the top of it. And a handle that went over the top. No one had a fancy lunch box like they do today.

Interviewer: How did the children get to school?
Lane: They walked.

Interviewer: How far did most of them live from school?
Lane: Some of them lived nearby, some of them a mile or more.

Interviewer: Where did you live when you taught at Chestnut Street?
Lane: The first year I taught, I lived on the farm which was East of Sharon Springs, and the second time I taught there, I lived where I do now.

Interviewer: How did you get to school?
Lane: I walked. When I taught at Chestnut Street the first time I lived on the farm with my parents and I drove a horse and I left it at the neighbors house.

Interviewer: Did you close school during bad weather?
Lane: No.

Bakkom: Did you have snow days like we do?
Lane: Yes. But we didn't ever not go.

Bakkom: How was the school heated?
Lane: There was a wood or coal stove. Sometimes in the fall we would use some wood but as the weather got colder, they had a coal fire. They emptied it out at night, and in the morning would start it up again.

Interviewer: Who was responsible for starting the fires?
Lane: Usually a neighbor.

Interviewer: Where was the winter coal kept?
Lane: I don't remember at Chestnut Street but where I went to school, there was a groove between the entrance stairs like here.

Interviewer: Who attended the stove during the day?
Lane: I did.

Interviewer: What did you do for drinking water?
Lane: We had a pail and two of the children would go to the neighbors, and the two of them together would carry the pail back. They used an outdoor pump with a handle and they would pump water in, then in the pail was put a dipper, and everyone drank out of the dipper.

Interviewer: What kinds of toilet facilities were there?
Lane: Well, just an outside room with a seat across.

Interviewer: Why are there two front doors to the school?
Lane: Well, I don't know, but it's just the way everything was in those days. And when I went to high school, at Cobleskill, it was the same thing. Boys went in one side, and the girls in the other, and it was just something that people thought was appropriate I guess.

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