Secrets of the Sandhills
A Nebraska Sandhills Novel
Country Schools in the Sandhills
Learning the Essentials
Photo by Erik Johnson, Lincoln Nebraska erikjohnsonphotography.com
It was late afternoon on that peaceful November day. I was trekking through some unfamiliar dunes south of the Niobrara, half looking for deer, half searching for hidden treasure. Cresting a ridge in the windswept chops, I spied something odd in the blowout below. Four legs protruded from the bare sand. I stared at the aberration for a few seconds, trying to put whatever this was in the context of its surroundings. I was in the middle of a cow pasture on the edge of the immense Sandhills and in the middle of what most people call "nowhere." What could this possibly be? Curious, I climbed down into the blowout and traversed softly over to the unknown object. The legs were solidly attached to whatever was buried by the shifting sand. I set to digging it out with my hands and promptly had it extracted. It was the metal remains of a school desk. Now, my inquiring mind shifted into overdrive. How the heck did a school desk end up out here?
Thoughts of yesteryear and families that once inhabited the now barren thousands of square miles in rural America tend to hypnotize me. I get caught up in what was once children laughing and adults doing life in a simpler time. Pulling a school desk from the sand opened a whole new can of worms. It inspired me to dig deeper into our local history books.
Above is a beautiful camera capture of an old country school in western Cherry county. The closest towns are Hyannis, thirty miles to the south, and Merriman, thirty-seven miles north. One hundred-nine years ago when the locals built this school, travelling to town every day was not an option. If their children were to get public schooling they would have to entice a teacher to come here and live. Fifty dollars a month should do the trick.
When I drift past this old school in a boat, casting a spinnerbait along the smartweed for the elusive musky that supposedly roam this lake, I can almost hear children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance through the open windows. Horses would be tied to a hitching rack under the much younger cottonwood tree. A bell is hanging next to the door to beckon the students back to their seats after their noon recess which consisted of pump-pump-pull away and ante-over. One student would abstain from these games though, choosing rather to be down at the shoreline with a cane pole and worm. I snap out of my fantasy and steer the boat on.
Photo by Bert Downing
Teachers back then had to be tough. They usually boarded with a nearby family and either walked or rode to school by horse and buggy. On cold mornings they started a fire in the pot-belly stove with Hereford coal (cow chips), then carried water from a nearby hand pump or windmill for the students to drink. They all drank from a mutual ladle and water jar. The bathroom facility was a two-hole shanty out back. The teacher was the janitor, principle, secretary, disciplinarian, nurse, and counsellor. They earned their fifty dollars a month.
Most school districts back then wouldn't consider hiring married women because a pregnancy could wreck a school year. So this narrowed the prospective teachers down to men, who seldom applied for the job, and unmarried women. More often than not, the teacher was a young lady fresh out of high school with normal training. Some of these ladies even homesteaded while teaching and ended up with their own land. Like I said, they had to be tough back then.
The photo above was taken at Purdum in 1910. Notice that this school is made of sod walls and a sod covered roof. The teacher is on the left.
These are students at the Hecla school in Hooker County. The date of this photo is unknown.
This was a Blaine County horse-drawn school bus. The reins went through a hole in the front of the bus.
The 1928 photo above is of a Hooker County school consisting of two families. Chances are the students in these pictures have lived out their lives and have passed on by now. I wonder what kind of legacy each person leaves behind. Some probably fought in World War II. Some may have went on to be teachers and nurses. I'm sure that a few are still in the Sandhills carrying on the family ranch. Most became mothers and fathers to the next generation who thankfully, are still around to tell us the stories about the good old days and country schools.
