Roger’s Remembrances

Northside was a grade school located at Ninth and Maple just two and a half blocks west of 506. My Aunt Ethel was principal, which prompted the question many times from schoolmates, “Is Miss Botkin REALLY your aunt?”. About ten years ago (from 1991) that building was torn down as being too inefficient to continue. Time sure does go by.

I remember one event of the first day of school — I was taken to sit with brother Bob in his class room at a desk with the pull-down seat. I do not remember the tears which must have led to my gaining the security of big brother Bob. Mom later quoted me as saying that I would never go back, but I don’t recall having said such. I did go back.

In Kindergarten we sat at little movable tables. I don’t know what we did. The only recollection of that year, besides going to sit with Bob, is playing under the tables on one side of the room when we had recess inside on account of rainy weather.

For all other grades the teacher’s desk was at the front of the room, and pupil desks were the folding-seat variety with a string of 8 or so desks connected together, one right back of another. There were about 4 or 5 of these strings at right angles to the front of the room. We sat at the same desk in the same room for each grade. It was definitely NOT an “open” classroom. Our books and supplies were kept in the shelf just under the desk top. For the higher grades there was a hole for an ink bottle in the upper right corner of the desk top. We got to use ink in about the fifth or sixth grade. For the record – -
Back row: Springmeyer; Talmadge(4); Scroggs(1); Martin(3); Lewis(2); ???.
Center row: Leonard(6); ???; Oliver(Kgtn); Botkin(6)
Front row: Hartford(5); ???; Morton

In Kansas at that time we bought our own books. I can see the blue cover on the Bobbs Merrill readers used in most grades. It had a picture of a sailing ship heading about 30̊ to my left. I see one occasionally nowadays in antique shops. We had three or four other books, which must have varied depending on the grade. Probably arithmetic, English, and geography.

School started at 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Everyone went home for lunch. The “first bell” rang at 8:30 for about five minutes, after which it was OK to be on the school ground to play. The “second bell” rang at 8:50. You better move right along if you were still on the way to school. Depending on the wind, you could also hear the bell from “Central”, but Northside’s had a much nicer sound.

At a few minutes before the hour the “silence” bell rang for just 6 or 7 strokes. Everyone was to stop playing and stand still. After about ten seconds or so the “last bell” started to ring, and everyone ran to get into line to march into the building. (I don’t know the theory behind having the “silence” bell.) We marched into the building from three sides to the sound of march music from the piano in the main hall. It was played sometimes by teachers and sometimes by students.
I have a vague feeling of having played an entrance duet with Buford Hayden a few times.

The 4th and 5th grade rooms were on the second floor. The U-turn landings had lines painted on the floor so that both students marched the same distance to keep in step. There were also lines to direct the right-angle turns in the main hall. For a single turn, the person marching on the right ends up on the left after the turn is made. I have used that knowledge many times in the years since!

Recess was 15 minutes in morning and afternoon. First and Second graders were dismissed earlier (can’t say how much), but higher grades all stayed until 4:00 p.m. Every room had its own section of the playground. The favorite game was soft ball for the boys. If there was snow, several grades joined in on “Fox and Geese”. The lower grades made heavy use of swings, teeter-toters, and merry-go-round. The girls played jacks and hopscotch.

Northside had a “band” in which I played a drum. (I am on your right in the first row.) The group output must have been a horrible racket!!

Northside had a wind-up table top Victrola. It was taken from room to room for us to get some elementary (pardon the pun) knowledge about music. I could (and can) identify Barcarole (sp?), Humoresque, In the Hall of the Mountain King, and Pop Goes the Weasel. The latter two were pretty much most kids favorites. We must have had other pieces, but none sticks in memory.

When I was in the first grade Tom O’Donnell and I were the “trumpeters” leading the procession at the community Mayfete. Mom bribed me into accepting the part by promising that afterwards she and I would go to the drugstore and eat all the ice cream we could hold. (And we did.) Our outfits were pretty fancy, and we had long paper “trumpets” that we held to our mouths as we marched in.

I liked two events scheduled each year in the Spring. One was Game Day, on which each grade competed within itself and against the other room (most grades had two rooms). There was high jump, standing broad jump, foot racing, chin ups, soft ball throw, and the potato race. In that last event you were timed while you ran down to get a “potato” (block of wood) from the far box (mounted on stilts for easy access), brought it back to the near box, and repeated this until all potatoes had been transferred. You circled the boxes on the run and had to stop and right the box if you knocked it over. I was pretty good at most games — but Buford Hayden was usually the best at all of them.

The second Spring event was the all-school music festival held in Convention Hall. I’m not sure of the format, but I do remember the fun of marching from our balcony seats up to the stage. For the marching music, one of our 5th grade teachers, Ms. Springmeyer, played “Shine Little Glowworm” as a piano duet with someone else. I’ve liked “Little Glowworm” ever since.

From about 2nd grade on I developed a special friendship with Buford Hayden and Tom O’Donnell. Aunt Ethel had someone take a picture of the three of us 3rd graders out on the playground. That picture was reproduced in my 1936 high school annual along with a current (as of then) one of the three of us. (The below photo was taken by Mom in 1938.) Our paths started to separate after high school when Buford went to Dartmouth. After junior college Tom went to KU and I to K-State. I did a lousy job of keeping in touch with the two of them.

They are both dead now, but I did get a short visit with Buford at a class reunion in 1983. (The Hutch committee couldn’t wait for 50, so had a 47th reunion!)

On several occasions during non-school hours I helped Aunt Ethel in the office. I stamped new Northside books with the Northside library stamp and copied off sheets on the “hectograph” pad.

Northside days were good days. And I got so people could “unnerchand what I ched”.