Linda Kollias is a homemaker living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She attended elementary school in Anamosa, Iowa from 1949 to 1955. The first school she went to was an old brick building. She remembers climbing a lot of stairs. Her school was very strict! The girls had to wear dresses or skirts. If they had a field trip it would have only been one a year. There were a lot of rules. They mostly read out of workbooks. They also had a paper called the Weekly Reader. It had special articles and current events.

The things she remembers most about school are the teachers, her friends, and the playground. Some of her teachers and friends stand out more than others. She can remember two girls especially because she was impressed by the way they could hang upside down by their heels on the jungle bars. One teacher she was very fond of was her sixth grade teacher Mrs. Cherry. She remembers buying her a box of chocolate covered cherries for Christmas with her baby-sitting money.

Her favorite books were Cheaper by the Dozen and The Hidden Staircase. She liked Cheaper by the Dozen because of all the humor and The Hidden Staircase because of all the suspense. Halfway through the sixth grade she moved to a different school. It was one story and very modern.

-- Interview by Jim

Helen Whittington attended school in the early 1900s. She went to a little farm school in Clinton county about three miles south of a town called Charlotte. She went to a one room schoolhouse with eight grades. There was only one teacher for all eight grades. They didn't have a nurse except for their teacher. Her grandfather deeded the land for the school. With eight grades it was hard on the teacher and the students because of all the noise. There were no buses to pick up the students, so the students had to walk or ride a pony. Helen was lucky. She had a pony she could ride to school.

She can't remember but they didn't have a large media center, but each grade had a reader book. They read books like Little Women. Her favorite book was Ivanhoe.

The things she remembers most about school are the spelling bees. The winners at one school would go to another. If a student was a finalist and won, she or he would get a cash prize. Most of the words were picked by the school master.

They had writing lessons. Helen said, of all the things that helped her later, writing was one of the most important. Good penmanship was important to her, later on, when she was being considered for different jobs. She worked for the Rock Island Railroad and was office manager for Lefebure.

-- Interview by Jim and Jovan

Anastasia Kelly attended school in a one-room school near the town of Clay Mills. Clay Mills was ten miles south of Cascade, Iowa. The town no longer exists. In the entry way was a bench and a table. The table held an earthenware water jar that held drinking water. The water had to be carried from outside where they got the water from a pump.

One of her teachers was her sister, Cecelia. Her sister started teaching around 1911. She was only 16 when she began teaching. Teachers were supposed to be 18 but Cecelia and most likely her twin sister, Marcella, traveled from Temple Hill to Dubuque to take the teacher's examination. Cecelia did not tell that she was only 16. She earned $30.00 per month to teach and the contract specified that "she, to do her own janitor work."

Cecelia often rode a mule to school. The parents of children who went to school to be taught by Cecelia would often drop off hay for the mule to eat during the day. If the weather was too severe for her to ride the mule she sometimes stayed with a family of one of her children. The school was heated with a pot belly stove and in addition to cleaning the school she had to carry in the wood to build a fire for the day.

Anastasia remembers that boys often did not go to school because they had to help with the field work and the harvesting of the crops. When they could not go to school family members helped them at home. On the day that Anastasia Kelley visited our school to be interviewed she came with her niece.

-- Interview by Mrs. Crowley's class

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