They call them the "good old days". My recollection fo the "good old days" are:
  the dirty thirties, flies and heat in summer, thawing pipes and pumping water in
  winter, mud roads, backhouses three hundred yards from the house, and no electricity.
  We had telephones - our ring "a long-a short-a long:. Everyone eavesdropped and
  anything that went through "central" had to be repeated by the operator. Until dial
  phones were installed, Nashville telephone office was operated day and night by
  Grace Ford - one of a kind!
     I'm sure our education was accidental. Imagine starting education with a teacher
  18 years old and just out of high school; yet we could all read, figure and spell.
  My children, Karran, Tracy and Darcy, went to teachers with Bachelors, Masters and
  even PhD degrees; today I spell some of the four letter words for them (They under-
  stand them but can't spell them. I can spell them and only wonder.)
     Along Ridge Road were three schools; Mumford - across from the cemetery on an
  acre of Singer land now owned by Harold and Jane Mease; Unity - one mile south of
  Ridge Road on Kernohan land (I believe), still used as a community building. Pleasant
  Ridge - my brother Layle, sister Marilyn and I attended, on my father's land now
  owned by me. Named Pleasant Ridge, it was called Racket Ridge. (I imagine the Mantey,
  Rankin and Randolph boys could tell why it was dubbed Racket Ridge.)
     The biggest "racket" while I attended was when the entire school (Charles and Alicia
  Rankin, Junior Randolph, Ruby Mantey, Melvin and Linnea Riggert, Layle and I) ruined
  the "water system". There was no well at the school; daily our teacher, Marjorie
  Watkins, brought a jug of water for us to drink. We didn't like the "hard water" she
  brought from her home near Medicine Lodge; we have soft water on the Ridge. One day
  we stuffed her water jug full of grass. Thereafter we had soft water - each carried 
  his own, much to our chagrin.
     Racket Ridge was discarded for consolidation in 1944, and Max Kernohan lived in it
  as a home. In 1948 my father, Albert "Poly" Lawrence, tore it down, using the lumber
  for the house in which my wife Marlyne and I live.
     I remember the literaries in the three schools. OUr teacher's sister, Ila, taught
  Mumford and their cousin, Evelyn Watkins, taught Unity. About every two weeks, grownups
  and children accumulated an hour or two of entertainment at one of the schools. After-
  ward we had refreshments and visited. Some nights during dust bowl days, dust would
  suddenly blow in and getting home was downright scary.
     In the 40's and 50's, many a youngster learned to waltz, polka and square dance at
  Unity. Kids had a place to go every other Saturday night, thanks to the efforts of my
  parents, Poly and Millie Lawrence. Bill and Leafa Kernohan, the Liebsts, Ruckers,
  Randolphs, Inslees, Winters, Boors, Burenheides, Lukens, Sleepers, Adams and others.
  We weren't expected home very early when our parents were there too. People came to 
  our square dances from all over. Our music was homemade, Layle and I spent our harvest
  wages ($15 each) for a fiddle and guitar. Together with Leafa at the piano and Dad
  and Bill to "call", we had it made! Later Jim Timmisch from Kingman and Mood McCullough
  helped fiddle and sometimes my sister or Mom helped on the piano.
     This fall I went through the old school-house trying to visualize how it could happen.
  On stage was the refreshment table, a pot bellied stove, coal bucket, stove wood, a
  piano and fiddler and guitarist. On both sides of the room people sat. Often three
  sets of square dancers and the caller were on the floor of this one-room schoolhouse.
     The K.M.L. Rancy, owned by Marlyne and me since the death of Dad in 1959, was
  previously owned by Metcalfs and bought from John Rankin by my Grandfather J.J. Lawrence
  in 1928. George and Mae Rankin used to tell us of the Indian raids in our area.
     Come to think of it, we did a lot of living in the "good old days."
               
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 274  
     Submitted by: Kent Lawrence