Kansas One Room
School House Project
A Family History by Maude Bishop

"A Family History"

written by Maude Bishop

written in the late 1950s

Notes by Sally Snell

There are references that are politically incorrect, but to maintain accuracy, I have chosen not to modify the language to fit our standards today. If anyone is offended, I apologize in advance.

When she began teaching, female teachers were not allowed to be married. She chose teaching.

I don't have confirmation of the date she came to Topeka, but it appears it would have been in 1870 or 1871. She met her husband here, and they married in February, 1873.

I hope you have enjoyed a glimpse into teaching in 1800s America.

Part I of II

"When Mother started for Kentucky in January, the Ohio river was flooding and when they got to Evansville, Indiana, half the town was underwater. As the train was pulling into Evansville, Mother asked the conductor about the motels.

The conductor said 'There are two hotels here. If you go to one you will wish you had gone to the other. So whichever one you go to, you will have the same accomodations.'

She had to stay all night, so she went to the one that had a bus waiting at the station. The next morning she went by boat to Bowling Green. Then she had to drive in a sort of a hack for sixtenn miles over a cordaroy road. She was the only passenger and she said part of the way was through deep woods.

She said she heard, what she thought was somebody screaming and she asked the driver what it was. He said, 'A wild cat, there are over there in a hollow in the deep woods.' Mother decided then that she had almost come to the end of the world.

When they reached Casky Station, Mother found there was little there but the school. It was housed in a three story wooden building with verandas going all around the building.

Of course, the slaves were free now, but the negroes were still there working for the school. Some were housed in little shacks, some in the huge basement which was high off the ground, and made one of the three stories.

The schoolrooms and dining room and kitchen were on the second floor and the sleeping rooms on the third floor. There was a fireplace in every bedroom and a little negroe girl was assigned to each room to build a fire in the fireplace and to bring a pitcher of hot water for bathing.

Mother said they started on the first building around six o'clock but it seldom gave off much heat until it was time to go to breakfast.

She said the little girl would come in with a little paper and a few sticks, sit down in front of the fireplace, cross legged, put down the paper and then place the sticks criss cross on top of it. Then she would touch a lighted match to the paper and blow on the flame until the sticks caught. Then she would put on bigger kindling and finally a log or two. Then Mother said this child left and she got ready for a 7:30 am breakfast.

Mother said the food was wonderful. The only thing that was hard to get was butter. She said they had all kinds of spreads, honey, jelly and jams of all kinds.

When the strawberry season opened, they had strawberries served in soup dishes with powdered sugar sprinkled on them, and pitchers of cream on the tables to put on them. Mother said, she could never understand when they had so much cream, why they had so little butter.

They had all kinds of meat, ham, chicken, turkey and lamb and hot breads of all kinds, but only once, in all the time they were there, did they have real bread, and that was salt rising.

The only reason they had that was because the art teacher wanted some bread to clean up her pastel pictures.

The students were girls from well to do families or from families who had been well to do but nearly every one of them dipped snuff and were none too clean about their person, and did not work very hard at their school work or music.

Mother had never attended a camp meeting until she went down there. There was one going on at a Baptist Church and several of the teachers attended one Sunday night.

The minister was the fire and brimstone type, and having had the people burning for half an hour, he then invited them to come to the alter and confess their sins. He kept yelling, 'Come along, come right along.' When most of the sinners had come forward, he said, 'All kneel and pray.'

One of the teachers wanted to see what he would do so she only half knelt. The minister saw her and pounding with his fist on the reading desk, he yelled- *Black* or *White*, *Saint* or *Sinner, will you* kneel down? Mother said that woman shot off her seat on her knees as if she had been hurled out of a gun and the rest of the teachers were just convulsed buty they kept their faces hidden.

Owing to the conditions following the war, the Church decided it would have to close its doors. The teachers were told so they had plenty of time to apply for other positions.

Mother got an Episcopal Church Catalogue listing all of the Church Schools and she wrote to six schools scattered over the country for a position, and she received offers from all of them including the College of the Sisters of Bethany at Topeka, Kansas."

Part II of II

"When I went to Weeping Water Academy teach in the fall of 1896, I did some real pioneering even if Weeping Water was one of the oldest towns in Nebraska. It was a Congregational School, with four academic teachers and Miss Abbott, the music teacher.

I was also Preceptrus in the Girl's Dormitory. There were only nine girls in it all told. The building was an old store building which was part brick and part frame and a crack of about an inch between the two parts so when it snowed-

I became an expert in making fires that winter because we had a little round coal stove in our living room which would go out between nine o'clock and twelve and again before four o'clock so I had to build a new fire about four times a day.

The skating was excellent that winter and I went skating every shool afternoon from four to five thirty o'clock.

Ethel Thorngate, a student, whose mother died that summer had roomed with me and one night, she and I took a wheelbarrow and went over to her old home and got a feather bed that was stored there and put in on our bed so we sould keep warm. I certainly blessed that feather bed.

The salary I received was $30 a month and my board and room. Then three months salary was due me when school closed, and they asked me to donate one month of it to the school which I did.

In the early spring, Mr. Taylor, the Principal told me they were only going to hire the music teacher and one other teacher besides himself so that let me out and I was not sorry. However, I made some lifetime friends while there- Miss Abbott, the Music Teacher and Ethel Thorngate, my roommate. I had a wonderful letter from her this Christmas.

Miss Abbott was only in Weeping Water one year more when the school closed. She lived with her parents in Lincoln. When they left her, she and her sister Annette carried on in the old home. Annette was a principal in one of the grade schools for years and passed away eight years ago and Gertrude followed her two years ago. I miss them very much.

Mrs. Taylor, who ran the boarding part of the dormitory and who was the Principal Mother, was a very interesting character. She and her husband were from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her husband was the Captain of a Whaling Vessel sailing from Gloucester. She told some interesting stories about that industry.

When school closed, I came home and started working on the subjects I had to take an examination in for my state certificate- History of Education, Philosophy of Education, School Law, Management and Methods. The examination took place August 23rd at the State House."

Saturday, October 13, 2001 8:11 PM

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