All the photos I've put on these pages are places that are within about 5 miles of each other. They are places I biked or drove by most every day when growing up.
Right down the corner from where I lived at each end of the road were one room schoolhouses. The Pine Lake Schoolhouse is a family home, or was when I was growing up.
This photo is the Eureka Schoolhouse. It's been empty all my life but still stands there. My Grandpa Steiner (the preacher) taught school in there when he was quite young.
This is the East Lewistown schoolhouse. My grandpa Mellinger went to school there. When he married he bought the building and raised his 4 daughters in that house. We would go as children and have Christmas there, play 4-square with my cousins in the driveway in the summer, and eat grapes from their grape arbor. I spent a lot of time at their house.
This photo is both of my grandparents, Grandpa Mellinger and Grandpa Steiner when they were young. They were good friends and were courting their future wives at the same time.
My children have finished their first phase of schooling (which wasn't quite one-room, but almost) and are now in the second phase called life. They can even learn while on vacation. Grandpa is a good instructor.
They do fight over who's going to drive the tractors. That is something they really look forward to when they come here.
The girls are helping Aunt Jo right now, but they'll also get their chance to mow later. The yards are so large here, everyone has zero-turn riding mowers. When young, I rode our mower and it took a full day to mow our yard. What a life! Singing while I mowed.(No one could hear me!?)
P.S. Those girls aren't really helping right now (maybe they did some) but they're riding horses with their 2nd cousin.
HI Elaine,
ReplyDeleteYour photos are great. It's so special to be able to visit the places that meant so much to you when you were growing up, but even more fun to show them to the children. They will remember this trip forever--riding horses, taking turns on the tractor, and it looks as though Isaac is using a wood splitter (but you'll have to let me know if that's not the kind of contraption he is using.) And young Chris is doing something to the window, but we're not sure exactly what the job is.
Keep the blog entries coming. They are great fun to read.
Love
Robin and Billie
I have pictures of Eureka school that show students with names written in. The teacher was Florence May who was my great aunt. One has a date of 1923.
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