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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEarly Education II Panel Group 3GROUP 3 W.H. LITTLE DOROTHY DUGGER GEORGE TODD CLYDE SCHAFFER EARLY EDUCATION CONFERENCE CENTER JULY 31 1996 Moderator: Marjorie Leinhart (ML) Transcriptionist : Chelsi Conway Camcorder: Lisa Lin Interviewees : William H. Little (BL) Dorothy Allen Dugger (DD) George Todd (GT) Clyde Schaeffer (CS) ML: Welcome to the oral history memory lane" Early Education." Today is July 31, 1996. We are in room 103 of the Conference Center in College Station. I'll go around the table and ask you your name and where you were born. And we'll start with you. CS : Clyde Schaeffer. Born in Anderson, Texas. ML: Good. GT : And I was born on the east side of Rock Prairie Road from Hwy. 6. My name is George Todd. DD: Dorothy Dugger and I was Born in Millican, Texas. BL : William H Little, Bill as I like to call myself; and I was born in Bryan, Texas. ML: Okay Clyde since you were not born in Bryan, were you born in Brazos County? CS: No ma'am, Grimes County. ML : How old were you when you moved to Bryan? CS: One year old. The reason that we moved here was the drought of 1925. I was born in 1924. My dad was a farmer. A &M needed someone that knew something about farming as a foreman. He just happened to get the job over at the old F &B station in 1925. He came up here and started working. ML : Okay, you said F &B. 1 CS: Feeding & Breeding station. Its not there anymore as that, but F &B Road as you leave Business 6, going toward Turkey Creek Road. It's on the right hand side as you cross the railroad tracks out of town, off of 6. Some of it is still the same, not too much. I did send a little map showing that area, what it looked like on the ground at that particular time. ML : That's interesting. CS: I drew a map about a year and a half ago, I should have brought my copy with me, but I didn't. ML : Maybe you could bring it later. (CS brought the map on 11/21/96). CS : I'm sure you have it somewhere. GT : Clyde, I took the map right after you gave it to me. It should be on record now. I think we went out to the park one time when they were giving books away and that's when we turned it in. ML: They probably do have it then. CS: Its on record somewhere. ML: And you were born in the Brazos Valley. GT : Yes ma'am. I lived on Rock Prairie Road. ML: Which is really part of the city limits now. GT : Correct. At that time, I was born September 13, 1922 and of course I didn't get to go to school then until I was seven years old. Maybe that was a good age because I was a little older, knew a little bit more. Of course my father and my mother, they both farmed on the farm. That's the way we made our living. I stayed in school, in fact, we were the first seniors in this old school here on Jersey Street. And Clyde, I think you were, you missed one year. One year you were absent. Dorothy, Bill, and I don't know whether you went to school here or not. Clyde transferred to a parochial for one year and then cam back to A &M Consolidated High School. BL : Consolidated? Oh yeah. I went all 12 years. I'm ... If you want me to start talking, I'd rather Mrs. Dugger speak first. DD : Well, I've asked her to wait on me cause I've been interviewed before. 2 BL: Well I'll start talking about what I know or what I think I know. ML: We're talking about where you were born. BL: I was born in Bryan and I spent most of my life in College Station, Texas. Heard tell of the Southside Development Company, 1921 -38 was the basis of what it is now which is now the city of College Station. My education, they had school on the campus and then later they moved Consolidated out here„ out where the elementary school of course... about that Southside Development Co., my neighbor Mr. Burchard used to go around and read the water meters, read the meters you know and you would pay your bills. I have a bare memory of that as a child. Another bare memory is that my mother might have gone over to the Burchard house to read the minutes of the meeting, just barely remember it. In 1938, the Southside Development Co. went out of existence. I might have a bare memory of the last meeting of the board of directors at the Southside Development Co. They were all at C.W. Burchard's house and then they all got out and they just acted like .... and I heard Dr. Clark's booming voice " With this instrument, I do hereby declare the Southside Development Co. to be dissolved." And I saw Mrs. Scoates. I guess one of their daughters walked by and she waved her hand and I remember that as a child. There was a store on campus. ML: Let's wait until later for that part. We want to do the school part right now. Do you have anything you want to add Dorothy? DD: Well I think you have everything I had on school already. UI " DD: Now the building we met in on campus was Pfeiffer Hall. They have that information and we used the A &M Library. We even took some classes, our mechanical arts and shop classes were taken in their buildings with their equipment. ML: OK. We want to go on and ask about your family. Did you have any brothers or sisters, were they in school and where was it? CS: Yes, I have 1 brother, Horace Schaeffer and also 1 sister, Mary Lou Edmonson, and they both went to school here all 12 years. Now, Horace is retired, about 3 years ago, teaching here 40 years at A &M Consolidated. He lives on Pershing Street. My sister married, left here and moved to Kansas. She hasn't been back since. Her family is in Kansas. That's about it all I can think of at the present time. ML: OK. GT: My family was a big family. I was the youngest out of 15. 3 BL: 15 Children? GT: 15 children. 9 boys and 6 girls. Some of my sisters and brothers went to school down below Shiloh Cemetery, the city cemetery, it used to be a 3 -room school down there, I don't know, I just barely remember. Then they transferred them up here where the city music hall used to be. And then that's when I started 1st grade. ML: On campus? GT: On campus. Mrs. Sloop was my lst grade teacher. ML: OK -say her name again. GT: Mrs. Sloop. ML: Sloop or Loop? GT: Sloop. ML: How do you spell that? CS: S- L- O -O -P. BL: I want to add this about Mrs. Sloop. She was the lady who taught me how to read and write. She had this phonetic method of teaching and that's how I learned to read, by this phonetic method. Of course back then this place was isolated and I often comment on how children how have it better. ....Montessori schools in this area, the Maria Montessori had excellent techniques for teaching children at that level of teaching. ML: George, continue. GT: Of course, I guess, I'm not going to name all the children, that would take me a little while to do. Three of us went through consolidated on campus, and five... and I finished out here at Jersey, at that time it was a new school. And that's about all I can say. Unless, you heard some of the School teachers. ML: Well get to that in just s few minutes. OK, Dorothy. DD: Well, I went through the 8th grade at Peach Creek and then we came up here for high school. ML: So Peach Creek had a school? El DD: We had a school. In fact that school was transferred up here to College Station in `44, the whole school, I believe, at that time, I believe that's the date, the year after I graduated, The whole school came up. The high school came for several years. I have 4 brothers and sisters, and 3 of us finished high school here. Only 1 other one finished high school. ML: So then all four of you have gone through college station schools from first grade all the way through. DD: No, well I was at Peach Creek. It was not College Station then. ML: OK. How many grades were in elementary? How many grades did they call elementary? Did they call it elementary, middle school, high school at that time? CS: No ma'am. DD: We had eight in elementary, four in high school. ML: And that's the way it went. When you got out of elementary you went straight into high school. All: Correct. ML: The school itself; the facility of the school, was it new when you came here or did you come on campus? CS: Came on campus. ML: Came on campus and it was old. And then you transferred to the new school. DD: The new school was built while we were in high school. This one here on Jersey street was built when we were in high school. We were in a condemned building, Pfeiffer Hall on the campus. A &M let them to use for the school. ML: What was the facility like here? CS: The first one? ML: The first one. DD: It was this wooden structure around here. ML: That they've torn down. 5 DD: No, some of it is still here. CS: The one I remember is the white stucco and we were there I think I went to the Pfieffer building my freshmen year the 1 st time and that was the last time. Then I came out here. You could pull the bricks out of that building and look outside if you wanted to.... DD: Can I add something there? ML: Sure. DD: Grade school was in another building about a block or so away that belonged to A &M. Now I don't know what it was called because I didn't go to school there. ML: Do you remember George? GT: It was right across the street that run out to G Rollie White. We were up on the northeast side in a stucco building, it was 2 story, I think it provided 8 classes. DD: Another factor, wasn't Mr. W.D. Bunting our school superintendent when we moved over into this area? GT: No. DD: No, Paul Edge. We had both of them. GT: Well I can't remember the 1st superintendent. Mr. Edge was principal. ML: Of elementary or of all the schools? GT: Of the elementary. ML: Elementary. And the when Mr. Zach, I don't know when he retired or moved away, then he was, he got the superintendent job. And then he stayed until we moved over here on Jersey Street until the war started, and then he quit and volunteered in the Navy. DD: See we had quite a few principals, superintendents because this was right during W.W.H. T.O. Munson was one of the principals over at A &M. ML: OK, tell me a little bit about your classes. In elementary and high school, do you remember anything about your classes? And what did you take? Did you take... CS: Reading, writing, arithmetic. 0 ML: Is that just about all you took? CS: Just about in elementary. ML: And then in high school? When did start talking what we consider science, and social studies, and things like that? GT: In your freshman year. CS: Freshmen year was the first time. ML: In high school? CS: In high school. DD: We had to have 16 credits to graduate. We had to have English, Literature one half year and grammar one half year. We had to have 4 years of that. We had to have algebra I and plain geometry, we took some science, we took economics, some history, and stuff like that. But we had to have sixteen credits. Plus, we could take electives as credits for graduation. ML: Like choir? DD: Well, any. ML: Band. Did they have a band? CS: Had a band. GT: Home economics. CS: Shop. ML: And that didn't count? Shop didn't count. CS: No it was just extracurricular. They were added gradually as you went along. ML: OK, do you remember recess? CS: Do we. ML: Was recess just going out and playing in elementary or did they try and have you do something like that. BL: When I was there, if I can recall, it was just going out and playing. 7 GT: Also, you could... CS: Shoot marbles. GT: Yeah, I guess we had 15, 20 minutes? What ever you wanted to do, play marbles or baseball, hopscotch. BL: I remember playing hopscotch. GT: Of course, some of the teachers had to be on the field with us. You know, watching us, see that we don't get in a fight. I never will forget Paul Edge used to play ball with us. This might be, I probably shouldn't say this, but that's all right, but a bird flew over and did something on Mr. Edge's hair, we'd laugh about that. He used to be a real good friend of my daddy and I had to be straight there in school. So I told him. I said, "Mr. Edge, you got something up there on you hair." He said, "What is it ?" So I told him. he got his handkerchief and wiped it off and we went on about out business. I never will forget that. Mr. Edge, he was more like a father to us, wasn't he Clyde? CS: Yes, he was. GT: He would talk to us, especially when we'd give him trouble, he wouldn't talk real mean. He'd just talk to us and when he got through you'd feel like you want to crawl out and that's it. DD: We were small enough that they could take personal interest in all of us, which was great. ML: Yes. DD: I mean in your big schools they can not take personal interest in every child. But we all knew out superintendents personally, we all knew our principals personally because we were small enough In `43, when George and I graduated, 50 graduated that year. It was the biggest class we had ever had. BL: Now what? DD: In `43, it was the biggest class that had ever graduated from A &M consolidated. 50 Students. BL: Fifty? DD: In `43, we graduated fifty. BL: I can't remember, I finished in `55. DD: We were the biggest class up `till that time. BL: 38 or 39, not more than 40. Now, I may be wrong. 39, I believe. DD: No, we had 50, didn't we George? We made quite a splash cause we was such a big class. ML: What sports did you participate in, in school? CS: Football first, track. Started out in basketball but I didn't like that. ML: Did they have a team and play other schools? CS: In the beginning football didn't do too well at all. We were the first team to go to district. We used to have county meets too. ML: Do you remember the date or the year that ya'll went to district that 1st time? CS: I don't have it with me but it's... 1941. GT: `42, no `41. CS: `41, I think. Somewhere around then. We did real well all through. Like I said, we used to have county meets where all the schools in the county would meet here on campus, at the football stadium, Kyle Field. And that was a big event each year. There was quite a number of kids that come out for that, and we always did real well. He (George) was a speedster, then. The 100 yard dash, I remember that very distinctly That's about it for me. ML: So George you were a track person. GT: Yes ma'am And softball an football. I had 3 years in football. Of curse every year I'd go out for track. Sometimes I'd do good and sometimes I wouldn't. Clyde talked about this county meet that would be all the little schools out in the country. Smetana, King's Highway, which is on the old San Antonio road, just country schools. More or less kind of like down around Peach Creek. They would come and boy, that would be a big thing going on. We would have a couple days of it. ML: What time of the year was this? GT: In the spring, wasn't it? I'd say in the Spring. We'd go over to A &M Kyle Field, to do all of our track and stuff like that. Of course when I first started in high school as a freshmen, we'd practice football, it was across from a little old building 0 between the feed control building and our school. That's the place where we practiced football. Then of course we didn't have a football field, not until we moved over here on Jersey Street. And that's when we got our own football field and that's when we won district. ML: Won district? So Tiger Field was built when the school was built? GT: Right, well they had 2 of them. One is right behind the gym, I don't know whether the gym is here or not. Then later on, they built one closer to the road there. They used that one `till they moved out to the big school over there on 2818. ML: That's interesting. OK, do you remember lunch time? Did you bring you lunch? CS: Sure did. ML: Did everybody bring their lunch? Was there a lunch time, cafeteria? CS: Just about everybody brought their lunch except a few... DD: There was a cafeteria. ML: So everybody brought their lunch? All: Yes and no. ML: OK, what did you bring for lunch? CS: Oh my gosh, I don't know if I can say right now. GT: Sausage and egg. CS: Yes, sausage. ML: Did you bring peanut butter and jelly like the kids do? CS: Yes, and crackers and homemade bread and syrup in a little container, we'd swap lunch's, somebody always had something better than someone else. and we were always swapping food around. I'd go home and tell mom about it, Mom didn't no how to make that, but we'd soon teach her how. It was very exciting to have lunch, but we couldn't get through quick enough so we could go play. ML: How long was you lunch hour? CS: Well an hour. 10 ML: One hour, that's a long time. CS: Yes, it was. ML: Do you remember the school dances and any traditions ya'll had? CS: We had a few dances, I don't remember to much about them. ML: Did you have them in a gym or elsewhere? GT: Yes, and we had them over at A &M, in the old gym over there. DD: A &M was very kind to us, all the way through, to let us use their facilities. GT: Of course we had several dances, we had one over here in a music hall. And of course, Mr. Gabbard, I never will forget the time, Bruce Cabbard, he was deaf and couldn't speak, I often wondered how he could get out there and dance. I asked him one time, he went through the motions to tell me, and he said the feel of the vibrations of the music. He was a real good dancer, he played football, and did all that. I haven't seen him since we've been out of high school, I don't know what ever happened to him. I knew some of his brothers are doctors down there in Corpus Christi somewhere. But we always had plenty of dances on Sadie Hawkins day and Halloween. Washington I ask and some of the boys would go out and pull up dire, of some of these teachers would tell `em No, and we almost got caught several times, then come to find out if they'd carry you in and give you refreshments and stuff, of course we didn't know that because we didn't get caught. So after we found our that, we'd do something and we'd get caught the they'd take us to Mr. Bunting, he like to caught us several times. BL: I remember when I was there they had a Sadie Hawkin's dance and all the boys and girls would run out, and whoever thought it patterned it after UP Abner out in the open where they had the school dances and frankly all that seemed like a big forgotten memory, I was never in the pictures in Jr. High and high School. OK what it was like to be an adolescent then. But a more social observation, drugs, you did not find hard drugs among teenager. My contact with drugs as a teenager and young adult was confined to marijuana and the lighter drugs. What drug use existed was on a smaller scale the it is since 1964, and certainly 1969 when drugs became common place, and you would not find hard drugs, except in a large city along the Sea Coast, particularly Boshwash you would find everything there. A large city, obviously Chicago, New Orleans. But you would not find hard drugs in a little ton like Wellborn, Millican, Blanco or Uano, Texas. You wouldn't find it there. The social trend was not as bad no. 11 GT: Very seldom did you see anyone drinking at these parties. It's one of those things that the Superintendent and teachers would watch for, and if you did, boy they were rough on you. BL: If you drank it was rough on you? GT: That's right. BL: Oh, no I was brought up different and that was ... not in a public school GT: Very seldom you'd catch somebody, boys go out and take a little nip, but we didn't have that kind of trouble, drinking, or drugs. BL: Well lets say if there was it was a smaller scale. GT: Right. ul 1 CS: The climate was just different at that time, back then I mean, there was a lot more strictness, as far as I was concerned, parents teachers and so forth, they undoubtedly took care of problems better than they do now, and they enforced it they just didn't put up with it, anything, drugs, or drinking. BL: What we had was on a smaller scale and confined to the lighter drug. DD: I thing that's' again were the 1 on 1, they knew their students personally, and the on 1, I mean all the teachers knew you. ML: All right lets move on to another question, what about FHA, 4H, Scouts, homemaking, did ya'll have all those club or activities and did you participate in any of them. CS: I didn't because my traveling back and fourth was limited because living on the F &B station there were no buses for the area, we lived too far away from the school, we had to walk to school every day. ML: So by the time you got out of school you had to walk home. CS: Yes and I had a paper route, here, I left the school here, I walked delivering paper for a year and 1/2 through this area here, and all the way the F &B station, and I carried that Route for about 7 years. Finally got it taken up by doing pressing time. I could sell more papers in 15 minutes up there by North Gate than I could in 3 hours on the rest of my route. The people didn't have any way of making a living, the Government WPA was giving them 50 cents a day to help out. They 12 were laying down water lines, which were dug by hand, then along come a big rain and it would fill all the ditches up. They `d come back with number 2 tomato cans, a couple hundred men out there one at a time dipping water out, they didn't want to get done too soon or they wouldn't have a job. I sold papers at a nickel a piece, they were looking for a job advertising to try and find a better job. DD: This was probably a government program by the WPA these people were working under. ML: Can you tell me something about you tent books that you had, did ya'll go strictly by the textbooks in your classes? CS: Yes, we did as far as I recall. ML: Was there any other information that they considered? CS: There might have been some that they added, but most of it was right out of the textbook as far as I remember. DD: I really don't think we had much else in publications to supplement this, I don't think they were available at that time. ML: You were able to use the library at the University right? You could go to the A &M library? DD: We also had a small library on the campus that we could go and use at any time. ML: Didn't have to use a library card. All: No. ML: That was very nice. CS: Sure was. ML: What do you consider the most enjoyable part of you school day? CS: I would say sports for me, I didn't really care about studying too much, that was hard work. My family background in education wasn't up to par, my parents were raised in a working German background. They didn't have the schooling they should've had, and I had no one to turn to I had to get everything I got here a school. ML: George what about you, what was you most enjoyable part? 13 GT: Oh, playing football, track and not studying. It took me a little extra longer to get out of high school because I looked around too much. Dorothy and Clyde were friends, I didn't know just yet, but I did know his sister. But we enjoyed the dances we had and at that time we had what was called the campus kids and it was the country kids. We'd all get together and we enjoyed that. We had a real good time in school. Since I was the youngest of the family I got to do more than the rest of them had. ML: Good to be the baby sometimes. GT: Yes then be the baby, go back to the 3rd grade Mrs. Holtzman. She was 101 when she died and I did something wrong on the tile sandbed she was the only teacher to cause me to get a whipping, but I deserved it. Of course, my dad always said, at that time the principal wouldn't touch you, maybe a slap on the hand. But dad always said if I caused any trouble in school, when you get home its gonna be worse So that time taught me a lesson. When I went home that evening my sister told father and I went behind the barn and that was it. From then on I was a good boy. ML: What was your most enjoyable time Dorothy? DD: I think what I enjoyed the most was homemaking home economies, I could just naturally sew and that kind of thing, I mean that's just nature for me to do those kind of things, I will say this and I think most of `em will agree, Ms. Mitchell our math teacher, and she was my favorite, she'd lives right over here on Sulfolk. They sent someone over to interview her for this history. I told them to check with her nurse and evidently they did cause she said something about it to me. But I enjoyed school, I wasn't all that smart, but I enjoyed school. About like George, it took me forever to get through school. ML: What would you like to say what your most enjoyable time in school was? BL: What I enjoyed most in school was Spanish, and history. The lady that taught is was from Mexico or Costa Rica, and she really knew it. I suppose the only thing I was really any good at was history. I wasn't as deaf then as I am now and I could learn much better. That was something I really liked and enjoy and got the most out of This teacher that taught me went to high school when not everybody went to high school, it was during W.W.I and in the `20s. It wasn't until the `20s that everybody started going to high school. Prior to that time everybody went to the 8th grade or 6th or 7th grades then they dropped out. I know a man, he's retired now, his father went through the 6th or 7th grade three time when he dropped out, of course he went further each time. DD: Can I say something, my father would be 114 if he was still alive, I ask him what grade he went to and he'd say, `We just went through all books, we had no grades, 14 when we finished all the books that was it. They didn't graduate or anything, and he was a very smart man. ML: Who was your favorite teacher? BL: I don't know, I suppose one of the ones that made the most profound impression on me was Mrs. Sorenson who taught Spanish, World History, and American History. Those were subjects that I enjoyed the most and got the most out of ML: OK, Dorothy, who was your favorite teacher? DD: Ms. Mitchell, she was our math teacher then. BL: Math, she was really good at math. DD: Her dad was a math professor over at A &M, and later she was in charge of all the transfer students. ML: Yes, I remember her very well, who was your favorite, George? GT: Well I didn't have any particular one, if I needed help, each and every one would do it and I don't guess I have any particular one. ML: Clyde, what about you? CS: I'm kind of one the same, Ms. Mitchell was a stand out for me, I thought a lot of her and I enjoyed her math. But like George said, Mr. Edge and Coach Mance Parks he was wonderful. Coach Mance Parks and his wife helped me more than anybody else. Cause a lot of the times something I didn't understand. I'd go by their house and they'd help me with my lessons and I appreciated that very much. ML: How long was your school day? GT: It started about 8:30 -9:00 in the morning and went till about 4:30 in the afternoon. ML: So you went from about 8:30 in the morning to about 4:30 in the afternoon with a one hour lunch break. DD: I wanted to say the one of the reasons Ms. Mitchell was my favorite was they used to, her, her mother and daddy used to come out to the ranch and get holly and stuff for Christmas, they came out to our home a lot. She made the remark to one of her nurses the other day and said that was the highlight of their Christmas, was coming out there with holly. GT: Weren't classes about 45 minutes then? 15 DD: Yeah, I think we had six classes a day. ML: In high school did you change classes? All: Yes. ML: I mean for each class. All: Yes. ML: And you went 12 grades to graduate? GT: Eleven. DD: No, they put 12 in when we were in high school. GT: That's right they did have 12. ML: Have any of you any idea what year they put that twelfth grade in? GT: Could be `42. DD: Early `40s ML: And if you were in school you had to go an extra year. DD: If your grades were good enough you did not have to go the extra year. I think George and I had to go the extra year. See it was according to if your grades were good enough you didn't have to go the extra year. ML: Describe a typical Christmas holiday. BL: When we had Christmas back in my day in junior high and high school they always had a big to do for Christmas. I had never gotten over where I change my view of Christmas. But they always put up decoration in the classroom, one was art, and in math they had a big mother and child. I learned that the Puritans considered Christmas, to be a Pagan festival, and they banned it. For child I guess it would be a great thing. We would have two weeks of free Christmas, come back and in 2 -3 weeks we'd have finals. They have such a more sensible way of doing it now, finish the semester before Christmas. CS: Especially in grammar school, the teacher would bring some cookies and candy and stuff and we'd have a small party before we'd leave. 16 ML: Did you ever have a play or anything like that for Christmas? GT: I don't know whether it was Christmas, but Ms. Penther, wasn't she an English teacher or something, she'd do these big plays at Guion Hall. But somewhere in there Thanksgiving or Christmas, they'd put on all kinds of plays at old Guion Hall on the campus. I can remember Alan Madley, he was always the guy that played the lead man, and the lead girl could be the Cofer girls, Teeny Anderson or Wicker, but somewhere in there they had plays quite often during the fall, and before Christmas we'd just party all the time. DD: You see we had a club that put on the productions, it was the same drama club, school sponsored. ML: Could anybody try out or did you have to be in the club? GT: Yes. DD: I don't remember, we lived so far out, and I didn't get involved in extracurricular because we had no way to be involved after school hours. ML: How many months did you have off for the summer vacation? GT: Three. ML: So you got out at the end of May and went back at the beginning of September. You have any photos or any thing from 1920 -49? That map you were talking about. CS: I just sketched that map, no photos, I just sketched it free hand. ML: Because anybody with photos of any kind, annuals. Do you have your annuals from that time? CS: I've lost two of `em, somebody walked off with them. GT: I think I have two of them, I'll have to look for them. ML: Would you be willing to share them with the city? They will make copies so if you will bring those annuals or pictures, like of a school teacher, Ms. Mitchell when she was your teacher, like when they took photos of the whole class and the teacher was there. So they could get a record of the teachers in the school at that time. Between 1920 -49. GT: I know Luis Wicker and I brought three books today. 17 ML: Thank you for coming, real interesting it was a real pleasure to have met ya'll. 18