I went to a one room school called Red Oak over near Ceres. It was the first school in the community and maybe even in the area, but at that time I was young so I don’t know for sure. For the first seven grades we had one teacher for all of the grades. There was quite a few of us kids in there. She would teach one grade at a time. So she would be teaching one grade, and she would tell the rest of us to be studying for our next assignment coming up. As soon as she finished that, she went right into the other classes. We studied reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, and English. We had a lot of homework. For lunch I would probably pack an apple butter biscuit, or an egg biscuit and I think mother usually had cookies or something to put in my lunch. My first seven years, I walked to school. It was about three quarters of a mile or a mile to school.
We had a different teacher each year. The teachers that I can remember are Ms. Lucille Foglesong, Ms. Clara Stowers, Mr. George Allen, Ms. Annie Harner, and Mr. Morris. They were very strict; and they had their switches. The only switching I ever got was when I was in first grade and Mr. George Allen had a big old boy misbehaving. He got his switch out to whip him and he ran by me where I was sitting in my desk. Mr. Allen was hitting at him and he hit me across the shoulder. After we got switched we used to have to stand in the corner. It seems like I had to stand there one time, but I am not sure. Some of them had to stand with their noses in a ring up next to the blackboard and they would have to stand on one foot in the corner. At recess we played lots of different things. We played baseball and Annie Over. In Annie Over you would pitch a ball over the roof and catch it and run around and catch the other fellows. We also played black snake or crack the whip and tag.