The pencil box

When I was baptized my Godparents were my sister Anna Marie and my cousin Linus Schwarz. Aunt Ann was Linus's Mother. When I started grade school at Sacred Heart school it was a few days after my birthday. Aunt Ann bought me a pencil box, which contained a couple pencils, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, and a half circle thing to make curved lines and straight lines. It was blue and had a snap to lock it closed. Every child had one. We also were issued a slate and a stick of something (not chalk) to write on the slate with. These slates were antiques and probably used by my mother when she went to school there. My teacher, Sister Xavier, was also an antique as she had taught my mother in grade school starting around 1904. Our books were almost as old. We spent the first four years in what was called the little room. We couldn,t wait to get into the big room for grades five to eight. Sister Xavier seemed to always catch me when school was out for the day and say " Robert, you will clean erasers tonight. No?" Natuaraly I answered yes as Nuns were on a pedastal in those times. Despite the antique books we did get a good education, learned to write (the Palmer method) colored things for the county fair. Catechism, the three R,s and music. The nuns taught the boys the latin phrases to serve at Mass. Things were tougher when we got in the big room. Everything had to be memorized. The questions and the answers. If sister ever left the room we always had tattle tales to let her know if anyone misbehaved. Beverly Bethscheider was the biggest tattler. She would say Ster, ster, so and so talked while you were out! It was in the big room where I started my career as an artist. I was nearly finished with my portrait of sister Paulina when she snuck up behind me and grabbed the art work. She must of held the beads on her rosary as I didn,t hear her approach. I cant remember what the punishment was but I was plenty scared. Anyway I survived Sacred Heart school. I forgot to mention that every year through grade school Aunt Ann would give me a pencil box for my birthday. I went away to high school and couldn,t believe it when Aunt Ann gave me a pencil box for my birthday again. I dont know what I did with it but I would have been laughed out of school if I would have shown up with a pencil box. I think mom told her that high school students didn,t use pencil boxes. Aunt Ann was a wonderful lady but she spent the greater part of her life living on the farm with no plumbing or electricity or telephone. When Uncle Joe brought her to town to shop she would ask at the grocery store if she could use the phone. She would call Mom and she would holler into the phone so everyone in the store could hear her conversation. Any news she could gather she got from her son Linus. Her favorite expression was "Thats a fact. Linus said so."They had a battery powered radio but it was only turned on to hear the markets. Uncle Joe farmed with horses. When one of his horses died a friend loaned him a mule to make a team. I didn,t know until Gene told me a few years ago that when women were finally allowed to vote that Aunt Ann was so excited when Uncle Joe took her to town to vote. When they drove home Uncle Joe asked her who she voted for. When she told him he said "What did you vote for that damn fool for?" I dont think he took her to town to vote again. They stayed in the country till there health made it necessary to move to town. They bought a large older home in Hebron with electricity and running water and a bathroom. To Aunt Ann it was Graceland! They were able to live there for a few years before they had to both move into a care home. Aunt Ann lived into her Ninetys. Uncle Joe died a few years before her. Since school will be starting soon and the papers full of ads for school supplies I like to think back to when I started school and how things have changed in the last 65 years. And that annual birthday pencil box.

Old Irish