As kids, all three of us Baker girls attended Bryan School, a
one-room rural school just 2 miles west of town. Later Libby taught
there her first year as a teacher with Jo as a student.
The school, now gone, was located near the southern end of
Memory Lane where a log house stands today. Near there and across
the fence was the well used sledding hill. Lucky were those who had
pre-war sleds with steel runners. Some of us had wood sleds. We
tied the wooden ones onto or between the faster sleds to gain some
speed. It was in the years before plastic saucers and such, but we
did have a few pretty cool child-created vehicles.
We played in the adjoining woods at recess and noon. We rode
down hickory saplings. (If you've never done it, give it a try.) We
built forts and shot at each other with stick guns from the backs
of stick horses. Sometimes we just settled in to play house and
share stories. Ahh, those were the days.
Lots of days we played some form of softball depending on the
number of students in attendance that year. Steal the Bacon was a
standard and Fox and Geese in the winter snow.
A Warm Morning stove and coal oil lamps were necessary until
after WWII when electricity could be brought to our building.
Before Jo's time, but Libby remembers well. One of Jo's later
memories is the year there were no boys in attendance. It was an
all girls school that year. And until the last water came from a
hand-cranked well outside the building.
Bryan School was finally consolidated into the Paris district and
kids were bussed to school. But the memories remain and seem fresh
as ever.
Christmas "pageants", box suppers, spring track meets with other
rural schools, and end of the year picnics and our first of the
year wade in the creek were anxiously awaited. Now we await your
login and sucessful find.