SW: We are talking with Mr. Gayle Henderson in Marion, Virginia, on June 24, 1997. He has agreed to share some recollections of his time in a one-room school with us. Mr. Henderson, where shall we begin?
GH: I guess probably to start with the building itself would be a good place. I never really understood, but neither side of the building had windows. The back of the schoolhouse had no windows, but that was where the big blackboard was. Maybe I can understand that, but neither side had windows. Now the end did, where they only had one door to go into the schoolhouse, and on that end, it had a window on either side of the door. The building was almost in the road. It was a dirt road. It was -- the side of it was maybe in the right-of-way of the road. And in the road was basically where our playground was.
SW: So you had woods all around?
GH: No. On one side was the road, on two sides was woods, and on the other side was a big field. But that was a man's farm, and we didn't have permission to play in it. I remember about the heat. The parents came in the fall of the year and cut wood. Now, they generally cut wood in these woods we were talking about, and sometimes it would be some distance from the schoolhouse, and the students would carry the wood. The spring was I would guess a hundred yards from the school, and it was just. an open spring in a bank or a rock. And we had to take the dipper and the bucket when we got low on water and go down and sometimes you'd have to rake the leaves out of the spring to get your bucket full. Each kid brought their own drinking cup. Now, most kids -- I don't know if you've ever seen one, but most kids had the little folding kind of cups. They had a little folding kind of cup, and it folded like an accordion. You'd mash it, and it just went down, and when it was closed, it looked a lot like a can lid. Then, as you opened it up, it was a drinking cup. Most kids had that. I have made my drinking cup out of a leaf.
As for the seats, there were benches. There were no seats. You could sit on them, but they were benches.
SW: Was there a back on the bench?
GH: Yes, there was a back on it. And the only thing they had, if I remember correctly, we called it a work table. Now, after you called me, I got to thinking about it and I doubt seriously if there were over probably 30, maybe 35 kids in this school all told. Now, that was seven grades. And I'm sure there were grades there weren't more than three or four kids in. When you were having a class, like arithmetic, where you just about had to write or something, the class that having that class at that time went up to the worktable, and around the worktable the teacher had -- you actually had a place to write on. The teacher, at any given time, there would be one class that would be doing their reading. There would be another one that would be studying their spelling, and she was making rounds, through two or three different classes at one time. Basically, they are the ones that were getting her attention at that time. Then next, another class would get the attention.
SW: So the students worked in student groups, and the teacher went from group to group to see how they were doing?
GH: Yes.
SW: And did the students help each other?
GH: Yes, they did. It was real nice. And I guess the thing I remember about the students more than anything was they had the best Christmas programs. I mean, those kids -- that was the biggest thing they had the year round, and they had some Christmas programs, and a lot of times different things like that, but they had some Christmas programs that were good.
SW: Did the parents come to the school?
GH: They came for the programs.
SW: Did they come at other times, or just for programs and cutting wood in the fall?
GH: Not unless something was wrong, or the teacher sent for them, or they were having some special something. A lot of times they would have a little play or maybe sing a few songs or something like that at Easter and have a play at Christmas. We usually always had a play, and Thanksgiving, or whatever they called it, and the parents would come for that. But basically the parents didn't come to school.
SW: Did your school building have outhouses?
GH: Yes.
SW: One for the boys and one for the girls?
GH: Yes.
SW: Did you ever see another adult in school besides the teacher, like a superintendent would visit, or something like that?
GH: Yes, there was a person. I can't remember what it was they called that person, but they did make rounds, maybe two or three times during the year. Not often at all.
SW: And this person would come in and talk with the teacher?
GH: They usually would come, as far as I know, unexpected, and they would come in the classroom and see more or less what was going on before they talked to the teacher, and the then usually the teacher would get all the students either outside playing or doing their homework or their schoolwork, and then he would sit down and talk with her. And I think, the way it looked to me, he might visit two or three schools in a day maybe. This was probably 25 or 26 miles from the county seat. These people visited from the county seat. To drive 25 miles back then was a half day's job. So when they got in that area, I'm sure that they visited every school that they could.
SW: What was the name of your school?
GH: York Ridge. That was in Greyson County.
SW: And what years did you attend the York Ridge School?
GH: Now, I'm not totally sure of that. I think you had to be six years old when you started, and I was born in '31, so if I started when I was six, that would have been '37 I guess. And I think I went four years there, and then I really was elevated at that time. I went to a 2-room school for a couple years. There we had a big room and a little room.
SW: In the one-room school, did you have any music or musical instruments? What subjects did you study?
GH: It was basically just arithmetic, spelling, English, geography, history, civics, you know, just the basic courses. And back then, I remember very well, most all the children, boys and girls both, but more often boys, I think, would -- the parents would send excuses with them. If they had hay down today and they were going to put it up this afternoon, they would send an excuse note with the boy to leave at twelve and come home and put the hay up. So I remember there were a lot of excuses and there were some that were forged.
SW: The children would forge notes because they would rather put up hay or work at home or maybe fish?
GH: Well, it wasn't the kid that wanted to as much as ... now kids, a lot of times, if they wrote the excuse themselves, they might be going fishing or something. But the parents back then, it wasn't a matter of choice, it was a fact that they had to do this because it was their way of living, and it was the only way of living. If they didn't have hay to feed the cows so they had milk to sell the milk, then they didn't have anything.
SW: So the parents needed the children at home?
GH: Yes.
SW: Do you remember anything about how the school got money?.
GH: No, I don't.
SW: What kind of books and materials did you use?
GH: We had nothing except just a book for each subject. You had your geography book, you had your spelling, and that was it. There was no literature that I remember at all.
SW: About discipline in the school, how do you remember that?
GH: I remember it as being in my opinion very appropriate. I've never seen anyone ever disciplined that didn't need to be disciplined in my mind, and they had discipline. But I've never seen anyone mistreated. I know people look at this different. And back in that day they made kids hold up things, hold up books, things that today would be way out in left field, but I don't see that they hurt them. The kids then were as mean -- maybe a little meaner than they are today, so they had to do something in my opinion. The holding up books was the biggest thing that if you got in trouble, you might have to do that.
SW: How do you hold up a book?
GH: They would put -- like a geography was a big thick book. They'd put a geography in each hand, and extend your arms [ demonstrating out to the side, shoulder high] and hold that book. And she had a little bitty tiny keen switch, and if you let your arm go down, she'd come down across your arm with that little switch. And you'd straighten it back up.
SW: Sort of like having physical education, too?
GH: Right.
SW: I had not heard of that before, holding up books.
GH: Yes, that holding up books was a big thing.
SW: Did the girls receive the same kind of discipline as the boys, or were they treated differently?
GH: I did not notice any difference. Thinking back on it, I don't know that there was any difference.
SW: When students carried in wood, was it usually the boys, or did everyone participate?
GH: Generally speaking, the teacher would pick different ones for different days or different times to get wood. If it was real cold, you may have to go two or three times to get wood. So she would pick the ones to go and get wood, and I'm not really sure how she picked them. I'm sure it would be ones she thought were big enough to carry the wood, but I don't really remember about that. Now the water, that was -- oh, everybody wanted to get out and go carry the water. That was a big deal. We got to go way down in this wooded area, and we'd spend a half hour down there getting that bucket of water, getting out of class.
SW: So it was a privilege to go get water, and you had to be good in order to be chosen to go get water?
GH: Yes. Yes you did.
SW: I have heard several people say that going to get water was a privilege.
GH: Yes, it was. And a lot of the bigger boys, I remember, would hide their cigarettes at the spring. They'd come by the spring before they went to school of a morning, hide their tobacco or their cigarettes, and when they went for water, they'd smoke.
SW: How did you get to school? Did you walk?
GH: Yes.
SW: And did you bring your lunch?
GH: Yes.
SW: And what did you do at recess or when you were free at lunch? Did you organize games?
GH: Yes. The road at this one-room school was the playground. But there was not much traffic. There might be a vehicle a couple of times a day, and everybody at the schoolhouse was there. It didn't bother us at all. But generally speaking, you'd see the girls playing, and the boys would have some kind of a ball they were throwing. I guess probably it was true that the girls and boys didn't play all that many games together.
SW: How many months did you go to school? September through May like we do not, or do you remember?
GH: I don't really remember.
SW: You went for four years at this school and then for two years at a two-room school. What did you do after that?
GH: What we're talking about now, 7th was what we called preschool. That was elementary school. Eighth grade was high school. Eleven grades completed high school. So you had 8, 9, 10, and 11 in high school.
SW: Do you feel like the one-room school gave you a good education and prepared you for later school and work?
GH: Well, I guess you'd have to stop and put this in the perspective. There are so many things back then they didn't have, even if it had been a ten-room school. I feel like the one-room school gave me just bout as much as the bigger schools did, because the bigger schools had no more than the one-room school.
SW: We have heard that the one-room school was better in some ways and prepared you better than schools do now, because you heard the lessons more, worked with children of all ages, and other reasons.
GH: I agree that you were more or less ready for it. To me it was like having brothers and sisters. If you have a brother that is a grade, two grades, ahead of you, you hear all he's saying about it and you have some knowledge of what you are about to get into. I think that is what you were saying about the classes, and I agree. I can't remember anything about how many were in each class. As I said, I guess there were about 35 in the school, and seven classes. I'm sure there were classes with three or four, and there may have been classes, years in which there weren't any students at all, I'm not sure.
SW: What do you remember about your teacher?
GH: My first teacher was a man. He probably was in his 50's, and he walked, I'd say, approximately ten miles to the school. And I remember in really bad weather he would wear his four-buckle arctics and all, and be all wrapped up. That's about all I can remember about that. Now my second teacher, I only had two at the one-room school, my second teacher was my aunt, my mother's sister. And I've been asked many times, "What did that do to your education?" I feel like she was an excellent teacher, and I felt like she really went overboard not to make a difference. But that's my opinion. I'm sure there would be others.
SW: But you didn't feel like the "teacher's pet" ?
GH: I didn't feel like I could get anything that the others couldn't. I really didn't.
SW: In a small community, you might expect someone to be related to the teacher. Was your aunt married at the time that she taught?
GH: Yes.
SW: And did she have children in the school?
GH: Yes. But they -- all of her kids -- were a little older than me. I'm next to the youngest in our family. And all of her kids, she was the oldest in her family, and all her kids were just a little older than Mom's kids.
SW: Is there anything I haven't asked about that you think is important, that we might like to know?
GH: About the only thing I can think of was the getting to school was quite a problem, and I'm sure that's not a thing ...
SW: I know that we would find that interesting.
GH: Well, I couldn't even find them today, but each group of kids that lived in a certain area had paths that they followed to go home. One group of kids might go up this hill, and another group up another hill, and over that one, and they'd cut through fields, and each group had a certain way of going home. And the roads back then that I remember, it was nothing for a road to be closed for two or three weeks with snow, because back then it was basically horses and if they had machinery, it wasn't very good. They opened the main arteries, I guess, but it was nothing for the roads to be closed for three or four weeks.
SW: But the children could follow their paths?
GH: Yes. We didn't use the roads anyway.
SW: And when it snowed, it was probably difficult to find the paths, too.
GH: It was. But, you know, if you walk the paths that way twice a day, you just about know where every little tree is, and there's no such thing as getting lost. But I've seen snow where it would be to the top of the fences by the road. But back then, the people expected that. If there was a big drift here in the road, all they did was just go out in a man's field, and go through his field and come out on the other side of the drift. But, you know, that was accepted then.
SW: Do you feel that children liked to go to school?
GH: Oh, yes. In fact, I remember, and I've heard them talk about it many times, my brothers and sisters, I know, and we all loved to go with our older brothers and -- mine were sisters. And we usually would try to go when we were about four or five years old, and they'd let us go some, I don't remember how much. But they'd let us go some. I guess it was when they were not having exams, or something so we could.
SW: When younger children came in, did the teacher teach them something?
GH: They put them in the first grade. See, my sister was five years older than I was, and I usually went with her. And instead of my sitting with my sister when I went in, I went into the first grade, and whatever the first grade was doing, I couldn't do what they were doing, but she would give me a piece of paper and things to do, just like she did the other students, to keep me out of her hair, I guess.
SW: Were you aware of any black children in your community?
GH: There were black children, not really in our community, but in that general area. There was one family. They didn't go to school. I don't -- well, I've been told they didn't go to school at all. I'm not very sure of that. They didn't go to anywhere I went.
SW: Do you remember whether or not there were children in the community with handicaps, and whether they went to school?
GH: I don't remember a physical handicap. There were a couple that basically I can look back on with mental handicaps. They had no special provisions for that. They had nobody that had any training or anything. There was one boy that I remember that was a little younger than myself, and his father would -- kids would laugh at him for it -- would walk with him to school and hold his hand and come and get him in the afternoon. You know, to those kids, any kid was supposed to be able to go across those mountains and go home by themselves. But he couldn't. Since he's got older, he's in some kind of a treatment center. I can think back on him. I didn't realize at that time he had problems.
SW: But he was in with the rest of the group at school?
GH: Now, as I remember it, they didn't really try to make him keep up as much as they did the others, but other than that, he was right in class with the other kids.
SW: Do you have other impressions about education in the one-room school that you would like to share with us?
GH: My impression is that their education was far advanced compared to what it is today. What I'm saying is, when they were in third grade then, they were having stuff and doing stuff and able to do things that kids in third grade can't do today. They've just got them so programmed and "you can't do this unless you're in third grade," and back then it was different. Back then, of course, generally speaking, in my day and time, I would say 50% of people didn't graduate from high school. Now 10th grade at that time -- well, I guess, when I was a kid, 7th grade was like having a 4-year college degree now. In all your jobs and everything, they wanted you to have a 7th grade education. Then they got up to being 10th grade. Now, when I went to police academy, and that was in 1978, you had to have a 10th grade education to get into police academy. Now, I'm not sure, but I think you have to have two years of college. But the grades, especially one to seven, I feel like they were more advanced in life, but of course they were older. You have to realize that back then you didn't start to school until you were six years old.
SW: And no kindergarten and no 12th grade, sometimes no 11th grade either.
GH: No. You didn't get prepared a whole lot to start, but basically it's about the same. I can remember then when I went to the two-room school, I can't remember, but I think it was 1-4 in one room and the 5-7 in the big room. We called it the little room and the big room. It was basically the same thing only this was a bigger school and more kids from more areas came to it. Then after that, I rode a bus about thirty minutes to high school.
SW: Where was your high school?
GH: It was the Virginia Carolina High School in Grass Creek, North Carolina. The school sat on the North Carolina-Virginia state line. The high school was in North Carolina and the preschool was in Virginia. The Virginia-Carolina High School burned down -- I don't remember what year it was. It wasn't to get me out, but it did burn down.
SW: Mr. Henderson, I appreciate your taking your time to talk with me, and many people will enjoy sharing the information you have provided. It will take me a little time to get this tape transcribed, but I will send you a copy of the transcript.
GH: I hope you can use it. I've thought a lot about it since you called, and I don't believe there is anything else of interest. About the books, they were about like they are today, you tried to get used books from the other kids. It is not that much different on the books, except the kind of books. I think the biggest thing that I remember about the education that probably is different, and I don't agree with, was that there were just a lot of things you had to know. The first thing you had to know was that multiplication table. I mean, you just had to know it. You had to know your ABC's, forward and backward. You had to be able to name the presidents by number. I've never understood why I needed to know who the 26th president is, but you can just go on and on, there were so many of those things you had to know.
SW: You memorized a lot of things?
GH: It was just you did that, and I don't know why. I remember - I'm going to tell you this, and then we can quit if you want to. My grandmother used to sit on the porch and talk to us about her school days. This probably would have been about a hundred and twenty years ago. She said their spelling was totally in syllables. They spelled no words whatsoever in school. They learned to put syllables together. They would spell syllables and put the syllables together and make words. One of the words, a word I'll never forget, was connontheligusantigoranibuscopernio. When they had this for spelling, they had to spell it as "c-o-n, con; n-o-n, non; ..." and go through that whole thing. Then they could take each one out of that and make most any word they wanted to.
SW: They were learning to spell by sound, phonetically. I'll have fun transcribing that.
GH: That's been fifty years ago since I heard that, and I'll never forget it. She had a spelling book, and I asked her for it, and she promised it to me, but I never found out what happened to it. She said they never spelled a word at school, they just spelled syllables, always syllables.