Each room had two grades in it and it was often more interesting to listen to the class ahead than to be studying our own lessons. Tuesdays were special as the singing teacher came. Miss Lorsch came from Detroit and I can see her in my mind's eye as she stood in front. She was a fine looking woman and she was a fine teacher. The high school was one big room made by having two rooms made into one. Our English teacher, Miss Batchelor, was a very good teacher and I can still remember when she had us reading Chaucer and how well she would explain it to us. And she helped us to appreciate Shakespeare's plays.
When I was in high school a commercial teacher was hired and we used the attic for a small class room. There was a steep stair to go up and a trap door and a ladder going down to a closet off the big high school room. One day during classes there was a great commotion. Dorathea Blankertz had fallen through the open trap door, bringing pans, buckets, etc. with her. The teacher rushed to open the door and out emerged Dorathea apparently none the worse for the fall.
Most of the boys dropped out of school by the tenth grade. There were ten in my graduating class (1916) -- and only one boy. The high school was not accredited so anyone going on to college had to go to Detroit to high school. Some students went to the normal school to prepare for teaching. As with most schools, some of our teachers were gifted and many were not well qualified.
Ivadel remembers:
Across the daisy-covered field at Howe and Michigan, my friends Arline and Doratha Hall came from their home on the corner. In the early summer strawberries ripened close to the ground in the area where the pretty white and yellow daisies swayed in the breeze. Sweet clover made a wonderful jungle in a part of this field. We followed a path down Garrison to Military, then a narrow wooden sidewalk to the school that stood in the middle of the block where the Adams Junior High School now stands.
There were few homes along the way and the area on the corner of Howard and Garrison was often covered by water in the spring. Pussy-willows grew there in abundance and we gathered them for our teacher on our way to school.
The school was built on a terrace about five or six feet high and in the winter we made slides down the inclines and spent our recesses sliding down, much as the children enjoy the metal slides today.
The school had seven rooms, four on the first floor and three on the second, the high school occupied one large room made by combining two rooms. Windows extended along two sides of each room but as there was no artificial light you can imagine how difficult it must have been for the children to work when we had a cloudy day or when the days were short in the winter. The desks were fastened to the floor so we could not move them near the windows. We hung our wraps on high racks in the center of the halls. What a privilege it was to be allowed to ring the bell; the rope hung in the upstairs hall.
There was no running water in the building, so we went to the iron pump that was near the spot where the Salisbury school now stands. Our toilets were in the basement but there was no way to flush them.
The graduation exercises were held in the Methodist church, and it was enough for the small classes that we had in those days.
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