MRS. LUCY LUNBECK CORBETT WRITES
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Decatur County Journal Leon, Decatur County, Iowa Thursday, May 10, 1906 EDITOR JOURNAL: -- Through thoughtfulness of my sister, MRS. ADDA CURRY, who never forgets her lifelong "pard" when reminiscences are floating around. I have read the school time letters from the "kids." It came to me that I, being so much older and remembering the school from 1856 to 1877, might be allowed to contribute some reminiscences that but few of your readers will recollect. The first school ever held in Leon was in the court house and the teacher, GEO. T. YOUNG, forever endeared himself to all parents, by saving the lives of his pupils at the risk of his own in a cyclone that blew the building down behind him as he carried out the last two tots. This was in June or July, 1855. When a wee girl, I went to school with my big brother, LEMUEL, to J.C. PORTER, (a better preacher than teacher) in the first school house Leon ever owned, a little frame building out in the east part of town, where long recesses, carrying and passing the water, singing the states and capitols and the multiplication tables were the main attractions. On Friday afternoons, the 'speakin' was great, JOHN S. GARDNER "Timber"--aunt Ann's Al (there was a "Prairie" Aunt Anns Al also) and HATTIE RAIFF were the prize speakers, and when AL GARDNER started out once a month on "Riorzi's Address to the Romans" we sat with bated breath until he resonantly closed the declamation. LOU WELDON taught us little girls to knit at recess. JOHN BOWMAN gave us riddles to guess. Later, another preacher, GEO. ADAMS, taught school over a store, being succeeded in turn by SAMUEL SEARS, CARR PORTER, SARAH PATTERSON, MR. JUDD, EMILY HIGBEE and others. The new M.E. Church was used by Prof. LEWIS, J.C. PORTER and later by that fiery tempered but best educator Leon ever had up to that time, L.M. HASTINGS, a man who was a generation ahead of his day, who really sowed ambition's earnest seed in student minds and gave the new schools a new impetuous. The boys of those old school days were JACK and REUBEN WELDON, BOB and BILLY BOONE, BILL KIRKPATRICK and several others that I do not recall at present. My school attendance closed here for MR. HASTINGS being county superintendent, as well as teacher, issued to four conceited pert little girls of 15 to 17 years, a teacher's certificate each, as special rewards of merit for greatest scholastic attainments in briefest time. They were ELLA ADAMS, MARTHA JORDAN, FANNIE RAIFF and the writer. At once we secured schools and launched into careers poorly prepared but bravely determined. How well I remember that sketch of HENRY LUNBECK's on the blackboard of the old north end brick, where MARY MILES, EMMA DAWSON, MARY HUTCHISON and yours truly assisted AARON FRAZIER in his school work. The three BELLES, (BOBBITT, THOMPSON and BURNS) made his life something wretched to carry, and he in turn took it out of his underteachers. My school days in '6l to '65 are eventful ones. When ANN WHARTON and MARTHA JORDAN tore a Lincoln & Hamlin's button off my dress, political excitement, even among the children was high. I got MARY KNAPP and we promptly relieved these two girls of Douglass badges. The war was carried further next day by the democrat girls annexing to their ranks MARY and EDITH PATTERSON. SARAH KIRKPATRICK and NANCY SALES; on our side we had HATTIE RAIFF, NANCY FREEMAN, MINERVA BOBBITT and all our little sisters. While the war waged it was earnest. When we went home for repairs, most of us had a threshing thrown in, though our parents all were in secret sympathy with the children's way of settling matters of national importance while our big brothers were "in the war." All the memories of those school days, Brother CASS would like to hear from his class mates, HEB BOBBITT, "PEEL" DETRICK and others, may not this series of letters started by ED SAMSON, give us all information and a review of happy days long past? I trust I have not worried you, my experience being beyond remembrance of most of you. Fraternally, LUCY LUNBECK CORBETT, Emporia, Kansas. Copied by Nancee (McMurtrey) Seifert, August 23, 2001 |
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