V1935-01G7
Seventh Grade, fall 1935 to fall
1936
Seventh Grade: Mrs Ethel Crosswhite was our teacher,
28 students started and 27 completed; beginning ratings were 1-8-10-9-0 ending
they were 1-5-16-5-0.I was Unsatisfactory for the same reasons as prior years.
OCS Football Team 1935 Edwin Hitchcock Coach
I
was front center behind Harold Rubindal. I found I was missing spittoon
cleaning quarters left in my pants. Harald stayed in locker room hidden behind
a door and watched the non-athlete go though pants pockets. Harold’s family
moved shortly after.
Our Home at 306 W.
Oak St Oberlin, KS 1933 to 1955
Best Remembered View, as it looked during
High School
After addition of left drive and side door,
after WW II
View of back yard, winter of
1958
What’s in a photo – If you lived there it says much.
Sister Phyllis and I planted the
tree on the left when it was only one foot high, during the drought years when
plants had a struggle. This tree grew fast as it was watered from garage roof
run off.
Dad installed a two way light on the
left corner of the garage, it could be turned on/off from the garage or porch.
Originally the left side house the
Green Model A Ford and the right the
1933 Ford Company Car. Later the left would house the 1936 Ford family car and
the right the 1938 Ford Company Car. [Fern and Eulaine Erickson bought the Used
Green Model-A Ford and used it when teaching country school.]
The cloths line extended to the left
of the garage, buffalo grass sod had been placed and watered so Mom would have
good footing.
Paul Nitch Jr and I added a rabbit
pen to the right of the garage with a three tier, four wide set of rabbit
hutches on the right wall of the garage. We started with two and in time had as
many as 30, with the little ones turned loose in the fence enclosed pen. We
found that if we placed lids cut from oil drums, in the ground below the fence,
that once the rabbits dug down they would not dig back up. It worked great and
our “rabbit business” lasted from about 4th grade till until we were
out of high school.
We sent off for mail order lessons
on how to tan hides, and did some using a wooden nail keg to soak the hides.
The diversion to Model-T’s put rabbits on the back burner, but until then we
named each and tended them daily.
To the left was where Doc Hughes and
I had our Model-T’s. Jr Nitch was too young to be interested in Model-T’s and
never participated to the extent we had with rabbits.
The photo is taken from where there
was a power pole – Dad drove up the alley from the right, turning in front of
the pole into the garage. When backing out of the garage he backed to the left
of the pole into the alley so he could then head down the alley and out. At
first it had seemed as if the pole would have to be moved, but with practice it
worked just fine.
A trash burn barrel was place on the
drive side in front of the power pole.
I saw Dad tearing pages from a book
and burning them in the barrel. Dad had stepped away, and curious I pulled one
before it was consumed to see what it was. They were pages from a “loan” book,
listing persons and money loaned. When Dad returned he said, put it back in and
let it burn. I had recognized the names, and the amounts of money, some noted
as repaid but most not. I asked Dad what it was about and he said, they are old
loans, no longer valid. I said but it shows most were not repaid. He said true
but they’ve been written off. I knew the people listed, and some were sizable
amounts to my frame of reference, and I said but these people should be able to
pay, why didn’t they? Dad said the times were special and very difficult when
that money was borrowed – they didn’t have money to repay at the time – it’s
now time to burn the books – it’s in the past. When I started to say more he
just said, with a firm tone, just forget what you read and don’t mention it
again – it’s past, the debts have been written off. After I wondered how many
small personal loans had been written off that way.
The driveway and alley had
originally been muddy – over time Dad had enough loads of sand deposited to
where the incline from alley to garage was well graveled. One of my chores had
been to carry ashes from the basement furnace to the alley – where they were
strewen to fill in old mud holes.
During the worst of the dust storms
Dad had to almost feel his way up that alley and to the garage – the dust was
so heavy he could hardly see to make the turn and into the garage. I recall his
entering the house completely covered with the clinging dust.
The driveway was where Dad used to kill the chickens Mom would fix for dinner. Dad used the method he’d learned as a kid – he wrung the chickens head off. He’d grab the chickens head in his right hand then with a cranking motion, as if cranking a car, the chickens body would rotate about it’s stationary neck -- the body would come loose from the head and go flopping about on the drive – blood splattering over feathers until it’s reflexes subsided. When Mom asked me to kill a chicken for her, I tried the twist the neck off method, but I didn’t like it. I developed my own method where I’d hold the chickens wings as well as it’s feet, then drag it’s beak across a wood stump, causing the chicken to stretch out it’s neck – then with a clean chop with my ax, off would go the head and I’d hold the chicken to the side and let the blood drain. From there on dipping it in a bucket of boiling hot water and plucking the feathers was much the same. This was done so the plucked feathers could be dumped in the burn barrel. There was an advantage to having a gravel-dirt area – it was not like having to clean off a concrete drive.