An old classmate sent these pictures around yesterday and I fell at once into memories . . . class rooms with high ceilings and open windows, radiators and wooden floors . . .
Girls in starched dresses -- in the above picture, crinolines had become popular and we rustled as we walked. How I envied one class mate who wore five full skirts, all heavily starched, every day, rotating them so a new one was on top each day...
Saddle shoes and bobby sox rolled down were in -- some wore foam rubber inside that sock roll to ensure a stylishly fat wad of sock around the ankle.
How young and (mostly) innocent we were . . .
20 comments:
My early school days looked just like this.
Sam
I remember when classrooms looked more like this. These are priceless, Vicki!
I enjoyed seeing your photos. I can't remember much of the two years at school in Indonesia before the war, but I still have a photo of my one year at elementary school in the Netherlands before I went to the high school. Your classes were very crowded, but that was also the case at our schools, I think. Even when I was a teacher I had 42 pupils. That was normal!
Your title and your photos sound like "The twilight zone"...
I remember our class pictures taken like that, and oh what an exciting day it was. All dressed up and posing so nice at our desks. Mmmm, those were the days!
Yes, I've got lots of pictures like this too. What memories!
Thanks to the names with second photo, we were able to pick you out. Otherwise it was impossible. I would have been in 7th grade that year, and the only thing I can remember about that class was how much I disliked my teacher.
That second one is the only one I'm in... I hate it that -for whatever reason- you can no longer click on the pictures to enlarge them. Does anyone know why?
The photos enlarged when I clicked on them, Vicki. Great photos! Teachers had no problem controlling larger groups - they were in charge, and most of our parents made sure we knew it.
Hi Vicki, I was able to click and get a full screen of your photo, thus saw what the writing said. But I've noticed other times it hasn't happened no matter how many times I click on pics. There's a anti-click-enlarging-photos scheme out there!
Great photos, Vicki! I love seeing this. The photos enlarged when I clicked.
i have a bit of luck in picasa cropping them ..then you can mess with them a bit...try it
and oh boy...looks familiar
and I love it
Definitely a different era ... sometimes seems like it was a different planet for sure! I'm reading a book called "Relational Reality" and one of the chapters specifically addresses children and schools, currently. Sad, but it clarifies the troubles my nieces (13 and 17) experience.
IT was indeed a galaxy far away. Call me an old fogey, but I think we got a better education with fewer bells and whistles. And a lot more petticoats.
I remember the petticoats too, I wore them under my tight-waisted, flared skirts that swung and swished and swashed with every step. Oh, I was so fashionable then!
That girl put on petticoats AND five skirts every day? By Friday the one that started on the bottom must have been a little wilted, wasn't it?
Whatever company made those schoolroom light fixtures must have really made a mint. They were the same everywhere, apparently! I can practically smell the chalk dust when I look at those pictures. Chalk dust and bologna sandwiches and bananas: the smell of school days.
June, As I recall, the starched skits were the petticoats and she ironed the new top one each morning before school.
Love these pics! I would so love to have pictures of any of my classes but nobody took any formal pics of us. 8-(
I love the way you're all sitting so nicely - sitting up straight with your hands nicely laced on the desks in front of you! Bless!
Such memories of West Mead Elementary School swept over me as I saw your pix, and I was once again in Mrs. Shannon's 7th grade social studies class, looking out the big windows at the bare branches of a row of trees swaying in the late fall breeze.
Deana the Queena
I have a 3rd grade picture that looks very similar to this. Loved those big tall windows. How we used to gaze out at the big oaks in the school yard! And I can remember the teachers using a pole to open the tall transoms. Of course there wasn't air conditioning back then. In fact, I went through all of school without it. Sadly, my elementary school burned down, but the high school is still in use (built in the 1920's) and both my children went there too. With air conditioning, of course.
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