The contract was for a seven months term beginning October 1st, 1922 and was signed by the clerk Joe Markel, president O.B. Hanson, treasurer William M. Zabel, Tom Fisher and Sadowsky Directors. The salary was $85 a month with the stipulation that I do my own janitor work. Written instructions with the contract were that on arriving in Belfield I was to contact the mailman John Ness and ride with him about thirty miles to the Willmen Post Office, where someone would meet me and take me to Mrs. William Martin�s, where I was to board. I paid Ness $2.00 for the ride.
Many people were at the Post Office waiting for their mail as it was delivered twice a week, Tuesday and Saturdays, and those days were called �Willmen Days�.
It was a three mile walk to the school from the Brew�s and Walter Brew and I walked every day until the men were through threshing and we had a horse and buggy to drive to school. It was an old black horse, named Diamond, which pulled the buggy to school. When Walter didn�t go to school, I could ride horse back to and from school. I paid Mrs. Brew $22 a month for room and board. It was a wonderful place to stay and Mrs. Brew was an excellent cook. People were so congenial and friendly.
The fall of 1922, the teachers institute was held at Dickinson State Teachers College, Murle Hill - County Superintendent. In the fall of 1923 it was held at the Killdeer High School, Marion Fleming - County Superintendent. While there, we were taken on a tour of the Killdeer Mountains and saw the Medicine Hole and the place where the Indians used to send up their smoke signals.
Games played by the children were ten step, prisoners base, base ball, hide and seek, pomp-pomp pullaway, but best of all was sliding down the hills. We used to carry water from home to pour on the hills to make them icy for easier sledding. One day, Edna Zabel and Christina Samak, students of mine, were riding a homemade jump sled and lost control. They slammed into the school house and were knocked unconscious.
Christmas programs were one of the biggest events of the year with the young and old participating in dialogues and the program. Jack Brew went to Dickinson and bought the Christmas tree for us. In those days we used wax candles on the tree, and were lucky that the tree didn�t catch fire. That year the program was held in the school, but in 1923 it was held in a granary at Jack Brew�s as it was a larger place to accommodate the crowd. Harry Walker was Santa Claus for us.
I was there 10 months as I taught a summer term of three months in another school and in that time was to town only four times. The community had their own orchestra, clubs, and parties. We put on a play by the teachers and adults of the district to raise money to purchase globes for the schools. Everyone rode horse back and Saturday was a big day when many were at the Willmen Post Office to visit and wait for the mail to come. Eddie Markel was the post master. The Post Office was a very small wood building with a sign stating it was the Willmen Post Office. Vera Markel told me that the post office closed in 1933 and that Willmen is no more.
In February of 1923, there was a blizzard; it was so bad that we didn�t go to school. Otherwise the pupils and I braved the cold weather, most all of use walked to school.
There were no hot lunches. Many of the pupils were German or Bohemian and their families used a lot of poppy seeds in their baking. There was no pump for water at the school so we all carried our drinking water with us.
There were only two student that couldn�t speak English, but that seemed to create no problems as they readily learned english from the other students.
The 8th graders wrote a final examination sent out from the County Superintendents Office. Those days you had to know the answers, there were no multiple choices or suggestions as to what the answer might be.
The last day of school was a picnic day with plenty of food and the patrons and children all joined in playing games and races. Some of the songs sang at school were �Long, Long Ago�, �Rainy Day�, �Lady Bug�, �The Good Old U.S.A�,
�Dixie�, �America�, �Over the Rive and Through the Woods�, �The Star Spangled Banner�, and �My Old Kentucky Home�. Every pupil seemed to have their favorite.
Those days are never to be forgotten -- those days that I spent with the people with the true Western Spirit.