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Mt. View Dist 61

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The little one room school I attended in the fall of 1936, when I was five and one half years old was named "Mt. View" for it's hilltop location. It was located in the far northwestern part of Grant Co, Oklahoma.

Each Christmas, we had special programs for parents and relatives of the pupils each Christmas. We had a small Rythmn band which consisted of colored sticks, bells, tambourines and one symbol.

The first grade always had sticks, the next upgrade was the bells, then the triangles and lastly the tambourines. I remember not being able to wait to upgrade to the step above the next year. Our teacher always accompanied us on the piano. We seems to always have at least one boy who could not keep time. I have always wondered if it was on purpose.

Our stage had a wire strung completely across the stage front. �Our mother's brought white bed sheets for curtains. It seemed it took six or maybe eight. Mama always delighted in the fact that her sheets were always the whitest. It got to be a contest between the ladies, I do believe. I do remember she had sheets that she kept aside just for that show. She would get upset if we tried to use them.

All of her sheets were very white from her scrubbing the sheets on a board after boiling her whites, another story there.

I loved the idea that we were going to our school house at night to perform. Several in the community had the pump up gas lanterns. �Sometimes we had to wait in the dark for those people to arrive.

I can remember mama and daddy, who were always on time, fussing that the ones with the lamps were always late. I can vividly remember the smell of them as they were being carefully lit and then burning. The domed shaped mesh that covered the burner had to be handled very carefully as it would disintergate if anyone touched it. Those lights were so much brighter than our kerosene lamps that we had at our home.

Our teacher, Glen Yarnell, was a stickler for groomed looks at our programs . Glen's wife Thelma, would come to the school prior to a program and offer to cut every boys hair. Some really needed it too. She was kept quite busy doing that. I remember mama fussing at Willis because he did not have his done one time. He said he wanted dad to do it as daddy barbered for all of the neighbors.

We girls had costumes made by using a white cotton underskirt which our mothers covered with row after row of gathered 2 inch wide colored crepe paper making a ruffled skirt. We always had a ruffle around the sleeve and neck opening too, I remember them scratching my tender flesh.

We were as proud of those fancy dresses as any "store bought" ones. One would not dare get any moisture on them as the paper would bleed color onto the white slips. The youngest children of the school would "speak" poems, rhymes and sing little songs. The older group had a play.

After we performed we would sit with our parents and watch the older group preform. Many friends and relatives from other places came to our programs. Most people who came to see us perform said our little school had the best entertainment anywhere around.

We thought so too.

Lois Caywood Guffy

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