Chapter 5 - The Gash in the Floor -- Second Grade

1952-1953

McGuffey Schoolhouse in 2014

(We had 2nd grade here in the 1950's)

Inside McGuffey School in 2014

      I loved the McGuffey School at Greenfield Village, a log cabin, and was very fond of the teacher, Mrs. Doremus. The year we spent there was one of my happiest. The log cabin was cozy and comfortable and the school projects fun. Mrs. Doremus was unusually short, a bit plump and had graying hair in a slightly untidy bun. Her size and manner seemed a perfect fit for the McGuffey School.

McGuffey School in 2011 -- Bathrooms were in the little building on the left

     We entered the cabin through the back door and filed downstairs to the basement where we hung our coats. Once Gary and Roger were tossing their woolen caps at each other when one of them got stuck above the florescent light bulb in the ceiling. We were back in our seats when smoke made us aware that a fire had started. I can’t recall what happened next. That's the really hard part about memories -- you can't make yourself remember the whole story. However, we know it all ended happily as the little log cabin still exists and still enchants visitors today.

     The "Best-Recess-Ever" Award goes to whoever decided to move the Ford children’s playhouse to the McGuffey School at Greenfield Village. Here’s what I wrote about it when I was in sixth grade: “I remember the big doll-house that four people used to play in during recess. In this house there were two rooms, a kitchen containing a sink with running water, and a living room with a sewing machine that worked.” The privilege of playing in the children’s play house was rotated with two boys and two girls assigned for a week at a time. We all loved that little house which had originally been built by the Ford’s for their grandchildren. Today it is back on the Henry Ford Estate.

      The best academic memory is about spelling. The winner of the weekly spelling bee had the supreme pleasure of wearing a silver dollar on a ribbon around his neck all week. It was a perfect prize and I longed to win. However, we had a boy who excelled in spelling, Gary, and he rarely lost the contest. Second prize was a half-dollar. I remember wearing it with great pride.

     William Holmes McGuffey had been an educator whose writings and textbooks were much admired by Mr. Ford; thus we memorized several McGuffey works. I can still recite the rhyming Ten Commandments from McGuffey’s Second Eclectic Reader.

The Gash in the Floor (a true story): 

     Once upon a time a little 7-year-old girl ('twas I) walked up to the little stand next to the teacher’s desk to sharpen her pencil. The pencil sharpener was nailed to a lovely block of oak or maple wood that, fractional inch by fractional inch, had slowly left its secure location and made its way to rest precariously at the rim. Each child's sharpening action had moved the block of wood closer to the edge. Little did the girl know that her simple act of inserting the pencil would result in permanent damage. Yes, her action of sharpening her pencil brought down the entire block of wood and gouged out a hole in the antique flooring which seemed enormous at the time. Imagine my surprise when I entered McGuffey’s Schoolhouse 45 years later and discovered the gash was still there! It's not obvious and smaller than I remembered, but it remains. I show it to my grandchildren with a strange sort of pride.

The gash is on the left -- it's hard to get a good photo of it. (2011)

The gash in 2014

2014

     When you think about it, isn’t it amazing that this log cabin is still standing today having been so fully used by more than 40 years of daily classes? If I alone can remember two stories about normal school activities, hat-throwing and pencil-sharpening, that resulted in damage to the building in the one year I was there, think of how many stories are not told. I’m very glad the building is still in existence (not so much the gouge).

Musings on McGuffey:      In 1934 Mr. Ford brought McGuffey’s birthplace from Pennsylvania to Greenfield Village along with the logs from the McGuffey family barn. He used the logs to build a wonderful schoolhouse which he placed near the birthplace. The Ackley Covered Bridge is nearby, and it too has McGuffey connections. It originally spanned a creek only seven miles from the McGuffey farm in Pennsylvania.

     Now let’s think this through: McGuffey was an academic; he taught in colleges. I can’t help but wonder why Mr. Ford built a log-cabin school house and called it McGuffey School. Yes, the logs had been part of the barn on the farm where young William was born, BUT the family moved to Ohio when William was only two years old. On the other hand, a log-cabin school does beautifully symbolize the education of pioneer children and millions did learn to read from the McGuffey Readers on the mid-1800’s frontier. Why did Mr. Ford build the McGuffey log cabin? I think Mr. Ford simply liked log cabins. I do too.