Chapter 8 - The Making of a True Patriot -- Fifth Grade

1955 - 1956

Miller School in 2014

     Fifth grade was my favorite academic year. We studied U.S. history and our teacher, Miss Peavey, made it fun. My classmate Andy remembers our teacher sending us outside into the fresh air on beautiful days to do our school work. She sat in the doorway of a nearby historical building enjoying the privilege. I don’t share that memory but I have spent many sunny days since fifth grade wishing myself outside while in school or work. Maybe that’s Miss Peavey’s legacy.

      Miller School had been attended by Henry Ford in its original location in east Dearborn. When Mr. Ford moved the building to Greenfield Village, he recreated the little waterway that had run in front of the school as well. In that waterway he had crafted a small wooden waterwheel, one of his early experiments. A replica stood rotting at one end of the moat when we were in school. Today any sign of the waterway and the waterwheel are gone but I remember playing in the dead-leaf-filled and slimy water during recess.

     Today’s Miller School is also lacking the set of wooden steps that we climbed up and down many times a day (see the photos), which surely must have been an awkward route. Also missing are the unfriendly peacocks in the yard beside the school. I still recall the pleasure of finding a lost peacock feather and bringing it home to treasure.

      Memory is a funny thing. We couldn’t have played Red Rover every day during fifth grade recess but we played it often. I really loved that game. The class is split into two long lines that hold hands facing each other and the entire line chants “Red Rover, Red Rover, let (child’s name) come over!” The child whose name is called then runs as fast as he or she can for the weakest hand-hold and tries to break through. If successful, it’s the other team’s turn to call. If you can’t break through, you have to go back. I loved charging through -- it was really great fun. Marbles, jacks and jump rope sound so dated today but honing my skills at these activities were among my favorite recesses.

      Miss Peavey had a reputation as a strict but fair teacher. She liked the ideas of an educator named Rudolf Steiner who believed that students have unlimited power to learn (he founded the Waldorf Schools) and she incorporated some of his ideas into her classroom. Years later I ran into Miss Peavey while taking my own three little children to visit Greenfield Village and was amazed to discover our shared admiration for Steiner.

      We had a wonderful discussion about educational philosophy and I was so impressed with this former teacher of mine. Miss Peavey liked to lecture about the ideals upon which our country was founded. “Freedom” and “responsibility” were her favorite words and many students quickly learned that either of those words pleased her. She would lecture for a few minutes and pause before ending her sentence. This was our cue to guess the word that would complete the thought. Eventually I saw that either “freedom” or “responsibility” was the missing word…and even if they weren't, Miss Peavey would say, “No, but that’s a good answer.” My little soul really responded to her assumption that I had a soul and it longed for both freedom and responsibility. I was (am) a true believer in Democracy.

It was perhaps no coincidence that Miss Peavey taught U.S. History and that I enjoyed it so much. We had several projects to reinforce the information and the one I liked best was the paper mural. It was really a gigantic roll of paper upon which we illustrated scenes of early American history, such as the Ride of Paul Revere. It was a community effort: All the students contributed – we were assigned different sections in small groups. I remember the paper on the floor, the pencil drawings and the coloring-in to finish each panel. Then they were hung mural-style above the baseboards around the room. I was able to draw some of the horses, my favorite subject.

      We were required to keep a two-hole notebook of our U.S. History assignments which included lots of handwriting with our own illustrations and much creativity. We had to write with a fountain pen. Before the wondrous invention of the cartridge pen, you had to pull a lever and siphon in the ink, a sometimes messy process. The new pen effectively ended the art of re-inking, and the permanent damage caused by spilled ink. I remember my joy in finding a turquoise color of blue ink in a cartridge that didn’t go with the dark blue ink elsewhere in my notebook, but it was worth the discord to enjoy that shade of turquoise. I can still see it in my mind. Actually, I might even still have it in my basement.

      Miller School is a short block away from the childhood home of Wilbur and Orville Wright which Mr. Ford moved from Dayton, Ohio. For three warm spring days, we acted out a short play inside the Wright house, each performance with a different cast. Miss Peavey had divided us into three groups so that everyone had an important part. There must have been three young Wilbur Wrights, three young Orville Wrights and so on. There was no room for an audience but some VIPs attended – including the principal. I played the part of Orville and Wilbur’s younger sister, Katharine (although in my memory, my name was Priscilla – memory is a funny thing). We dressed up in 19^th Century clothing, memorized lines and I loved it.

      Occasionally a representative from the Edison Institute asked to borrow students to use as models for their promotional photos, sometimes dressed in period clothing. So far I have found only one such photo. It was taken while we were in fifth grade to promote a beautiful old racing car, a 1913 (or so) Mercer Raceabout. My mother dated this photo to January, 1956. On the back it states “Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan”. The Mercer automobiles were produced in New Jersey from 1910 to 1925, and this model looks to be in the 1911 to 1914 period. It is no longer owned by The Henry Ford.

     In the photo, there are two boys and one girl (me). Each of the boys seem to have found an unusual feature to study on the hot rod. Bucky seems to be studying a piece of trim or a sidelight and Paul is clearly pretty interested in the wooden dashboard. On the other hand, I look like I’m entranced by a small section of painted metal. Or maybe there was an insect. Although today I appreciate their beauty, in those days I only wanted to see horses, not cars. So I can only laugh when I see this photo of me feigning interest.

Chapter 9 - Ready to Say Goodbye -- Sixth Grade

1956-1957

Scotch Settlement School in 2014

Scotch Settlement School in 2014

     Miss E. Lucille Webster and Scotch Settlement School are almost synonymous in my mind. “Webby, ” as we called her when she couldn’t hear, was very strict. Our spelling words were marked wrong if the dot on the “i” was not directly overhead or if the cross bar on the “t” was crooked. We had to stand up to recite and go up to the blackboard in front of all the students to answer math problems. This was not so terribly different from our previous years; Miss Webster just seemed a bit more vigilant.

     Handwriting was apparently so vital to our sixth grade education that we were required to use old-fashioned inkwells and metal quill tip pens, dipping the tip in for more ink as our writing became thin and scratchy. It was easy to drip permanent ink on our papers. I learned that I was more tolerant of the splotches than my teacher was. We were required to keep several ink tips of varying widths and to use “blue black” ink. Andy remembers having to search several stores throughout sixth grade to find “blue black,” which was apparently not a popular ink color.

      Miss Webster placed dark green cardboard panels above the blackboards around the room with the ideal cursive letters formed in white so that we would have no excuse for a poorly formed letter. I believe it was the D’Nealian cursive style. She taught us that penmanship requires the use of your entire body and that you begin by placing your feet firmly on the floor. You sit straight but lean forward so that your arms and hands are a lovely extension of the entire act. It was interesting to me that my classmates and I formed our cursive lettering in the same D’Nealian style in our grade school years yet within months of sixth grade graduation, our individual cursive styles widely diverged. Today I’m quite embarrassed by my illegible script but tell myself that if necessary I can still produce a rough facsimile of Webby’s required cursive writing. Self-delusion is sometimes okay.

      I believe Miss Webster thought it her job to review everything we ever learned in school during our sixth grade year so that we would be ready for the new world of junior high in a public school where most of us were headed. So in addition to updating and reviewing our handwriting skills, she brought back the mathematics basics. We were positively drilled in basic addition so that we could add long lists of number quickly up in front of the class: “Two and six are eight and four are twelve and seven are nineteen and nine are twenty-eight and six are…” Quickly. Actually, I gained a great deal of confidence in my addition skills but really disliked the process.

      We studied Indonesia and probably other Asian countries and were put in study groups. I remember the islands of Sumatra and Java. We added two states to the Union this year, Alaska and Hawaii, and we learned about them. I remember being struck by the stark contrasts between the two. I was finally healthy enough to have my tonsils out and I remember receiving get-well notes as a class project while I was out. Toward the end of the school year we wrote our autobiography which is one project that gave me lots of pleasure. I still have it.

Sixth grade graduation was a big deal. The girls wore pastel dresses and the boys wore suit coats. It was the first time that I was allowed to wear nylon stockings and a garter belt and I was thrilled beyond words to be so mature.

      There was a special ceremony. We sang songs, recited poems and showed off our skills. We walked our parents through Scotch Settlement School to show off our oil paintings and autobiographies. They spoke to Miss Webster. Everybody smiled and spirits were high. I felt like I loved every one of my classmates dearly; all discord from earlier years forgotten. It was a great day.

      We were very happy to be leaving Greenfield Village behind even though I was a sentimental little kid. I was ready to move on. I believe that the Greenfield Village Schools prepared me well for the academics that were to follow and my understanding and appreciation of American history was surely inspired by my years in those historical buildings. We were given some unique opportunities to experience a part of America’s past and I’m grateful to my parents for having made the choice to send me to the Village. If I still don’t know one end of an automobile from another or the warp from the woof in a loom, I certainly can’t blame the Edison Institute for that. They did their best.

Chapter 10 - Counting Weathervanes from the Bus

1950 - 1957

The Bus Morning Drop-off Site - Clinton Inn

     How well I remember the waves of excitement and anxiety when I first spotted my school bus pulling up to its assigned stop! It was kindergarten. The buses were unknown territory and I remember that the bus picked me up right in front of my house. My brother was three years older and maybe has a more accurate memory of the event. He doesn’t share this memory so I’m not sure whether it happened, although it sure did in my mind. I can still feel the worry and anticipation as the bus appeared rounding the bend.

     Finding a photo of one of the old red, white and navy blue buses brought back some of those memories. We spent a lot of time on the bus which had its own little world inside. The spiffy new yellow school buses came later. There were four buses that picked up and delivered us and I identified with my bus number which was mostly Bus 2 or Bus 4. Each fall began a new route and it was exciting to start off the year by seeing new sights. During kindergarten we shared the buses with the Edison Institute high school and junior high students on the way home. It was crowded with the older kids required to stand all the way. I thought it was a bit scary.

     Our bus stop was a block away from our house and there were ten or twelve kids at our corner. We sometimes waited a long time and there were fights, both verbal and physical, before the bus arrived when we suddenly lined up and boarded in a most organized fashion.

     I remember singing on the bus and learning a lot of songs such as “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and “Beer, Beer for good old EI.” These songs don’t seem real appropriate for young children, especially for teetotaler Henry Ford’s school, but they provided much needed entertainment. I still remember the words to “Beer, Beer for good old EI (Edison Institute),” which were sung to the tune of the Notre Dame Fight Song. “Beer, beer for good old EI, you bring the whiskey, I’ll bring the rye. Send a loyal freshman out and don’t let a single senior in. We never waiver, we never fall, we fill ‘er up on wood alcohol. What a loyal faculty we found on the bar room floor. Fill ‘er up again! Beer, beer for good old EI…”

     My happiest bus memories were sitting next to my best friend Janet and counting weather vanes to and from school. They were often on the garages alongside or behind the houses we passed and we liked the horse ones best. I still recall the joy of spotting a new weathervane that had been missed on previous rides.

     Each morning we were dropped off at the Clinton Inn which was the most convenient location to reach Martha-Mary Chapel for the daily service. Going home was a different story – we lined up in front of our individual school buildings by bus number and boarded there. It was on the homebound ride that we had to hold our breath while passing through the covered bridge. I vividly recall how hard it was to hold our breath for so long and that the silence made the sounds all the louder as our bus clattered over the large but fragile old boards. I think the breath-holding custom was intended to bring good luck. Perhaps the good luck was specifically aimed at the bus -- that its weight pounding upon the noisy ancient boards wouldn't cause the bridge to give way.

Chapter 11 - Poetry under Pressure -- Daily Chapel Services

1950 - 1957

     The buses dropped us at Clinton Inn and we trotted up to Martha-Mary Chapel to begin each school day with a student-led chapel service. With the exception of the organist, the service was entirely put on by the students. We sat, fidgeting quietly in the pews, with our teachers sitting in wooden chairs next to us, ready to pounce if our fidgeting made noise. Parents often attended, looking down on the service from the balcony. When Mr. Ford had been alive, he was often found enjoying the daily chapel services, sitting in the balcony.

Martha - Mary Chapel in 2014

     The program consisted of a student announcer introducing a program of hymn-singing, poetry recitals, readings, and musical performances. The service was taken very seriously. The student announcer ended with the words “This is your student announcer, [name],” my favorite line. All those who had to perform sat in the front, stage-like area, facing the audience. Sometimes an entire class was performing, and they would all sit up in that area.

     We were given individual assignments with lots of notice by Mrs. Needham, our music teacher who was in charge of the chapel services. Two or three times a year every student was required to recite a memorized poem, an inescapable ordeal. The poems increased in length in proportion to our age. We were given two or three weeks to prepare, which prolonged the agony. I can’t tell you the tears and the terror that accompanied my memorization ritual. I can still see the printed page in my mind, with my name handwritten in the upper right-hand corner, “Betsy C.” (There was a “Betsy L.” in my class). I spent hours staring at the page in a humiliating exercise in futility. I could recite the words to nearly every song I’d ever learned, but the idea of reciting a poem in front of the entire school filled me with horror and dread. One of my sons-in-law recently asked me what I recall about my actual performances. The answer is “nothing.” I only remember the dread. Funny, huh?

     We were occasionally assigned “readings” and I was fine with those – no memorization required. They were mostly book excerpts and were sometimes interesting. I yearned to be the student announcer, which was restricted to the older grades, and was an honor rarely accorded me. I would have gladly been the student announcer every morning.

     My musical skills never warranted solo performances, but I enjoyed those of the students who did sing solos or duets or played an instrument such as the auto harp.

      I can’t omit mention of the day our chapel service was broadcast live on television in color (a big deal) on October 25, 1955. It was the NBC Dave Garroway’s “Today Show” (a really, really big deal). We were in fifth grade. I remember all the extra practice in advance. It was cold the day of the performance, and there was a special bus schedule, to make sure we arrived about 6 a.m. for the 7 a.m. show –It was nerve-wracking for all of us, but very exciting. In searching the Benson Ford Research Center in 2008 for photos of the school buildings of my youth, I found several folders of schedules, letters and plans about this event, all carefully saved and archived. I found very few 1950's papers and photos of the academics.