Living History: Memories of a One-Room Schoolhouse
by Susan Kimball
Shirley Walker still remembers exactly how much she was paid for her first job 81 years ago.
“I got fifty cents a week,” she says proudly. ”In the winter time I got a whole dollar a week because I had to carry wood and build more fires.”
Shirley was just 11-years old and in the 7th grade in 1938 when she was hired as the janitor at the N.C. Watson school, a one- room school house in Chicopee Village.
“My two brothers used to do (the job) and they got a big salary,” Shirley says with a laugh.
When her brothers moved on to the local high school she wanted in on that “big” salary. Shirley earned every penny.
“I had to sweep floors, bang erasers, build a fire, carry wood and carry water,” she says. “That was the way life was back then.”
It was hard work. And she loved every minute of it.
“Yes, I loved it. I could get up from my desk during the day and stoke the fire...I had more freedom (than the other students.)”
She’d wake before sunrise to walk the quarter mile from her home to school. In warm weather, says Shirley, it was “a skip and a jump.” But in the dark, blustery cold of winter it must have felt like a long trek to the small clapboard building on Gillette Road.
Shirley would spend about ninety minutes getting things ready for the fifteen or so students who arrived at 8:30. If they showed up before that they had to wait outside.
“There would be kids banging on the window but I wouldn’t let them in,” she says, laughing.
The N.C. Watson School provided an education for children from first grade through 8th grade. There was just one teacher. The students in each grade rotated to the front of the room when it was their turn for
lessons.
“There was a lot of benefit in that,” says Shirley. “I think by the time I got out of 8th grade I could have turned around and taught school. You heard all the other kid’s lessons.”
The N.C. Watson school was built in 1900 to replace an old brick school building that had deteriorated. It was named after the father of Miss Tabitha Watson, who donated fifty dollars to the Town for its construction provided they’d name the building after her father, Naaman C. Watson.
When Shirley Walker was a student there the building had no electricity and was heated by a giant woodstove. There was no indoor plumbing--just two outhouses attached to the back of the building.
“At lunchtime we’d all walk home and then back to school again,” Shirley says.
Shirley’s janitorial job ended in 1940 when she left to attend Buxton High School. Today, at age 92, she still has fond memories of the school that launched her education and laid the foundation for a strong work ethic. After graduating from high school, Shirley worked for Sears Roebuck in Boston and then spent forty-five years as the office manager at Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company.
Shirley Walker still remembers exactly how much she was paid for her first job 81 years ago.
“I got fifty cents a week,” she says proudly. ”In the winter time I got a whole dollar a week because I had to carry wood and build more fires.”
Shirley was just 11-years old and in the 7th grade in 1938 when she was hired as the janitor at the N.C. Watson school, a one- room school house in Chicopee Village.
“My two brothers used to do (the job) and they got a big salary,” Shirley says with a laugh.
When her brothers moved on to the local high school she wanted in on that “big” salary. Shirley earned every penny.
“I had to sweep floors, bang erasers, build a fire, carry wood and carry water,” she says. “That was the way life was back then.”
It was hard work. And she loved every minute of it.
“Yes, I loved it. I could get up from my desk during the day and stoke the fire...I had more freedom (than the other students.)”
She’d wake before sunrise to walk the quarter mile from her home to school. In warm weather, says Shirley, it was “a skip and a jump.” But in the dark, blustery cold of winter it must have felt like a long trek to the small clapboard building on Gillette Road.
Shirley would spend about ninety minutes getting things ready for the fifteen or so students who arrived at 8:30. If they showed up before that they had to wait outside.
“There would be kids banging on the window but I wouldn’t let them in,” she says, laughing.
The N.C. Watson School provided an education for children from first grade through 8th grade. There was just one teacher. The students in each grade rotated to the front of the room when it was their turn for
lessons.
“There was a lot of benefit in that,” says Shirley. “I think by the time I got out of 8th grade I could have turned around and taught school. You heard all the other kid’s lessons.”
The N.C. Watson school was built in 1900 to replace an old brick school building that had deteriorated. It was named after the father of Miss Tabitha Watson, who donated fifty dollars to the Town for its construction provided they’d name the building after her father, Naaman C. Watson.
When Shirley Walker was a student there the building had no electricity and was heated by a giant woodstove. There was no indoor plumbing--just two outhouses attached to the back of the building.
“At lunchtime we’d all walk home and then back to school again,” Shirley says.
Shirley’s janitorial job ended in 1940 when she left to attend Buxton High School. Today, at age 92, she still has fond memories of the school that launched her education and laid the foundation for a strong work ethic. After graduating from high school, Shirley worked for Sears Roebuck in Boston and then spent forty-five years as the office manager at Saco River Telegraph and Telephone Company.
The N.C. Watson School closed in 1942 and was used by the town of Buxton for many years. In 2003, the Buxton Fire Department was planning on burning it down. Lou Emery, past president of the Buxton-Hollis Historical Society, along with Marshall Pease and others, spearheaded the effort to save the building and move it to its current location in Buxton Center. The building is maintained and operated by the Buxton-Hollis Historical Society.
For anyone wishing to take a step back in time, the Historical Society opens the town’s only remaining and beautifully preserved one-room school house on the second and fourth Saturdays from May through October and offers tours and educational programs. For more information, call 929-1684. |
N.C. Watson School, Groveville Road
(Behind Buxton Centre Baptist Church) Buxton Center Open 2nd & 4th Saturdays of each month 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. From May—October Contact: Vicki Walker Cell: 207-929-3662 Email: [email protected] |