Janet Arlene Stroup: A Short Story

Janet Arlene Stroup, at the age of 79, has quite a few stories about her days in school, and lucky for me, she was happy to share them. Janet attended Evendale Grade School from first grade to eighth grade. Every morning she walked two miles to school with her five younger siblings. At the beginning of the day, someone would ring the bell on top of the school and the children had to begin coming in from playing outside. If they weren’t in their seats by the second bell, they were marked tardy. In this one-room school house, there were rows of chairs with the oldest kids sitting in the back, and the youngest in the front. Throughout the day, the teacher would call a grade to sit in the front row and then he taught their lesson while the other grades worked. The children packed their lunches every day in brown paper bags and sat them in the shelves at the back of the room. They had a few classes in the morning and then it was time for lunch. If the weather was nice, the children ate their lunches outside and played when they were finished eating. When it was rainy and they couldn’t go outside, the girls would play hot potato with a rag and the boys would stand near the big, round stove at the front of the room to keep warm. When they got

When she got to eighth grade, she had to take a test to continue onto high school. She always did very well in school and passed the test easily, but her parents got her a worker’s permit and she never went to high school. In some ways, I think she regrets not going, but she is constantly working and was most likely more than happy to help her family out. With or without high school, she is unbelievably intelligent and I am so proud to call her my grandma. Just sitting down with her for a short amount of time, I learned so much about the past and I definitely recommend you talk to an elder you know. You will be glad you