Again, I was inspired by Chris Richard’s posts on Substack — Long Ago & Close By — about Oxford School. My hometown of Fairhaven, MA., closed the school in 2007 due to a declining student population, and it has since been converted into housing. This was the elementary school I attended as a child in the town’s northern end, and for me a good place to learn. That’s me above on my first day of school.
Oxford School was a short walk along Main Street from Jesse Street where I lived. I usually met up with other kids in the neighborhood, and years later, my sister came with me. It was a cold walk in winter, especially for us girls who were required to wear dresses or skirts. Snow pants kept our legs warm.
As Chris reported, the main brick building was finished in 1896. An addition was added in 1953 to handle North Fairhaven’s growing population. The addition had a gym with a stage, which was used for assemblies. The school bell in the tower came from Paul Revere’s foundry.
Due to the Baby Boomers, each grade, one through six, had enough for two full classes or a combination of grades like second and third in one. North Fairhaven, as I mentioned in an early post, attracted an influx of nationalities such as Polish, French Canadian, and Portuguese, many of them immigrants or the next generations. I recall the last names of classmates: Cabral, Benoit, Canto, Gonsalves, Hendricks, Ponte, Viera, Wojcik. Mine was Medeiros.
We were situated in the class according to our height, the shortest kids up front. I was somewhere in the middle. The desks in the original building were bolted to the floor, but movable in the addition.
My fellow students were the usual mix of personalities you would expect in a class. I would rank myself with the silly and smart girls. One memorable classmate in third grade was Frank who was so fascinated by movie monsters he kept a collection of photos. By the way, I still keep in contact with several classmates via social media.
School was easy for me, so I got good grades — making honor roll meant the family would get sundaes at Frates’ Dairy. I was happy to learn how to read and then later, how to write what others could read. Thank you to my teachers like Mrs. Cadell and Mrs. O’Neil.
Fourth grade, when Mrs. Darwin was my teacher, was a favorite year. We students worked hard at making perfectly round letters in cursive — although journalism ruined that for me. She read aloud A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Poohseries and taught us about world explorers.
And Mrs. Darwin gave me the freedom to write on my own, making up short stories and one-act plays. I assigned parts to my classmates, and we practiced at recess. Later, we performed in front of the class. I don’t remember what I wrote, but I do the feeling of using words to tell a story.
One sixth-grade teacher, who I will not identify, taught after serving in the military. He was a tough disciplinarian. If a student misbehaved, he, it was usually a boy, was given the option of being hit with a short or long stick. I don’t know how hard because I never had to make that choice.
During my time at Oxford School, we got a new principal, Miss Toledo. I recall two things about her: she was very short and she inspired a rhyme — “Holy Torpedo, here comes Toledo.”
We started the day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer, the Protestant version that ended: “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” We Catholics skipped that line. We sang patriotic songs.
We were expected to be quiet in class unless called upon and to raise our hands if we wanted to ask or answer something. No passing notes although we did.
I recall being pulled out of class for hearing and vision tests, getting our hair inspected for lice, and receiving a dose of polio vaccine via a sugar cube.
I realize now learning was tougher for some kids, and they didn’t have the educational resources that became available later. So, a few kids “stayed back” a grade, and then there was the mysterious “special class.”
The cafeteria was located in the bottom floor of the addition. Mrs. Foley, a North Fairhaven neighbor, was head cook. Lunch cost a quarter and milk, for those who brought their lunch, a dime. (We also had a milk break in our classroom.) We were served standard American fare and were expected to clean our plate. The worst menu item was hash. On Friday, lunch was a tuna fish sandwich or fish sticks, probably since most of the kids were Catholics who didn’t eat meat that day.
We kids burned off a lot of energy at recess, during a morning break and after lunch. A teacher supervised as we kids played. During inclement weather, we were in the gym or playing eraser tag in the classroom. That’s where two kids chased each other around the classroom with a blackboard eraser on top of their heads. If the eraser fell, you were out. I was actually good at it due to my flat head.
One popular game outside was Cock-a-Rooster. Kids lined up on one end of the large asphalt lot in front of the addition. One kid would yell, “Cock-a-Rooster,” and everyone would run to the other side. Whoever the kid touched, joined him or her in tagging for the next round. This would continue until one person was left. It was a bit exciting dodging the taggers.
Needless to say, playing on hard surfaces (in front and behind the school) meant scraped and scabby knees for many of us girls.
Other pastimes included hopscotch, jacks, and marbles. We jumped rope to rhymes, two of us girls swirling a long rope for a jumper. Here’s one: “Cinderella, dressed in yella/ Went downtown to meet her fells/ On the way her girdle busted/ How many people were disgusted / 5-10-15-20 ….”
Thanks Oxford School for a good start to my education.
And for those who want to read Chris Richards’ posts “The School on the Top of the Hill”, here they are: Part One and Part Two. Again, thanks to the readers he has sent my way.