North Fairhaven Girl, Uncategorized

North Fairhaven Girl: 3

In a recent post, I wrote about my experiences at Oxford School, especially with my fourth-grade teacher who gave me so many opportunities to write. Thanks, Mrs. Darwin. Then in fifth grade I was able to take my writing to another level in a class taught by Donald H. Graves, or Mr. Graves as we kids called him.

That year, a few students from each of our town’s elementary schools were selected to attend an enrichment program held Wednesday afternoons at the Rogers School. We had two classes: advanced science and creative writing. I bet you can guess which class inspired me. And I give Mr. Graves’ approach to creative writing full credit for that.

Mr. Graves used prompts to teach us fifth-graders about similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech. His approach was a deeper way for me to express myself in writing. He compiled what my classmates and I wrote in a mimeographed pamphlet.

Here is a piece I wrote called The Tornado. It’s a little over the top, but keep in mind, I was 10. I recall Mr. Graves called my parents to talk with them about it. I have held onto the typed and handwritten versions all these years. 

The winds of torment strike the grey sky with evil destructive movements. Its path tears the world apart with its wind. The sun struggles to set the sky afire with its golden sunshine, but is shoved aside to hide with the clouds. Trees sweep the winds hoping for mercy. The sea of grass bows at the sight of this evil destruction. Fields of corn are whipped and left to die for they would not bow and worship him. Mountain tops are bitten off piece by pieces until it too will follow with the others and bow to worship, but the proud mountains stand tall as ever in trying to hold back the winds. The winds of evil torment goes on to finish his evil scheme.

I so looked forward to Wednesday afternoons when a parent drove us to Rogers School and then brought us back at the end of the day. This program was also an opportunity for me to meet students from other parts of our town who would later be my classmates at junior high and high school.

Frankly, I had to wait until I was in college to get anything similar to what Mr. Graves taught me. I found it limiting to write what the teachers expected of me in English classes.

According to his obituary I found online, Donald H. Graves, who died in 2010 at age 80, lived a life filled with interests and accomplishments. (That’s the photo used in the obit.) He served in the Coast Guard, and then taught at East Fairhaven Elementary School before he became its principal. Later, he went into the ministry and was a professor at the University of New Hampshire. In 1976 he founded the Writing Process Laboratory at UNH where he remained until he retired in 1992. His research with elementary children at Atkinson Academy inspired his first book: Writing: Teachers & Children at Work. He wrote 25 more. Many of Mr. Graves books are available on Amazon.

When I started writing novels as an adult, I reached out to Mr. Graves after I found him online, sending a note to thank him. He responded and sent me a few of the books he wrote.

This passage came from his obit: “Don was internationally known for his work in children’s writing. His deep conviction that children wanted to write pervaded his teachings and radically changed expectations for what young children could accomplish if they were treated as writers.”

Yes, that’s what happened to me. And I tried to do the same whenever I had an opportunity to teach writing. Thank you, Mr. Graves.

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North Fairhaven

North Fairhaven Girl at Oxford School

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.

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