1955 - Karolina mit Zuckertüte und Schulrantzen - (I'm sorry, Karen, for sending you to school on your first day in jeans.) :(

1955 - Karolina mit Zuckertüte und Schulrantzen - (I'm sorry, Karen, for sending you to school on your first day in jeans.) :( (see description) Mit Zuckertüte und Schulrantzen (satchel). The cone is filled with assorted candies and was traditional for the first day of school. The school bag is leather (intended to last - it did, I still have it) and contained a slate board and slate "pencils". Hanging on the outside is a sponge for wiping the slate clean and a cloth for drying the slate. The sponge was wet at home because there was no water in the school building. In the summer it was problematic because the sponge dried quickly. The winter was best because the sponge froze. Our homework was done on the slate. We did receive workbooks, but they were only used to make very neat entries for important things like instructions for knitting socks. I still have the leather schoolbag, my reading book, and some of my workbooks, including the instructions for a pair of socks I knitted when I was eight.

The outhouse sat three, and had a short wall for a urinal on one side. The school building was two stories and there were two rooms for teaching on the second floor. The first room was for grades 1-4 and the second room for grades 5-8. At that time, anything over 8th grade was considered higher education.

Germans took their education seriously, six days a week. It seems to me that I went to school almost year round with about 6 weeks off total. I think we got a couple of weeks off near end of Spring and in the Summer. We also got a couple of weeks off in the fall for the potato harvest. I also seem to recall that school would be closed for a few days here and there for special occasions. For instance, if it was a rainy year and the wheat was in danger of mildew, and there were a few days of sun, school would close so farmers could cut and dry.

There was a dioconesse (don't ask - it's something religious) living in town. Once a year class 1-4 (I don't know about class 5-8) got off one day to run through the woods surrounding the town and collect pine cones for Schwester Elisabet. We we're given large burlap bags to fill. She used the pine cones for tinder for starting her wood stove and every year we collected enough to last her for the Winter season.

Which brings me to heat, or lack of it, in the school house. No central heat, no air-conditioning. If it was hot, the windows were opened. When it got cold, it was part of the teacher's responsibility (Frau Schmidt) to start the wood stove. Under the wood stove was a small pile of bricks that absorbed heat. When we arrived in class we would pick up a hot brick and carry it to our seat. This kept us healthy. It dried our shoes and socks and kept our feet warm. You could always rub your hands together or stick them in your pocket if they got cold. When your brick cooled off you took it back to the stove and switched it for a hot one. As soon as the weather got warm we all went to school barefoot.

Oh? What made you think the outhouse was warm? You learned to hold in whatever you needed to hold in, in order to avoid leaving whatever precious warmth you had left on the frozen seat.

Yep, I was one of those people that walked miles to school, in the winter, through the snow, uphill both ways. :o)

By now Germans must have joined the throw-away generation and are surely using the backpacks that we have, and need replacing most every year. I remember my mother and father bought me a *huge* leather bag that I carried back and forth from elementary school here in the States. Well, it seemed huge to a young girl. It weighed a lot even before the books went in it. Well, that leather bag didn't last more than a year or two, but not because it was defective, but because I wanted whatever it was that other children were using at the time. ;-)