Volume 7, Number 11 - Spring 1982
Dear Old Golden Rule Days
by Icy Curry
My early schooling was as a day student to The School of the Ozarks when it was located in Forsyth. The building was a big square one built of native stone. The rock quarry was on the land that belonged to the school. The building was three stories high with a basement. The year 1910-11 the grades went to school in the northeast and northwest corners of the building. The dining room and kitchen were in the basement, classes were on the first and second floors and the girls’ bedrooms were on the third floor. Emma Dysart was in charge of meal preparation and work program assignments for the girls. She was called the matron and was later married to C. B. Wilson, a lawyer and prosecuting attorney for Taney County.
We studied the normal reading, writing and arithmetic. We also had Bible classes.The people of Forsyth and the teachers and students attended the little stone chapel in downtown Forsyth. Everyone walked down to Sunday School and Church. I think the students at the school were required to attend. It was about a mile and a half walk, but no one seemed to mind. That was the mode of travel then. Miss Dysart taught the S.S. class that I attended.
The building had a water system that supplied the kitchen and, I think, Miss Dysart’s room. There was a water tower on the north side of the building and I remember seeing Harry Harding and the two Parkey boys climb to the top when they had problems. On a steep, high bluff across the road west was a pump house and water was pumped up that bluff to the tower from Swan Creek. That was the water supply for the school.
Each classroom had a big, iron stove for heat and wood was the fuel used. The wood was probably sawed by hand from trees on their land. A big stove in the kitchen also burned wood. The local lady who came to do the laundry washed on a board.
Our Bible teacher was Miss Grace, and, like most of the teachers, was from the St. Joseph area. Lit Davis (Mrs. R. M. GOOD later) was a teacher so full of life and a friend to everyone- and a beautiful blond. She told us that she was part Indian born in Oklahoma.
Joe and Bob Gideon and Jessie Harding were also students at that time. I remember going to Joe’s graduation. It was held outside on the baseball diamond and they put out bales of hay for people to sit on.
I remember the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912. A teacher at the school had a sister on that ship. Since news traveled so much slower back then it was days before he received any word from her. Her life had been saved. She was returning from a missionary assignment in a foreign country.
As a day student I carried my lunch to school in a little tin bucket. We had no money in our pockets. At that time there were no places to buy cold drinks or candy bars. I don’t think candy bars were made yet. We had lemon and peppermint sticks, rock candy, and probably sweet sugar drops. Only at Christmas could we get oranges. Most everyone got apples in the fall. They were kept in a cellar or buried in the ground to keep them from freezing.
These are some remembrances from my early school days.
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