Note from Parma Hilton Historian David Crumb: Recently, I was presented with a memoir by Priscilla Tyner Beeman, a member of the Parma Hilton Historical Society, who gave a wonderful review of what it was like to attend a small district school back in the 1940s. We felt it worthy of publication for teachers, young students, and the general public to have a glimpse of what that educational experience was like. Today there are very few people who can recall going to a small one or two-room district school. Quite a few of Parma’s district schools still stand and now serve as residences. Parma Center District# 1 is an excellent example and is located just west of Route 259 on Parma Center Road. It was the first school in the North Parma District. The Hilton Central School system was centralized in 1949, and by 1952 all the small schools were closed.
If any reader has a Parma or Hilton memory or recollection that they would like to share that pertains to the history of the area, please send them to the Parma Hilton Historian at 59 Henry Street, Hilton, NY 14468 or e-mail historian@hiltonny.org.
Recollections of a country school
by Priscilla Tyner Beeman
The first six years of my formal education were spent in a small, quaint country school. The school was located directly across from our home, and thus it had a strong influence on my life, not only mentally but physically.
I can remember begging my mother to let me start first grade when I was four. But impatient little children, such as myself, had to wait until the ripe old age of five before entering first grade. The “little room,” as it was called, was in the back of the building. It was the original one-room school. Then around 1915, the “big room” was added on the front. As I remember, the “little room” was larger than the “big room,” but it was designated the “little room” because it housed the first three grades.
The first day of school finally arrived, and all I can remember now is a great eagerness to learn. We used “drills” and repetition in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mrs. Hall was my teacher for grades one, two, and three. She was a dedicated person in every sense of the word. My class was one of the largest in the entire six grades: five girls and two boys. As primary grade children, we were permitted to use the jungle gym and swings more often than the older children.
The last day of school every year was celebrated with a picnic, a family affair in our small community of two hundred people.
The move to the “big room” in fourth grade signified the entrance into the grown-up world. Then, one advantage of a small country school dawned upon me. The teacher called one grade to the front seats for its lesson and recitations. If there was a class before the teacher, she sent the other pupils to their seats to read or study. Being a fast reader, I could finish my work early and listen to what was going on in the front of the room. Many little “gems” of information were garnered this way. We had spelling bees and social studies quizzes where one team would try to win over members of the other team by giving the right answers.
Fall meant nature hikes to the nearby woods to collect leaves and dried weeds. One teacher had to manage her own three grades, about seventeen children. The boys had to “cut up,” of course, and wander off or swing from branches. What endurance and patience those teachers had…to take a group of lively, spirited children to the vast woods! Of course, the older boys regaled us with tales of marauding bears and hunters about with their guns. We never saw either one.
Winter was a really fun time at school. We had from noon to one o’clock for lunch, and almost everyone went home, except two or three children who lived over a mile away. My mother was always home, waiting for me. The best days were when I opened the front door, and the smell of hot, homemade onion and potato soup greeted my nostrils. My friends and I would rush through lunch and go sliding on our favorite hill, a short ways away. We timed it to get back to school a few minutes before one o’clock. By the time we removed our leggings, mittens, and scarves and hung them on the coat hooks in the large dark-paneled hall, it was a quarter past one. It took us half an hour to warm up and thaw out our frozen fingers so that we could write.
Spring finally came in a burst of glory and warm, lilting weather. More trips to the woods – to pick trillium and jack-in-the-pulpits. We enjoyed studying birds and insects as well. During my ninth year, I was quite ill with scarlet fever. I felt pangs of loneliness, reclining on a couch on our front sun porch, when I saw my teacher and classmates starting off on an expedition to the woods. Why, oh why, did I have to be the only one to be sick and left out of the activities I so enjoyed?
Memories drift back across the years. There was the pride one felt when he or she was chosen to ring the bell. The bell was housed on top of the school, and the rope on the main floor had to be tugged very vigorously to make the bell ring. I can remember the larger, stronger boys carrying the water cooler to its’ place in the hall. It was a large earthenware crock encircled with a blue band. There was water for the two lavatories, but all drinking water had to be carried from adjoining homes. I remember the group picture of the entire room. On Mother’s Day, we had to draw numbers for the geraniums to take home to our mothers, lest one child would unfairly get the largest, or reddest, or prettiest bloom. Fridays were fun days, with the afternoon reserved for music and singing, drawing, games, and just having a good time together.
Upon entering seventh grade at the age of eleven, I had seen very few school buses. All seventh and eighth graders had to go to the Hilton Central School two to three miles away. A few years after my departure, the small district schools were all closed. Centralization took over, and all children went to Hilton. It was the end of an era, one of which I was quite aware. My father fought the closing vehemently, but progress cannot be denied. He attended the same school I did, and so had his mother. There was a strong family tie to that school – Parma District Number One.
Parma Center District Number One has been converted into a residence, but to me, it will always be my school – the place where my desire to learn was encouraged in a way that a larger school could not do.
