Walking to school up hill, both ways

If walls could talk, the Prairie View Schoolhouse, located south of Stockton, would have thousands of stories to tell about the girls and boys who attended school there in the 1930s and 1940s and many years before, learning their reading, writing and arithmetic from Miss June Arnold. But since walls can’t talk, it is so very fortunate that one of those students, Mrs. Joan (Maddy) Balderston, loves to tell stories about her childhood that include attending the oneroom schoolhouse.

The building used to be located about a half of a mile from Joan’s house in the country. She noted that it was right smack dab inbetween what is now the Wilken’s Manufacturing building and where Marion Conyac and family resides.

Joan said her family used to live in that area so she laughingly states, she did indeed walk that half mile to school up hill, both ways.

Joan stated, “I even had to walk to school in the rain. I didn’t have a rain coat, so my mother told me to run fast and zig zag between the rain drops so I wouldn’t get wet!”

Her lunch usually consisted of a homemade bread and jelly sandwich and an apple. She got water to drink from the outside cistern, and yes, the bathroom was an outhouse with the Sears and Roebuck catalog papers as toilet paper.

Joan likened herself to an only child when she attended school since her older siblings were 16, 14 and 10 years old when she was born, and were off on their own by the time Joan was old enough to go to school. Of course, she does love to tell the story of her sister, Naomi, who carved her initials into one of the outside boards of the schoolhouse. The initials (NMM) for Naomi May Maddy are still visible today, and when asked if Naomi got in trouble for doing that Joan replied, “Naomi was always in trouble, so I don’t know if she was punished for that particular stunt.”

Joan attended the little schoolhouse from second through eighth grade, noting that there were a total of ten students with no one in the seventh grade when she started as a secondgrader. Miss June Arnold would start each day by ringing the hand bell announcing it was time to come in from play, and if you missed that notice, you had to stand outside the door until she decided to let you in. Joan said she does have the large bell that stood in front of the school in her back yard as well as the hand bell Miss June gave her when she graduated eighth grade. Joan said, “Miss June was the best teacher I ever had and I am so glad that I got to tell her that. I helped her in the classroom with the younger students when I was in seventh and eighth grade. She taught me algebra so I was more than prepared when I attended high school.”

Another story that is very near and dear to Joan’s heart is one about the wooden desks they sat in that had a hole cut in it for their inkwells. Joan wore braids and the boy who sat in back of her would crawl under her desk and pull her braids through the hole. He also stood beside her in one of their school pictures. The boy grew up to be the man she would eventually marry, Robert Balderston.

Joan taught for many years before retiring in the late 1990s. Then she took on other roles that involved telling stories, reading books, and directing plays, as well as becoming such famous characters such as Carrie Nation and Sacagawea for her students.

And she is still going strong with the last event she coordinated with Dawn and Jim O’Grady, who own the farm where the schoolhouse now resides. It was moved to what most people will remember as the Maddy farm. In or around the early 1960s it was used for the main house with a side building attached to it until a house from Plainville was moved onto the site for the permanent homestead. The schoolhouse now stands sentinel to the past with a lot of the original fixtures still intact.

And this is where the new adventure for Joan takes place. A week ago, the Stockton three- and four-year-old classes of Mrs. Beth Hazen and Mrs. Christina Hamel traveled out to the schoolhouse to learn about what school was like years ago from Joan. Joan employed the help of a school para, Erin Dibble, who dressed up in Joan’s favorite school outfit when she was little: a pair of denim overalls with lots of pockets which was paired every day with a flannel shirt. Joan said, “I wore the overalls all week long, but would wear a clean shirt every day.”

Once Erin was in the overalls, Joan had Erin put her hand into each pocket and pull out one of the many treasures Joan always kept in those pockets. First, was a large red bandana that she used for her handkerchief. Next, she showed the kids a small stone with a hole in it so she could put a piece of string through to wear as a necklace. She always had some rocks, maybe an apple or a cookie wrapped in paper, a pencil and a piece of paper in case she wanted to write any love notes, sea shells, and of course, a handful of marbles. Joan told the students she was very good at shooting marbles and it was her favorite thing to do. Especially on the floor of the schoolhouse since it slanted a little, which made the marbles roll a lot better.

And when you played marbles with your friends, you played for keeps. That meant if you won the game you were playing, you got to keep all the marbles. She also talked about the ball she had in her pocket, stating she would go outside and throw it over the chicken coop roof. She would then run as fast as she could to the other side to try and catch it before the second bounce on the ground. Her most useful gadget in her pockets was a compass. That was her GPS so she always knew which way was home.

The children then listened and sang along to some songs Joan said they sang when she was in school, like “London Bridge,” “Ring Around the Rosey,” “Skip to My Lou,” and “Yankee Doodle.” What made it even more special was that the students knew most of the songs and sang along. A few brave students even sang solos of songs they had been taught at school or by their parents.

It was a fun time for all with the O’Gradys who topped off the adventure with snacks of doughnut holes, gummies and apple cider for the kids to enjoy while Dawn explained how the old wood stove in the schoolhouse worked. Another surprise was a visit to the pumpkin patch just a few feet from the front door of the schoolhouse to pick their own pumpkin to take with them as a souvenir of their adventure.

The O’Gradys bought the farm where the schoolhouse now makes its home a year ago, not intending to buy it when they went to the auction. Dawn stated, “We had some property by Alton, but when we got to the Maddy auction that day we saw that the previous owners had decorated with seashells in their garden areas. I collect seashells, so there was one sign. Also, even though the inside of the schoolhouse has a lot of the original fixtures, it was decorated with doors hanging on the wall—nine to be exact. My husband, Jim, made me a bar from an old door, so that was another sign, along with our wall hanging that reads, ‘Back Door Tavern.’” The two use the schoolhouse as a place to hang out with friends, and of course, to preserve the history of days long gone. They take pride in being the keepers of the schoolhouse with Joan the keeper of the stories it would tell if it could.