Anecdotes from Former Pupils and Teachers - (names omitted to protect innocent and guilty alike).
 

From a 1908 student when in his late 80s

The Spudding Irons (from a 1930s student)

“Stanley Sanford Taught Us to Swear”

“He Usually Taught with a Long Pointer in His Hand”

“Her Nerves Were Bad”

“She Made Them Eat Crackers”

The Janitor Was Fired on the Spot

“I’ll Sit on That Rooster Before Winter”

“Just Do Whatever You Think Needed With Him”

“I Think the Young Fellow Has Hurt Himself”

“I looked in every direction after getting out of that hearse”

“My new coat was just soaked and I was freezing”

“Thank Heaven That Lamp was On”

“A Particular Male Student Got Older and More Daring”

Health Clinics, Pie Sales, Movies, Music, and Discipline in the 1940s

“I made a Big Show of Disposal”

“Things Seemed to Happen Just Before Important Officials Arrived”

“What’s in That Bag?”

From a 1908 student when in his late 80s

“I think heaven will be just like going to school again, meeting all your old school chums.”

The Spudding Irons (from a 1930s student)

“One noon hour a couple of brothers, about 13-14 years old, who had quit school to work in the woods with their father, came by the school on their way home to lunch. They lived quite near the school. It was springtime and they were cutting peeled pulpwood so were carrying their spudding irons (short rods flattened and sharpened on one end for prying off the bark). We asked what they were used for. They replied that they were going to use them to cut off our heads and started chasing a group of the girls. We ran screaming around the outside of the school, afraid for our lives, with them after us. Our teacher who had gone home for lunch was living at a house nearby so I ran there to tell her there was a problem. She hurried up to the school, but the two boys had already left. The teacher always ate her lunch there for the rest of the year. The two boys probably thought it was harmless and quite funny, but some of us younger ones were terrified. That family left Upper Burlington in 1939 so we’ve seen nothing more of those two fellows since.”

“Stanley Sanford Taught Us to Swear”

One of the few male teachers ever at the school, Stanley Gladstone Sanford from Summerville, seemed less careful of his exclamations than others. Mild expletives sometimes escaped his lips. Perhaps in his youth he’d had a balky team of horses or yoke of oxen to handle. The extremely innocent pupils, especially grade primary girls, picked up from him a few words not in the spelling book. They likely thought themselves real teamsters if repeating them outside the school.

Stanley had one activity for students a bit odder than most teachers. He boarded with his uncle Harry Sanford about a half-mile away from the school, and used a bicycle to travel. At noon hour he would sometimes ride his bicycle round and round the school, and the younger pupils would chase him. Given the narrow walkway on the south side perhaps Stanley had the odd scrape there that shook forbidden terms from his lips.

“He Usually Taught with a Long Pointer in His Hand”

Stanley S taught while carrying a long pointer, useful to point to items on the blackboard, or to administer discipline. He had an odd habit at times of taking off his wristwatch and giving it to one of the male students to wear. On one such occasion this student did or said something not to Stanley’s liking. He immediately swung the pointer down at the fellow’s knuckles. The fellow jerked back his hand and Stanley missed the knuckles, but hit the fellow on the wrist, popping the crystal off his own wristwatch. “You little bugger” he muttered, perhaps adding yet another term to nearby pupils’ vocabularies.

“I saw her coming after us with a barrel hoop”

Teacher Amy Wilmshurst changed the daily procedure which her immediate predecessor had followed with the youngest students. That teacher had let them out after morning recess while she did lessons with older pupils. That procedure suited at least two of her younger students, pupils at the school in the late ‘20s up to the mid-‘30s. They used the extra time to play in the yard of the one of them who lived just up the road from the school. When Miss Wilmshurst invoked the new procedure to start the fall term they rebelled. “About a week after we were first made to come in following morning recess, as soon as her back was turned I cut out. A few minutes later Dick followed and we ran up to his yard to play. In only a few minutes I saw her coming after us, and she was wielding a barrel hoop. She began to chase us around the yard, swinging that hoop. I dodged it when she swung, and she missed me and whacked Dick instead. Pretty soon she had us back in school, and we didn’t cut out again.”  The source of the barrel hoop is a puzzle. There was an orchard across the road from the school, so being early fall the harvest must have been on, the apple barrels possibly providing a convenient herding tool for the teacher to wield. It might have dropped from a molasses, water, or flour barrel being transported along the road. It was a most unusual instrument for school discipline, but definitely country.

“Her Nerves Were Bad”

“One year we had a teacher who was very short tempered. Maybe the war affected her. The milder students were quite fearful of her. She regularly whacked students on the head with a wide ruler, or hit them on the shoulders with a heavy book. At the very end of the year she accused two of us of cheating on our final math exam, and said we were both expelled. That meant we would fail our whole year. The other student ran outside the school to the middle of the road, turned and told the teacher off, and stomped home. I knew I hadn’t cheated and with vehemence invoked a family connection. “My father is a trustee” I angrily shouted, “and if you don’t change your mind I’m walking home right now to bring him back, and then you’ll be in trouble”. After a short pause the teacher responded “You go back to your seat.” The other student could never be persuaded to return. I passed the exam, and my year.

A few years later I found out by coincidence from a relative of that teacher   that the teacher had been admitted for mental treatment following the year she taught in Upper Burlington. “Her nerves were bad.” Few who attended the Upper Burlington school that year would have had trouble agreeing.”

“She Made Them Eat Crackers”

In another incident this teacher took offence to the always smiling faces of two grade primary girls and stood them in the corner. She couldn’t hit them so thought she could punish them by making them eat dry crackers. To them this was a treat and they stood there in the corner eating those dry crackers, still smiling all the time.”

The Janitor Was Fired on the Spot

“One day the boy who was janitor apparently had reason for school not to be held that day, perhaps a test upcoming or his homework not done. The teacher that year was a very strict and scolding woman. After getting the fire in the woodstove underway first thing in the morning this student knocked down the stove pipe. The sections of that pipe were firmly held together, and where it ran half the length of the school several feet overhead was supported by wires attached to the ceiling so was quite secure. By the time other pupils and the teacher arrived the school was full of smoke and the ceiling and walls were blackened. Someone had put out the alert and two of the trustees arrived quite soon to repair and to investigate. They sat the student down and questioned him quite vigourously, as the chances of this being an accident seemed to them remote. In a short while after a couple bogus explanations were dismissed, such as cleaning the stovepipe while the fire was going, the fellow admitted he had deliberately knocked the stove pipe down.

This was deemed a serious offence, as a catastrophic fire could have been the result. He was fired on the spot by the trustees, and the teacher asked to assign the janitor duties to another pupil, which she did later in the day. It was a $4/month job.

School was closed that day while the building was cleared of soot. There was little mention of the incident afterwards, and it was soon forgotten. There are some scorch marks still visible on the floor today, but they might have been from other instances of hot coals falling out. Unless you were there you probably never heard about it. That’s the way things were handled back then.”

“I’ll Sit on That Rooster Before Winter”

One year early in WWII the Upper Burlington teacher took time to visit with some of the parents. While chatting outside the farm home of one mother she noticed that the rooster was very aggressive, chasing everybody and everything that ventured into his territory, whether dog, cat, or person. The mother stated “I’ll sit on that rooster before next winter.” The teacher must have looked perplexed so the woman explained that she would try to sell the rooster for $5 and buy a rocking chair with the proceeds. The incident stuck in the teacher’s mind as she remembered it well more than 65 years afterwards.

“Just Do Whatever You Think Needed With Him”

A teacher who taught in Upper Burlington was warned by one mother that her son who was about to start school was “a difficult one to manage”. “Just do whatever you think you need to with him” she told the teacher. “I only had one problem with the little fellow”, the teacher recalled. “He went in under that old double desk and would not come out. Luckily he was wearing a pair of overalls with braces so I was able to reach in to grab his braces, haul him out, and set him straight. I never had much trouble with him after that.” The teacher remembered the incident with the little fellow vividly over 50 years later, and chuckles when she sees how big the fellow grew.

“Hand Me One of Them Green Apples”

Many of the boys who attended the Upper Burlington school in its last years had bicycles which they sometimes rode to school on the dry clay road. There was no pavement on most roads in the community until over a decade after the school closed. Often a schoolmate would be given a ride on the crossbar by a proud bike owner, making the trip home much quicker. One fall day two such school chums had stopped at a wild apple tree on the roadside near the school to pick some unripened apples. With parcel carrier almost full they moved along, and coming to the big hill that starts near Eldon Dill’s present home started clipping down at high speed. The driver said to his passenger as they neared the bottom while going full tilt “Hand me one of those green apples”. While he was reaching around for the apple, the heel of the passenger’s rubber boot inadvertently slipped into the spokes of the front wheel. The resultant braking action immediately flipped bike, boys, and green apples forward over onto the road and into the ditch where the boys lay groaning for a few minutes. Neither boy was seriously hurt apart from considerable soreness for some days afterwards. The passenger’s rubber boot was a total loss as the heel was completely shorn, and the front wheel of the bike bent so badly it could not be driven.  Over fifty years later the incident brings a laugh. We remember how indestructible we were as preteens.

“I Think the Young Fellow Has Hurt Himself”

Another biking accident is less favorably remembered. A group of Upper Burlington boys raced down the same hill on the way home from school. Just after the leaders crossed the wooden bridge that used to span the brook at the bottom, one bike skidded sending its driver face first into the dry gravel and clay. The young fellow was momentarily stunned, and his face badly scraped on one side. Luckily the local road foreman was working on the bridge that afternoon and rushed over to check on the victim. His summary of the bleeding, groggy state as the fellow was carefully raised to his feet was a slow and profound “I believe the young fellow has hurt himself”. After a few moments rest while the victim appeared to recover the boys moved on, all including the victim now slowly wheeling their bikes. A quarter mile later the victim suddenly started and asked “Where am I?” His puzzled companions related the accident which seemed news to him. About an hour later, while resting after arriving home and being cleaned up, the young fellow started again with the same question. Nowadays we know he had had a concussion, and would have medical attention and then rest and observation for a few days, but more than fifty years ago it was just an accident on the way home from school, and after the scrapes healed was largely forgotten by most involved. The victim may have been excused from his afternoon and evening barn chores for that day, but little else by way of accommodation made for the effects of the spill.

“I looked in every direction after getting out of that hearse”

The young women who taught at the Upper Burlington school often went home on the week-ends. This usually required a walk of as much as four miles, in fall, winter, or spring. The roads were all gravel, no pavement, and until the 1950s, there was almost no plowing in winter. One teacher recalled being offered a drive while part way home. The only catch was that the offer came from the local undertaker who was driving a hearse. The teacher felt a bit self-conscious getting in, and even more so when getting out. “I looked in every direction when I got out of that hearse to see if anyone saw me, and then I hurried up the road and into the house.”

“My new coat was just soaked and I was freezing”

On one late Friday late winter afternoon going home with a load in her arms, the teacher had to cross the long Kennetcook River bridge with its several spans. The bridge was covered in deep slush. As she was part way across a truck came onto the bridge, and did not slow down as it roared past. A wall of slush slammed over the teacher, soaking her, and she still had well over a mile to go in the cold to meet her ride. “I still remember that so clearly” she recalled over 60 years afterwards. “My new coat was just soaked, and I was freezing.”

“Thank Heaven That Lamp was On”

“One cloudy and cold January afternoon the young Upper Burlington teacher visited one of the parents’ homes to discuss a matter. The farmhouse was about a quarter mile off the road at the far edge of the field, up a long lane. When the teacher left for the mile walk back to where she was boarding it was pitch black. Rather than walk the lane which the wind had filled full of snow she tried to walk parallel to it in the bare field. Judging she had reached where the lane ended she turned thinking she was now on the snow filled dirt road. Unfortunately that proved false as after several minutes she encountered a rail fence up against the trees. Realizing she was well off the road the teacher turned and spotted a light across the field. She kept her eye on it and walked toward the beam. Despite some intervening fences, in several fearful minutes she was back at the farmhouse from which she had started. The light was from a kerosene lamp visible through one of the windows.

This time the teacher kept to the track in the lane, reached the road, and after another twenty minutes reached her residence. “Thank heaven that lamp was on” she related almost 70 years later. “I don’t know what I would have done, or what might have happened to me.”

“A Particular Male Student Got Older and More Daring”

 “One other item I will leave you with also concerns the teacher of the day and use of the outdoor biffy. When one wished to use that facility, one raised their hand and waited to be recognized by the teacher and have the request made and permission granted to execute the required act…As a particular male student got older and more daring, and wished to avail himself of the facilities in the summer when the windows would be open, he would await an opportunity when the teacher's back was turned, perhaps writing on the blackboard, and merely jump out the window and use the facility. Of course, with certain teachers, the stakes would be higher and the punishment more severe if one was caught, making the act much more delicious to the perpetrator and to the enjoyment of the fellow students, who were alert to the event. It would spice up an otherwise monotonous day.”

Health Clinics, Pie Sales, Movies, Music, and Discipline in the 1940s

“If those walls could talk, they would tell of events such as the use of the school as a public health clinic on occasion, when the periodic TB tests, small pox vaccinations and the (somewhat) feared diphtheria needles were administered. TB was much a real concern in those times, with individuals sent to the sanitarium in Kentville if an active case.

The walls could also tell of "pie sales", which were a relatively major social event. The ladies, especially those of "marriageable" age, would bake pies, then prepare some attractive item, such as a kewpie doll, suitably dressed and mounted. That surrogate item would be used by the auctioneer, perhaps Wallace Dill or Harold Hazel, to solicit bids for the pie or box lunch to be shared with the damsel associated with the item and pie. The auctioneer would be skilled at raising the bid price to the max, especially if said damsel had more than one suitor. Said suitors would have been surreptitiously informed of which item was associated with the pie/damsel of their affection.

Another social event held at the school was the infrequent presentation of newsreels, when a traveling film, projector and operator became available, about the time after the D-Day invasion. There would be scenes of the flooded dykes in Holland, which the Dutch used as a weapon against the Nazis, other breaking news of the day and a cartoon, such as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck.

As well during the course of a school year, the students would be introduced to the use of music. This might take the form whereby the teacher would copy down the lyrics of such classics as "My Darling Clementine" ("In a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine...") "Cockels and Mussels" ("In Dublin's fair city, where girls are so pretty..."), etc. Students had to copy the words into their scribblers and then the teacher would lead students in singing the songs until memorized. Some song books were also on hand, with British and American popular songs, which were also rendered by the youthful voices, under the initial guidance of the teach.

This would not be complete without reference to "the strap". Considering the make-up of the student body and the then existing norms for maintaining order, some teachers were inclined to corporal punishment for contraventions of classroom decorum or order. Certain students were generally chronic offenders, netting them a certain number of forceful smacks of the strap to an upraised palm of the hand. It would certainly sting, to say the least and the flesh would turn red after a certain number of blows. In some cases, the administration of justice would be carried out in front of the class, by the teacher's desk (where the strap was stored), as an object lesson to deter others from misbehaving. Other teachers had a policy of taking the offender(s) out to the porch or cloakroom, for the necessary action, treating the student body to the occasional scream of a recipient, who would eventually return to the classroom, in tears and accompanied by the teacher. Times have certainly changed!”

“I made a Big Show of Disposal”

“The next school day after one of the fundraising dances one of the young boys in the school, a little red-headed fellow I recall, came up to my desk before school started bearing a small liquor bottle that still had some of its contents. Some of the young men attending from surrounding communities used to go outside for a nip and hid their bottles in the grass as there was a strict prohibition against any at the dances. This young fellow had found one of their bottles.

“Look teacher. What’s this?” he said. I think he knew exactly what it was and had brought it in for my reaction. I was mortified. The attitude in the community back then was very strong against liquor so my first thought was “What if a parent happened to come in just now?” I certainly couldn’t put the bottle in the desk and dispose of it later. If anyone saw it they might think I needed help getting through the day! Well I took that bottle and poured its contents into a basin, added some water and then threw the contents out in the weeds below the school. I made a big show of disposal, letting the children know that this was very bad stuff that had been found. If anyone took the story back home I wanted them to know that the teacher had expressed her strong disapproval.”

(To this day the exact spot of disposal is unknown as no patch of grass and weeds at the school comes up half cut.)

“Things Seemed to Happen Just Before Important Officials Arrived”

“It was just coincidence I know, but being a young untrained teacher I was very nervous how various school officials might judge how I was running the school. The children were outside, some playing a game of ball. I was inside trying to make sure all was ready for the visit of the public health nurse. Whoever was at bat got a hit and let the bat go as they did. It sailed through the air, and right through one of the windowpanes. There was glass strewn all across the floor, and across some of the desks. I was just starting to get it cleaned up when in comes the public health nurse. Oh my!”

“What’s in That Bag?”

The teacher was walking home one winter Friday when the snow was quite deep in the road. There was no plowing back then. Along came a young farmer driving a sleigh. It was a fellow she had gone to school with just a couple years previous. He stopped and invited her to jump in. She was quite happy to do so as the walking was tiring and it was cold. “Just don’t step on that bag on the floor” she was warned. The teacher stepped into the sleigh, avoiding the bundle of burlap at her feet and off they went. After only a few minutes the bag moved a bit. She was concerned that whatever was in it might get out. “Just what’s in that bag?” the teacher exclaimed.  “Oh, it’s just a new rooster I picked up for my mother’s flock”, the young farmer informed her.”

“I Still Have the Mark”

The teacher was stoking the fire one day while wearing her winter overboots which she had zipped partway down. A hot coal popped out of the stove and jammed against the top of her foot down in her boot. The boot was stuck on as she frantically attempted to remove it. The result was a bad burn. “I still have the mark,” she not so fondly recalled almost 60 years later. Imagine Stanley Sanford’s reaction to such an incident!