A MODERN EDUCATION…IN 1929. [R, 9-12-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—A MODERN EDUCATION…IN 1929. [R, 9-12-24]

I have mentioned before that my mother was the first woman in the state of Indiana to graduate high school with her married name on her diploma. And, as it turns out, in her yearbook, Francisco, Indiana’s “The Echo” of 1929.

A few years back, the very progressive librarian of the Oakland City public library decided to digitize all the high school yearbooks of the area for as far back as she could find. At the time, I thought I had lost my 1955 “Oak Leaf,” and so was delighted to copy the digital yearbook.

Since the Oakland City, Francisco, and Mackey schools merged, with the name of East Gibson [County] School Corp, she has also digitized the yearbooks of all three schools, for as many different years as she can find.

So I got to read about my mother’s class, and see her picture, in her own yearbook.

The Class of 1929 Francisco “Owls” had a sense of community and appreciation. They dedicated the year book “…to the tax payers of Center Township, who made it possible for us to get a modern education.”

That sense of community took in the past, not just the present, even though they were proud of that “modern” education. They listed all the alums, from the school’s start in 1891, and where they lived in 1929.

I’m not sure why Francisco had that sense of community. Maybe it was because they were mostly coal miners, and had a common enemy in the absentee mine owners. For whatever reason, it was there. My grandmother, Maggie [Margaret] May Dill Pond, even named her sons for local boys who had gone off and achieved significant things.

Aunt Virginia, # 2 in birth order, told John Hubert, # 8, when she was older, that he was named [the Hubert part] “…for the Presbyterian preacher’s dog.” She meant to say “The Presbyterian preacher’s son,” who had become a teacher, but I thought it was much better to be named for the Presbyterian preacher’s dog, so I have often repeated that story.

Education was very important in Frisco [the common name for Francisco], and Grandma would have been more impressed by a boy who became a teacher than by a doctor or lawyer.

Francisco was a Spanish laborer working on the Wabash and Erie Canal when it started construction in 1832. He built a shack in the area. The shack became a town in 1851. The town kept his name.

I’m not sure just what the Class of 1929 meant by a “modern” education. In many ways, it was a classical education. The only language taught was Latin. But up to that time, education was usually only “The 3 Rs—readin’, riting,’ and rithmatic,” often in a one-room school house. In tiny Frisco, population around 600, in 1929 they had music and art and home ec and sports teams. That was a modern school…

…with an especially enlightened superintendent. When my parents’ secret marriage was revealed before graduation time, everyone assumed Mother would be thrown out of school, as married women always were. The great fear was that they would tell the unmarried girls about sex. But the Francisco Superintendent said, “That’s silly. Mildred is a good student who has earned a diploma.”

I guess that is what they meant by a modern education.

John Robert McFarland