Gleaning Facebook: First Day at McHenry

The stamp on this pic is Feb 72, but it was taken before school started in August 71 - I think my very first day in the room. Notice the radiators. We were first on the raditor flow. By January, in order to keep classes toward the end of the line reasonably warm, our room was a sauna. We opened the windows even on very cold days. Notice the house directly across the driveway behind me. That is where the janitors, Nellie (Not Edith!) and Earl Hill lived - on campus.

Notice the partition built around the light fixture. Mrs. Nancy Helser, the Title I Reading teacher, taught across the partition - one light switch. We each heard every word spoken in the other room.

Tight quarters for a fifth grade class. I think I had about 25, but I'll have to see if I can find a count.

Sheila probably took this. I had been married one week.

I don't think I have any FB friends I taught in this room in 1971, 1972, and 1973. I still see Wayne Morgan, occasionally. I run into Nancy Edwards' brother now and then.

Comments

Frank Logue
Thanks for sharing.

Terrell Shaw

I am so embarrassed!! Edith Hill was a teacher I hadn't met yet when this pic was taken. Nellie Hill was the janitor.

Edith Hill taught at Pepperell Elementary. The last time I saw Edith Hill was at Kroger during the last year or two. She was past 100 years old. 

Nellie Hill died of cancer about twenty years ago. She was a sweet, sweet lady who was very conscientious. Neither Nellie nor Earl had much education at all, but Earl could hold his own at checkers with anyone. He'd occasionally challenge me on one of our recess checkerboards after school. He usually humiliated me.

Terrell Shaw

Hi Frank! Thanks for stopping by.

Alice Jeffries Keel
From 9 to 5:
I have a Facebook friend I taught in 1971 - 72, fourth grade Social studies at Beulah Elem. - Hey Kim Holland Shepherd if you are following this! My first year there.
Olley and I married the next year Aug. 26. Pre planning was I think ?Tuesday the 29th. Wish we still started school so late!
My open classroom experience had come earlier in Phenix City in 69 - 70 teaching second grade. I may have given my right arm for 2 more good walls that year! I think the title one person used a lrge closet there at Central.
I don't recall the heat but definitely NO AIR! You know I never had one child who chopped off their finger in a fan and now we would be in serious trouble if we brought one of those old fans, I guess! Thank goodness for those fans! Heck we are discouraged from even opening our windows!
Thanks for the blast from the past!

Tracy S Lawler
I remember Edith Hill! Didn't she teach 5th grade?

Terrell Shaw
Ms. Hill taught 2nd in 1978. Matthew Smart, fb friend, was in that class acc. to the yearbook I have here. Of course she may have taught other grades other years.

Tony Pope
Terrell, any McH pix you have (like the one above), would you burn to a CD for me? I try to keep a file of our school history. We are going to have a McHenry Homecoming ONE DAY! Ha...

Tony Pope
Where was this building in relation to the current building? is that the house on the hill near the "old" school? I remember Earl coming to one of our retirement luncheons back in the early 1990s, he lived near the school...though don't think it was this same house. Mrs. Packer also came...she lived across the road from the school.

Terrell Shaw

On the hill across the old drive and up the steps from the gym. The little clapboard house the Hills lived in faced the windows of my room and the driveway ran between it and my room.

Yes Mrs. Packer lived directly across the street from the school. Her son lived in the trailor next door. I taught his daughter Sharon.

Matthew Smart
Yes, Mrs. Hill, 2nd grade at PES. She taught me to write cursive and kept us in line!

Rita Lawler
We need more pictures taken of people in their environments. This is a powerful portrait.