TEENAGE YEARS - Part 3, School Life

Before continuing with Alfred's writing, I want to share a photo I found yesterday.  It always exciting to come across a photo you didn't realize you had. This is a picture of Alfred as an infant taken at Bosard Photography on 164 Virginia Ave.,Indianapolis, Indiana. Don't you love the long gown. I just wanted to share it with you.

Alfred William Moehlmann
Moehlmann Family Collection

Back to the story, Alfred has relayed his experiences working on his grandparents farm.  But it was not all work for him. This section talks about his school life and the fun he had with his classmates:

"In the fall of 1907 I started to school at Adams School Dist. #1, one half mile east of Fairview Cemetery.  Ollie Clayton was the teacher – I was supposed to be in the 7^th grade but I was the only one for this grade so I had to take the 6^th grade again.  It was a lot different – first it was a public school and a one room school and all grades were taught and my experience had been a parochial school – books, lessons and procedure was all different.  Those were happy days – schoolmasters were different – urban to suburban – games were different – teachers different  - It was the first time I had a teacher that would get out at recess or noon time and play with the kids.  Boys and Girls played together.  It seemed like it was easy to get acquainted.  More of a friendly attitude.  No cliques.  The boys in the class were Ed Kramer, Bill Berns, Bill Hart, Bailey Adams and myself.  A great friendship existed among us.  We were pals.  Of course there were others – Billy Kramer a brother of Ed – Henry*, Bert, Arthur* & Oscar Kramer – Walter* Adams, Herman Bredweg, Bill Shop and many others (*deceased.)  All kinds of games according to seasons – town ball, handing over, running, jumping and winter was skating and sled riding or coating – at the noon hour we would go to Buck Creek to skate.  One time while George Humphreys was teaching, I broke through the ice.  He wanted to send me home but I was afraid my skates would be taken from me, so he left me go to the school house and I sat by the Big Potted Stove and “steamed” myself dry.  Coasting was one of the big pastimes – We had several sleds that would hold at least six kids.  Some one would usually “slue” the sled so that everybody would fall off, especially if girls were on it.  In cold weather we would pour water on the hill and the next day we would have a glare of ice.  We had no well at the school so we had 2 buckets and had to carry our drinking water form the Letterman spring about a quarter of a mile away.  We had 2 dippers and everybody drank from the same dippers.  We had to walk to school and take our dinner bucket.  It was a mile & a half for me.  The Kramers would come past our home at 7 o’clock.  In the fall we would “cut through” Garrett Schoot’s farm in Buck Creek Bottom and gather a pocket full of hickory nuts (shell barks).  One way to get on the “Good Side” of the girls was to give them a few hickory nuts."

Another look at the map: the letter B shows where the Adams school is and A is the location of Alfred's home and D the location of the Kramer's. You can see where the boys would cut through the Gerhard Schloot farm that had Buck's Creek (C) crossing it. Did you catch the comments about getting water from the well at Letterman's spring?

  
The Letterman farm, next to the Adams School, had been owned by John D. Adams prior to 1889. John was the one that the Adams school was named after.  John's daughter Helen married Joseph Letterman in 1884 and they bought a portion of the farm after her father's death in 1889. Her brother Ira also got part of it. Joseph Letterman is the great grandfather of David Letterman, of late night TV.  

It seems like Alfred adjusted to the rural school environment fairly easily.  He has friends and they enjoy all types of activities together.  

Of course the day after I posted this section, I found a picture of Alfred at the Adams School. There was no date on the photo but it must have been about 1908.