Marbletown history - Newark NY 14513

Marbletown, U.S.A.

By Lisbian Munson Mann Smith

Excerpts from a 1963 story written by a former teacher at the Marbletown Schoolhouse.

I rode a bicycle every day, many years ago. The highway that I pedaled was an unimproved country road. There were few cars then and I felt perfectly safe riding from East Newark (after having come there each morning from Lyons on the old R.S. & E.) to my little school at Marbletown.

My little school at Marbletown! What happy memories are bound up with the little red schoolhouse there! I recall it as a red brick building with high Gothic windows. Entrance was gained by formidable double doors which opened with an ominous looking key. There was the "entry," then the two cloakrooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. At the back of the room was a pot-bellied stove with a "jacket" - a large clumsy and ungainly cylinder of some unknown metal. This monstrosity was supposed to garner the heat and send it upward and outward. It never did, so later on we had it taken away. It would have made a good wigwam for children to play in but was good for little else.

The pupils' desks - double on the outside rows by the windows (original construction), single on the inner aisles - were the old-fashioned kind and did not allow for growth or change of posture or variation in body structure.

The teacher's desk was in the front of the room on a raised platform and had a lid that was lifted at various intervals to put something into or take something out of that mysterious cavern. There was very little flat surface as the hinged lid was slanting, but there was always room for the children's gifts of flowers and fruits in season. Marbletown soil was wonderful for melons, among other things.

The pictures on the wall were old friends (I sent for them from the Perry Picture Co. for one cent each) - "The Song of the Lark," "The Gleaner," "The Angelus," and "Old Ironsides" were numbered among those faithful companions.

These were the days of World War I and I know we had patriotic posters too - posters urging everyone to buy Liberty Bonds and thrift stamps, to join the Red Cross, to conserve food, to study First Aid, to sign up with the Army, Navy, the Marines, or to enlist in the Army Nurse Corps (although I guess they didn't call it that then). Advertising, too, had a patriotic trend. I remember my father had given me one of his big calendars advertising his insurance company. On the calendar was a picture of the Statue of Liberty, a massive figure, holding Freedom's light aloft. Underneath the picture in big bold letters was my father's name, D.H. Mann. In geography class one day we were discussing the Statue of Liberty. Cornelia was getting along famously in her recitation. She knew where it was located, how much it cost, how big it was and who composed the inscription on it. Then I asked her who gave us the Statue of Liberty, and, looking at the calendar, she answered brightly, without a moment's hesitation, "D.H. Mann!"

The little red schoolhouse has been replaced by the big yellow school bus. It was over 45 years ago that I started teaching in Marbletown. The schools are better now, the buildings themselves are palatial compared to our unpretentious, inconvenient one-room schools. But the teachers then had one advantage that the teachers of today do not have - they had the time and the opportunity to take a deep interest in each child and to know and understand the child's background. Life was much simpler then.

Forty-five years is a long time, but I can remember those pupils out there as though it were only last week. The ones I later knew best, John and Lucile Gifford, did not come to school until the following spring. But in the fall of 1917 I had 16 pupils, George and Mabel Milliman, Bernard and Edmon De Pauw, Ester and Evelyn DeWeaver, Grace and Cornelia Siegwalt, Kenneth Miller, Clarence VanDerBrook and Pearl and Lester White. All are remembered.

Only a few of the children lived near enough to go home for their noon meal, so the others brought their lunches. That was fun because we used to exchange goodies. We had something hot, too. At recess we would put potatoes on top of the pot-bellied stove to bake and when we were ready for lunch we would whisk them off to make room for the cocoa.

As soon as the first snow came we started talking about Christmas and practicing for our Christmas entertainment. Next to the picnic at the end of the school year, this was the most important event in the scholastic calendar. The little red schoolhouse really stood for "togetherness." The farm folk were very busy people and although they were starting to own cars then, many of them still depended on old Dobbin for transportation. Some of the people had telephones, but there were none of the labor-saving devices they have now. So their days were very full, and as far as entertainment went, radio and television were not in existence then. (Does this sound as though we lived in a prehistoric era?) So the school affairs were the big things, not just for the entertainment and fellowship, but chiefly because, as always, the fathers and mothers loved to see their children perform and were so proud of them. That is one thing that does not change and never will.

We had a live Christmas tree - the boys went out in the woods and chopped it down, dragging it back on their sled. We had decorations for the tree, perhaps a few store-bought ones, but most of them we made ourselves from red berries, bright colored paper, popcorn and bits of shining glass. Then on the big day we had a real program, many "pieces" (you just couldn't leave anyone out), Christmas carols and a play.

The winter of 1917-18 was a rough one. It was very cold and we had a great deal of snow. But the winter days finally passed and Spring - that ever-old, ever-new, ever-wonderful miracle came to Marbletown. Of course, it came to other places in Wayne County, in New York State, and, I presume, the United States too, but in our smug, happy little world it came mostly for us.

It was a lovely Spring, too, in 1918. It was as though nature were doing her utmost to make up to us for the rugged winter we had been through. Now it was sheer bliss to be able to walk through without burrowing one's way through icy drifts. The roads were wet, muddy and rough but we seemed to have springs in our steps after months of floundering through snow-packed tunnels.

We had a bird calendar at school, and there was a friendly rivalry among the children as to who could see the greatest number of birds the earliest. We had a lot of robins, red-winged blackbirds, meadowlarks and bluebirds.

Now we could play outdoors once more. Now we could take walks in the woods to gather wildflowers and ferns. I think it is too bad that today's children can't walk more. In all three schools I taught, even the littlest tots walked back and forth to school, and often it was quite a distance.

That Spring was not all play. The war was demanding more and more. We organized a Junior Red Cross and put on an entertainment to raise money for it. How well I remember that affair on a beautiful May evening! Of course, we did not have electric lights in our school, so the parents brought lanterns. They looked like giant fireflies, bobbing back and forth in the dark on the school grounds. The nearby neighbors sent over their best lamps (how long has it been since you've seen lamp globes like those, cream-colored with magenta roses and cerulean morning glories?). So to the familiar odors of the classroom - was added the unmistakable (though somehow cozy) odor of kerosene oil.

Along with plays, we had folk dances, too. I had some folk dance records that I had brought out with my Victrola. Every boy and girl had a chance to display his or her talent, patriotism and fervent zeal. It was more, much more, than just an affair to raise money for the Red Cross. We had story hour every afternoon, and no matter how much noise or restlessness there had been earlier in the day, all was quiet then.

We had the traditional picnic at the end of the school year. We didn't have a formal program but did all kinds of games. Sometimes the mothers took part in the games (the fathers were all busy in the fields). Then what a banquet we had! Everything was homemade without the benefits of ready mixes, frozen foods or those half-baked products that came many years later.

Will you ever forget the day we got the news that the war had ended? It was a bright fall day and we were having our usual afternoon classes. Suddenly, about two o'clock, we heard bells ringing, whistles blowing and all kinds of noises in the village of Newark, two miles away. I sent Kenneth to the VanDerBrook's to find out about it. He came bursting into the schoolroom shouting, "The war's over!" We screamed, we shouted, we danced, we sang, we threw our hats and coats up in the air; perhaps we prayed. Our hearts were gay and our spirits were soaring into outer space (which was only a fantastic area then).

Our joy was soon turned to anxiety and sadness by the Spanish influenza that swept the country right in the wake of the armistice. All schools were closed by order of the Board of Health, so I did not see my children for several weeks. It was a frightening scourge. Entire families were wiped out in a matter of days. Strong men who had never been sick a day in their lives collapsed and died. The weak, the strong, the young and old, the rich and the poor, the dread disease struck indiscriminately. But the wave of sickness finally subsided and the schools were reopened. We had missed so much time that we had to work very hard to cover the required ground.

I have since returned to Marbletown. The schoolhouse is still there, but is greatly changed. The gothic windows have been bricked in and there are only small windows on the west side, high up in the wall. But the east side is all windows. The formidable double doors in front have been replaced by a single door of normal size. The building is now used as a Home Bureau Center. The schoolyard is just the same, but somehow seems much smaller. I wonder if anyone hunts for four leaf clovers there anymore? We drove around the country on unimproved roads, quite unlike the highways of 45 years ago.

Once again Spring is here. It is always wonderful, but my dearest picture of springtime is the one 45 years ago when I gathered up the children who walked to school with me - George and Cornelia, waiting for me at the end of their lane, John and Lucile hastily grabbing their lunch boxes and books. Then, with happy hearts that sang the songs we found, together we travelled the remaining mile to Marbletown, U.S.A.

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