Memory Monday: Mementos from my Mother's School

The other day I was reading a post entitled, “School Souvenir from Old Bosna School” on Becky Jamison’s blog Grace and Glory. At first I felt some envy, because I have so little from my parents’ schools, but as I began to give some thought to it, I realized that at least in my Mother’s case, I actually do have a few things: pictures, some class lists, and even a map in the books Salt Pork to Sirloin: The History of Baylor County; a couple of pictures of what remains of my mother’s school (called Corn School); and a couple of cards with a pasted flower design that my mother made, probably in first grade.

Here are the cards:





Mom’s name is written on one side: Madelene Moore – the spelling was actually Madeline. Written on the other side of one card in Mom’s handwriting is: “I made this in school when I was a little child.”

Here are a couple of pictures, generously provided by my cousin Vernetta Mickey, of the foundation and cornerstone of Corn School, which was located in Bomarton, Baylor County, Texas, and attended by my mother and Vernetta's father, Horace Floyd. Our parents lived on adjacent farms; my grandmother, Eula Floyd Moore, and Vernetta’s grandfather, King David Floyd, were brother and sister and used their inheritance money to purchase side-by-side farms here in 1917.


















I cannot reproduce the pictures from Salt Pork to Sirloin, but here is what Volume I has to say about Corn School:

“Corn No. 17, 1908-1940

The Corn School District when first organized in 1908 consisted of the Cartwright School and the Miller Creek School. The Corn School house had two locations, both of them were in or near the south part of the Portwood Hart Ranch in the southwest quadrant of the county.

… In 1921-22 the school had 72 pupils but from then on the enrollment began to decline and in 1940 it was annexed to the Bomarton School District.”

Corn School must have gone up to the 8th grade; after that I believe students would have attended Bomarton High School. My mother quit after the 8th grade; she had to wait until early December each year to start school because she had to help pick cotton until then and it was difficult to have to try to catch up year after year. I believe her younger brother Pete, the third youngest of 11 children, was the first to graduate from high school.