My elementary school had 7 students, maybe 10 max at any time in the 6 years I went to school on the island. We had several teachers throughout the course of our South End School and while we were there my father was the Principal. Mrs. Broughton (?) or Mrs. Collins was our first teacher. Peter Hoyt and I were close in age, he was a year older, and we were the first 'pre-school' or kindergarten students which I think Mrs. Gray held for us on the second floor of the Dorm. My brother Jeff and Peter's brother Harger were the same age and they started first grade together in 1962. When the Hoyts left for South Africa for a year long research and work assignment for Dr. Hoyt, my brother was the only student in the school. That year he did two years of school in one year and jumped a grade. From then on he would be two years older age but three years ahead of me in school. Gradually we had other families move to the island and the youngest children of the existing families were old enough to start school and our numbers swelled to 7 students. Linton's, Pilkeys, Greenes, Henry's, then Pilkeys left, Traganzas came, Schmidts, Marlands and Howard, then Henry's left, and it was the Marlands Greenes, Gallaghers, and .
Beginnings:
After Mrs. Broughton, we had Ms. Collins. She also taught us piano after school. She rode the boat over every day to teach us. By 1963 we were set up in what is now the MI admin office in the quadrangle Dr. Lauft, who hired the architect to design the interior space and built-ins for the Shell Hammock houses, hired him to design and furnish the one room school house. We had nice big tables and chairs for the older kids and smaller tables and chairs for the younger ones. Everything was brand new. High grade polished, glossy wood school furniture, kind of a European or Montessorri look to it. We had a reading corner behind the movable chalk board next to the bookshelf that held the World Book Encyclopedias. When my family left for Washington D.C. in 1968 for a year when I was going into 5th grade, I had never before sat in what is a typical school desk nor had I ever eaten in a school cafeteria. I was at a total loss as if I had come from a foreign country and was learning new customs.
Josie Hales, the wife of a professor from England taught us after Ms. Collins left. She was fun, energetic, artistic and we loved her British accent and our tea times in the afternoon (Kool aid and graham crackers). Our longest running teacher was Mrs. Virginia Sisco. She was divorced or widowed and chose to live on the island. I think she lived in one of the trailors near the MI or on the second floor apartment in the Dorm. We had a more permanant group of kids at this point - Henrys, Greenes, Marlands, Howard, Schmidts with fluctuations as to what family had come over to the island for a year or so, and then left.
Field trips were to the beach to collect shells to make our Mother's Day gifts, Christmas gifts and other crafts. We also went there to observe a solar eclipse, with our specially made protective sunglasses. The beach was minutes from our school but some how things seemed farther away then they do today.
Recess and PE was held in the quadrangle. Kick ball was our favorite game as was Red Rover or Red Light Green Light or Simon Says. We had no playground equipment so the Turkey Fountain may have served as our climbing space and of course we also enjoyed picking up the dark green algal slime that was always prevalent in the fountain and being simultaneously entertained by it and disgusted by it. The boys threatened in fun to throw it at the girls. Another entertainment was picking kumquats off the several citrus trees in the quadrangle and seeing who could hold a straight face while eating it. The double oak trees across from the school with the wisteria vines connecting them made a great climbing wall for us. The girls probably jumped rope and we played some kind of game with bamboo poles that several of us would hold and click together near the ground while one girl would jump in the middle between them. Anyone know what this was called?
Lunch time was when we either rode home with our dads, if they were on the island, or walked home for lunch. When our school was at its peak in numbers we had a split session. The younger ones came in earlier and left at lunch and the older ones came in mid-morning and left in the afternoon. Those were the years my mother made me practice the piano in the morning, before going to school, which I disliked with gusto. It was the metronome that really drove me crazy. But how many times could I play 'From A Wigwam' and never get tired of it?
