Upper Bridger School memories part 1: Getting to school and into mischief

February 28, 2011

Upper Bridger School Student Body, 1946. Cecelia is in the back row, just right of the teacher. Her sister, Katie, is the one on the left, with braids.

Last night before the Oscars aired, Shawna and David and I met for some pizza and conversation with a graduate of Gallatin County’s Upper Bridger School, Cecelia Olsen. Cecelia went to the Upper Bridger School from 1941-48. She also happens to bear the distinction of being known to Shawna and me (and our siblings, Jana and Kent) as “Mom.” Following is part of our conversation, which covers some of the adventures Cecelia had while traveling to school on horseback, her memories of an eventful school pet parade, and some regrettable mischief she recalls getting into. Read between the lines to hear her tongue in cheek sense of humor. — Marla

Cecelia: Well you can ask me questions and I’ll answer them.

What was the outhouse like?

Not good… But there was a boys’ outhouse and a girls’ outhouse. Of course. And the lucky teacher got to take care of that as well as keeping the school clean.

She didn’t live in the school, did she?

Some of them did. They had a teacherage which was part of the school. They made a little partition across the back which included the library.

Is that school still there?

Not… Well it is, but Johnny Hamm owns it now and it’s – I think he rents it as a house.

There was a cook stove back there and room for her bed, maybe a table, it was really small. But then after school was out, she had the whole other part. Which would have been cold, because there was no central heating.

So do you actually remember your first day of school?

Not really, I don’t think so. I think the folks took me in a car the first time. When I was in first and second grade, they would take me in the car if they could, but when the roads weren’t good enough, somebody took me on the horse. I mean, they had to ride down and back and then come and get me, which must have been a real pain in the neck and took quite a chunk out of their day, you know.

But then when I was in third grade, I’d ride a horse by myself.

And your horse’s name was… Did you ride Brownie?

I did ride Brownie, but I had Dixie before Brownie. There was a barn for the horses, so you know, it was expected that a lot of people would ride horses. I think there were four stalls as I remember, maybe five.

Did you have more kids in school than had a stall for their horse? Could you put two horses in a stall?

Well that wasn’t an option, but people who lived close, of course, walked. They didn’t have horses. But some of us had horses… Any that lived very far, but there weren’t that many that lived very far.

So how far did you live?

Three miles. Farther than I could walk when I was a little kid, you know.

What was the most exciting thing that happened that you remember?

I can remember a couple of exciting things, one which I’ve told you before, when my horse ran away with me. I wasn’t very old then, maybe in fourth grade. Our horse, Dixie, had the misfortune to get turned upside down in the hay manger and died. And so we didn’t have a horse then for awhile, so Daddy borrowed one from the neighbor next door, and it was a little more horse than I was girl, I think. (But I always THOUGHT I was quite the cowgirl.)

In any event, this horse had been a race horse. He was nice and he was gentle. But I got down to Moran’s and the girls and I started out and Eddie was late, so he came galloping up behind us. My horse said, “ain’t nobody beatin’ me to the finish line!” and took off like a shot. This was on the way to school, with me… clinging… and I can remember very clearly thinking, “I’ll just hop off,” but the ground was going by so fast that I gave that up as a poor idea.

And then when I got down to the school there was a quick right turn and then a quick left turn and then the horse, fortunately, stopped before he ran into the barn. And I shot up to about his ears and then got back and got off. …and this was bareback, by the way. That was one of my more exciting things, actually.

Participants in the 1946 Upper Bridger School Pet Parade. (Katie is in the front, left with striped shirt, crepe paper flower and kitty. Cecelia can be seen on her horse, behind the boy in the big neckerchief)

I have a picture that you might be interested in, of the pet parade that we had one time. The Moran girls and I rode out having lovely crepe paper flowers in our hair, (because that did make us look more professional) standing up on our horses. I mean we didn’t have any of that baloney, that leather stuff for you to put your foot in, we just stood up and rode them out and did a few other clever, clever things. I might have been in 7th grade by then.

It was a festival sort of thing. But the funniest part was that Katie, (maybe I was younger than that, because Katie was in first grade or so). She decided that she’d bring this cat, bring a kitty for pet parade day, so she just went out to the barn and snagged one. And then when it was her turn to show “what does your pet do?” well, hers could sit up!  And so she put this cat down in a sitting position, which, having never done it before, he wasn’t sure what was happening but he flopped over. Anyway, after about two tries, Katie picked him up and shook the bejeezus out of him and set him down again. (…but it never worked.) I remember that!

Did they give out prizes?

Maybe only applause. I don’t think we probably got prizes, and if we did, it was going to be one of those things where everybody got something. But I don’t remember getting any. And obviously we would have deserved a prize if there had been any given!

If you didn’t pass first grade, was there a passing or failing at the end of every year, or did you have to worry about it?

Oh yes, and I think some of the kids maybe did have to repeat. You know, not very often. But you know, there were all eight grades most of the time. …And then a bunch of loggers came in and so they came into the school, too, so then we had a lot of kids. And they were very mature in ways that the rest of us weren’t!

I quite remember this one kid, whose name was ****** ****** He knew things that the rest of us had never heard about! He was about, maybe 15. He was a little older than some of the rest of us. But he had ideas about things that… Hmmmmph!

And of course I’ve told you about the time that we smoked! And that was… I mean, that was the big, traumatic thing.

You got caught?

Well… We went up to get a Christmas tree and it was really nice. I remember there was hardly any snow on the ground. And Eddie Moran, who was 16 at the time, he smoked, and he had some cigarettes and he wanted to know which ones of us would, you know… like to share. And of course, most of us did. And then we got back to the school. And of course, we weren’t going to tell, but some little weasel of a younger kid did.

We were all sitting there and the teacher whose name was Mrs. Barr, said “Did any of you do anything you were ashamed of?”

And nobody raised their hand, I guess. And then she asked “Did any of you do anything you wouldn’t want your folks to know about?”

(Nothin’ goin’ on there…)

And then she asked, “Did any of you do something bad” (or something like that). Finally she said, Did any of you SMOKE???”

And then I noticed her gaze was just bearing down on me, sitting in the front row! I looked around, and for chrissake, everybody else had raised their hand! And I thought, well… I mean the IDEA was that nobody was gonna TELL!

So I thought that they… But then I meekly… (raised my hand)

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