By Jay Smith, grandson*
*Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
I was born on September 25th, 1959, in El Dorado, Kansas. I don’t know what day of the week that was as I had no access to a calendar. Little is known about my first few years because I just can’t remember anything. I do know that I went to Kindergarten and first grade at Lincoln Elementary School, in El Dorado. My teachers were Mrs. Blue and Mrs. Swimmer.
We spent the summer of 1966 in Ottumwa Iowa where my dad ran a Bikes Burger Barn. I worked there a little for 5 cents an hour. Not a lot of money in those days. To start second grade we moved to Topeka, Kansas. I think my dad was just going around getting these burger barns open and them moving on to the next one.
In November of 1966, we moved to Knoxville, Iowa where dad was going to build and operate one of the first Lil’ Duffers.
My new school was St. Anthony’s Catholic School. I was in the second grade then. It was a small school with grades one through eighth and maybe eighty or ninety total students. Grades seven and eight were later dropped. There were two grades in each room. In the first and second grade room, my new friend was Tom McClure. We did daily battles at recess with our archrivals Jeff Beary and Brian Fridlington. Both of these boys later became life-long friends whom I still cherish. My teacher was Sister Richardine.
The third and fourth grade teacher was Mrs. Steger. She was not a nun, but she was a great teacher and later a friend. We were required to wear uniforms every day. The boys had to wear black shoes, black pants and dark blue shirts. Girls wore what I would guess was a jumper type thing and white socks with black shoes. The uniforms were not very popular with the masses, but the most unpopular thing was having to go to mass every morning before school. So, we were going to church six days a week. On top of that, the priest would come to school every Friday afternoon to lecture us about good and evil.
I received my first communion in second grade and I got confirmed in sixth grade. These were some big milestones back then.
There were some fun things that we did. Like, three days a week, my mom and dad would bring hamburgers and cheeseburgers and French fries for the whole school. That was very popular with all of the students. The other days we had to bring our own sack lunches with the main entrée being a frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had been made weeks before. I felt bad for my mother having to keep five boys corralled and being pregnant again. Little sister, Amy, was born in September of 1967 all while my dad was working many hours. I honestly think that if Amy had been a boy, there would have been some fireworks between my mom and dad.
Anyway, another fun thing we got to do was play on our school basketball team, the Mustangs. We had a really nice gym with a stage on one side for our Christmas programs and such. The first year of basketball, I think I was in the fourth grade, we had a real tall boy in the fifth grade, so all we had to do was throw him the ball and he would score about every time. We ended up going to Tri-State Catholic Tournament in Sioux Fall, South Dakota and we actually won the whole thing. I remember my parents couldn’t go on the trip, but they did give me two dollars for “fun money” which I spent at the first stop that we made. So, the rest of the trip I had to borrow money from people if I wanted to buy something. We went back the next year and did really bad.
Just a few random memories that I have from Catholic school… At morning mass, if someone got sick and threw up on one of the nuns would escort the child out of church and someone else would bring in something like saw dust and dump it on the sickness all while mass continued on. Everyone was distracted. It was a little scary when I was younger because the kid that got sick was not seen for the rest of that day and maybe the next day.
Also, we lived quite a ways from the school, maybe about two miles. Mom would take us to school but, after school she told us to start walking and she would pick us up. Which usually meant that we would end up walking all the way home.
Another time in fourth grade our teacher, Mrs. Steger, was going around the room and asking people to say a word in syllables. She did several words when she came to my friend, Brian and his word was “mustard”. He slowly said Mus – Tard and then everyone started laughing. Mrs Steger rapped him on the hand with her ruler. I think that she set him up for that one.
That is about all that I can remember from my grades two through six at Catholic school. They discontinued grades seven and eight at some point before I got to grade six so I could go on to junior high school and be a regular person. I don’t know if I remember things the same as my brothers do, but that’s my story and I am sticking to it.
Good Day
Jay Smith
Knoxville, Iowa
Catechism
By Roger Eaton, grandson*
*Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
My brothers and sister attended St. John’s Catholic School. When my sister, Maggie, and I were ready for elementary school, we were enrolled in Jefferson Elementary School. I don’t know the reasons, but my other elementary-aged siblings were also enrolled at Jefferson School. They had been attending St. John’s. Jefferson was a public school.
During my elementary school years, Maggie and I attended catechism classes at St John’s Catholic School. The classes were on Saturday mornings. We used the classroom of the regular catholic school classes. The desks contained the books and pencils for regular students. Classes were one hour in duration, but they seemed longer than that. We usually listened to a bible story and then discussed it. They taught us about the format of the mass. We were prepared for our first communion and confirmation ceremony. My favorite lesson was a tour of the church.
Kids from other elementary schools attended in the same class. It was great to meet other kids and that made my transition to junior high school smoother. Teachers were volunteers from the Catholic Student Center at Wichita State University. They were college-aged women. That was much different than the “mature” women teachers at Jefferson Elementary School.
In the 1960s, we were entertained by three television channels. There was no cable television or color. The TVs were black and white and there was no way to record shows. If you missed a show, you had to wait until they re-ran it (usually during the summer). Saturday morning TV programming was dedicated to cartoons. That presented a conflict with the weekly catechism classes. So, I wasn’t thrilled to attend catechism.
When we moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1969, we attend the St. Louis King of France, Catholic Church. Their catechism classes were called CCD. I didn’t know what the letters represented. It was catechism, to me. As I prepared this story, I researched CCD. It means Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Classes were on Wednesday afternoons – after school. Since they didn’t have a school, our classes were in the church. It had movable partitions to separate the different classes.
We returned to El Dorado, Kansas in October 1970. As we entered junior high school, CCD classes were conducted on Wednesday evenings. Wednesday evenings are commonly used for church functions. With the numerous extracurricular activities for junior high school students, our attendance dwindled and we eventually stopped attending.
By Mary (Lehr) Eaton, daughter*
*Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
My school building was red brick. It was built in 1923, the year I was born. It was a parochial school taught by nuns of the order of St. Joseph. There were 8 grades. Two in each of the four classrooms. There was a chapel in the basement. Also, the boys and girls restrooms were in the basement. The top floor was used for parish activities. It was equipped with a kitchen, performing stage, cloak room, and basketball goals.
The first two or three years that I was in school we were graded 100, 98, 97, etc. Later the A, B, C method was used. Our desk was attached to the back of the seat in front of us. Of course, our teacher had a big desk with drawers. She had a bell to tap if we got noisy.
I had a different teacher every two years. In the 6th grade, Sister Carlotta was my teacher she was one of the best. At recess we played “Tag”, “Jump Rope”, or “Jacks” usually. If we misbehaved in school, we were sent to back of the room – there to think over our disrespect.
My favorite classroom activity was the spelling “bee”. It was fun, especially if you had studied the words. I don’t remember doing much reading when I was 11. We didn’t have the great selection of young people’s reading material that you have today. One Christmas a relative gave me a book, I read it right away and also many times, after that. It was a novel about a girl’s school.
Since I lived a ways from town, I rode a school bus the first few years. The bus was provided by the Skelly Oil Company, where my father was employed. Later my mother drove us to school. This was one of her first driving experiences – sometimes it was exciting!
I have no “worst” memory from school years. My best memory was the Sunday of my 8th grade graduation. Again, I don’t have any “worst” memories that I can think of about after school activities, I was always glad to get home, change clothes and play.
Catholic School 2023-09-22
Matriculation Through Parochial School
By Jim Eaton, Jr., grandson*
Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
In the early 1950’s, I made the transition from the one room log cabin kindergarten to the multi-story, brick/rock building known as St. John’s School where I would matriculate from the first through the sixth grades. I began first grade with Ken Hughes. We became friends in kindergarten, a friendship that lasted until his recent death. He told the story when he and his mother went to the log cabin for the first day of kindergarten, he was too anxious to go in alone. His mother apparently saw me, told him who I was, and we embarked on kindergarten hand-in-hand. Entry through the front doors opened to steps up to the first floor and steps to the basement. A wooden stairway led to the second floor. At that time, the classrooms were on the first floor, a large auditorium was on the second floor, and the basement contained the boiler room and a large vacant space used for storage. The old wooden stairs creaked when walked on so you can imagine the noise when a class of students ran up and down them.
The rooms were heated via steam radiators generated from the boiler in the basement. Steam pipes ran across the ceilings of the classrooms. The steam pipes were wrapped in asbestos to prevent the heat from radiating out of the pipes before they reached the radiators. However, the insulation had not been well maintained. Fragments of the insulation hung down from many of the pipes. Cooling was provided by nature—the windows opened! That may account for school not starting until the first of September—it also may have been influence by farmers needing their children to help during harvest. If I remember correctly, the school year ran from early or mid-September until mid-May. I don’t remember snow days or faculty development days off.
When I attended first grade, I believe we were the largest class in years, probably because we were the first of the Baby Boomers. I recall that there was only one class in our room—there were four class rooms on the floor then. Other rooms contained two classes. Our room had a very large cloak room that was open on each end. We entered one end and exited the other. It was also used as a place of detention for those whose behavior was not appropriate for the classroom. I specifically remember one boy from the orphanage who spent more time in the cloakroom than in the classroom. He was not malicious, just ornery. I don’t know what happened to him. He did not return for second grade that I recall. Hopefully, he was adopted and lived a wonderful life. I might mention that there was an orphanage in El Dorado that was run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Many of the children from the orphanage attended St. John’s, at least for a while. I don’t recall any graduating from St. John’s during my time there.
All classes were taught by Sisters of St. Joseph nuns. It took some time to adjust to their attire and nature. All in all, it was a very good learning environment, even without the electronics of today. Sister Hallarian was the Principal and a person all feared. No one wanted to be sent to her. However, I got to know her in my last two years at St. John’s. She was a very caring person who persona was used to maintain discipline. I do not recall any significant behavioral problems—the nuns would not stand for it! Yes, they were very proficient in rapping knuckles with rulers!
Our technology consisted of a large, slate blackboards, colored chalk, and erasers! Rarely, we had a movie. Our internet consisted of a library of encyclopedias and weekly newspapers designed for our age group. These continued for several grades with the quantity and level of sophistication gradually increasing. They brought a lot of real-life information. After the first grade, all my classes contained two grades. I especially enjoyed being in the lower grade—I learned more from the teaching to the higher grade.
One of the best amenities was the playground. It was large with a chain link fence on the north side. There were swings, a manual merry-go-round, a ball diamond to play softball, a high jump pit and a long jump pit. Softball was my sport of the time. I could hardly wait for recess to play. Interestingly enough, several of the nuns, including Sister Hallarian, were active participants. They hitched the lower portion of their habit into the “rope” that cinched them at the waist and played with us. However, I don’t recall any of them ever sliding into a base!
Grade cards were given out about every six weeks. By given out, I mean handed out in person in front of the class. Father Irvin Lampe was the primary priest for most of the time I was in school there. He was a large, full-bodied man with a deep voice. He would come over to the school to distribute the grade cards, one by one. He would call the name on the card and make comments. I think he tried to be as encouraging as possible. For those with low grades, he attempted to encourage them, often pointing out area in which they excelled, e.g. attendance or behavior. Those with good grades were noted, but were also critiqued if attendance, behavior, etc. were not up to snuff. There as always anxiety when he came to reveal everyone’s grades.
On the last day of school each year there was a school picnic. At the end of 3rd grade, the picnic was at East Park. The Walnut River ran by the park. You have to remember that was a much slower, safer time. Parents felt safe letting their children walk to and from school and around town. After the picnic, all departed and went their own ways. However, one of my classmates, Freddy Walters, decided to play by the river. He drowned that day!
At some point, I began training to be an Alter Boy. A substantial amount of time was spent studying the history of religion to the United States from the Old World in addition to the prerequisite Latin and religious rite training. This included studying subjects such as the Spanish conquistadors, the “conversion” of the natives in the Americas, Ponce de Leon’ search for the Fountain of Youth, etc. Probably learned more history there than in high school. Points were given for serving different types of services with premium points given for special services and services outside normal hours, e.g. 6:00 am mass. We often received monetary contributions for participating in weddings. Of course, there were some who just had to “sample” the wine when the priest was not present. Some of those were asked to remove themselves for altar boy status.
Once a month, after 8:00 am Mass, there was a breakfast in the auditorium for the entire school. Various pastries were served. That is where I became addicted to fried cinnamon rolls. That made it all worth getting up early. I now get my fix on cinnamon rolls at Lamar’s!
During my last years at St. John’s, they paved the front surface of the school. It provided a play area during rainy days when the playground was muddy. It was eventually marked off as simulated streets and crossings. Students were walked through the course to demonstrate the proper way to walk along a street and cross safely. Those who volunteered to be Crossing Guards were required to take additional training on the course. We also did disaster training—there was a real fear of an atomic war. However, in reality, the measures taken were a joke. When an alarm sounded, the shades were pulled on all the windows and all students we instructed to duck under their desks. Can you imagine how much protection that would have provided in the event of a nuclear attack?
I joined the Cub Scouts during my time at St. John’s. Of course, my mother was one of the den mothers most of the time. That was a great opportunity to develop friendships with other boys whom I only knew casually in school. Years later I learned that there was a lot of drama with some of the den mothers and their husbands. However, that never had any adverse impact on any of the Cub Scout activities. I learned a lot of basic skill that became habits over the years.
The basement was built out into a classroom in time or my 5th and 6th grades. The asbestos had been removed from the building and the other classrooms repainted. The basement classroom was large enough to contain a small library containing, among other books, several sets of encyclopedias—or version of Google! Often, I completed my homework in class before the end of the day. I often used that time to read the encyclopedias. World War II was my favorite subject—I don’t remember why.
I was assigned to write a paper on Joan of Arc when I was in the sixth grade. To the best of my recollection, that was the first assignment I had to research and commit to writing my summary and impressions. There was no internet, no Google. But there was mom. In spite of having six other children to wrangle and her working with my father’s business, she found time to direct me to the proper resources, then typed the report for me: it was a manual typewriter—no electric typewriter, no word processor, no computer-generated reports! Needless to say, I received an A for the report. I learned a lot about researching a topic during that process and how to assimilate data from such research and present it in a written format.
Graduation from St. John’s presented the same anxiety and concerns of moving into a new environment as I felt when I first entered St. John’s. I did find that St. John’s prepared me extremely well for Junior High (that’s what it was called then!). Much of what was covered in the 7th and 8th grades I had learned at St. John’s. The downside was I lost a lot of studying skills.