Stark Education on the Prairie

Ever since I was a little girl attending a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie near Hereford, South Dakota, I had my heart set on being a schoolteacher.

So as soon as I graduated from Sturgis High School in 1949, I attended Black Hills Teachers College in Spearfish for both summer-school sessions.

Since I was only 17, I didn’t qualify to take the examination for the First Grade Certificate. And since there were no more Second Grade Certificates being issued, I had to teach on a permit, good for one year only.

I was hired to teach at the Squaw Butte School near Sulphur. Since just one first-grader and one third-grader were attending that school year of 1949-50, the school board decided to make use of a tiny bunkhouse for the schoolhouse, which would double as a “teacherage.”

The building was about 10 feet by 13 feet, with very thin walls and no plumbing, electricity, cook stove or refrigerator. A small oil stove, fed by an outside tank, provided the heat, and a tiny open cupboard held a water bucket and a camp stove with an oven. I walked to a well some 100 feet away to fill my bucket.

A rather small dresser and a minute closet were sufficient for my sparse wardrobe. The foldout davenport served as a seat in the daytime and a bed at night, and the students’ two desks added to the crowded accommodations.

The toilet facilities consisted of a chemical toilet in the basement of Chester and Rose Stomprud’s house nearby. They were the parents of my two students, Donnie and Oscar. Rose had pasted wallpaper on the cardboard interior walls of the schoolhouse, which was covered on the outside with red tarpaper.

The schoolroom was comfortable in nice weather, but the small stove could not keep up with the cold. I bought a pair of sheepskin-lined boots that I wore all day, and the boys would have to keep their feet off the floor and their desks close to the stove.

One memorable night, the temperature dropped to minus-35. The oil congealed in the tank line and the stove went out. After I had stood the cold as long as possible, I walked over to the Stompruds’ house. Chet worked until about 6 a.m. trying to get the stove started, to no avail.

Chet’s parents had a home on the land but had moved into town for a portion of the winter, so he moved the desks into their house. I was allowed to live there until the weather warmed up enough to make the small schoolhouse livable again.

I was paid $165 a month by a warrant instead of a check, and I was one of the lucky teachers who was always able to cash the warrant.

I had no radio, so I read a lot to entertain myself. Soon needing a better form of entertainment, I bought an accordion and taught myself how to play it. (I already knew how to play the piano.)

With no transportation, I relied on someone in my family to drive the 65 miles to the school on Friday night so I could play for a Saturday-night dance in town. Then they’d take me back on Sunday.

If it had not been for the whole wonderful Stomprud family, my first year of teaching would likely have been my last. I taught 17 years full-time and 16 more as a substitute, including stints from 2000-05 at five one-room schoolhouses still operating in South Dakota.

The hardships of that first year made me grow up fast and truly appreciate what other teachers have had to endure. I thank God for those experiences.

—By Edna Smith
Union Center, South Dakota