Mr. Whittaker

It was September 1951. Summer ended with the last batch of relatives leaving after spending their vacation with us at our new home in Lake Fork, Idaho. They claimed that Lake Fork was even more beautiful than Yellowstone Park and they made plans to return another year. Summer had been a glorious time for me, playing with cousins, nieces and nephews, riding horses, and playing in the river. Exploring this new place we lived in, in a make believe world of cowboys and Indians, outlaws and a sheriffs posse. We used our fingers as guns, saying, “bang your dead” as another outlaw or Indian hit the dirt. We fashioned bows from willow branches, using fishing line for the string and sharpened sticks for arrows. Thick willow branches made into stick horses that carried us through the forest, up and down hills and finally back to the house when our stomachs signaled suppertime. When the 4^th of July rolled around I got my own cap gun with a supply of caps and continued to bring law and order to the wilds of our ranch. The smell of the smoking cap gun remains in my nostrils to this day. Summer at nine years old was all play and no work but soon ended and the school year began.

I was excited, looking forward to the coming year and the start of 4^th grade. I started school in December of 1950 at Wood Grove School; a one-room schoolhouse located two miles from our home, sheltered in a grove of trees along side a narrow dirt road. Off to one side was a woodshed, next to the woodshed was a small two room cottage and nearby were two outhouses marked HIS and HERS. I had settled easily into this new school, although it was much different than the city school I attended previously. One teacher taught all eight grades and did janitorial duties, such as building a fire in the potbellied stove through the winter months, sweeping the floor each day, and on a regular basis also treated the wood floor with linseed oil. Some of the older students, usually boys were assigned turns at chopping wood and carrying it inside to stack by the stove. A hand pump sat near the front door where students pumped water from the well and carried it to the anteroom for washing and drinking. All students drank from the same dipper, and hands were washed in a small basin of water and dried on a lone towel, before we gathered around a small table to eat our sack lunches. 

A total of 16 children from 1^st grade through 8^th grade were enrolled in September 1951. Our community was buzzing with the news that a man had been hired to teach at Wood Grove. We were excited and maybe a little apprehensive about Mr. Whitaker, as our new teacher. Men teachers were not common back then as grade school teachers. 

Mr. Whittaker had moved his wife and 4 children 100 miles north to Lake Fork from Boise, Idaho in August 1951. They came, she driving a car with the children and he driving an old school bus with their few possessions. Their two oldest children, a boy in second grade and a girl in first grade would attend school at Wood Grove. We never knew why Mr. Whittaker left the Boise Valley, where the climate was mild and he taught and drove school bus. Boise was the largest city in Idaho and now his family would be living in a rural community 2 miles from a grocery store and post office, in a 2 room cottage with an outdoor toilet, no running water, and only a small wood stove for heat. I wonder now, how did they manage, where did they all sleep, but at the time I gave no thought to those questions. I only wondered will I like him, will he be a good teacher? 

My Mom and I had shopped for school clothes at the local mercantile; two pairs of jeans, 4 t-shirts, underwear, socks and of course sturdy brown oxfords finished the outfit. That first day of school I dressed carefully in new blue jeans and a shirt. The new shoes felt tight on my feet but had extra room in the toe, jeans rolled up only to be unrolled as I grew through the winter. I was scrubbed clean of all the summer dirt and my hair so clean and tightly braided that my eyes felt squinty, like the eyes of a cat. 

I remember Mom braiding as I wiggled and squirmed. “Mom, you’re pulling my hair,” I cried out. “I’m not pulling your hair. You are moving and I’m just hanging on to your hair trying to get it braided, so hold still before I do more than pull your hair.” “But Mom, please hurry, I don’t want to be late.”