Memoirs Part 3

Well I came across some photos of myself and brothers taken in front of that house in Garden Valley, and it was not a LOG cabin.  But cabin it was and when I posted about it on "You Know You're From Garden Valley If:" FaceBook page, many people remembered that cabin.  Here are the photos:

You can see the bandage on Adrian's left thumb, but it is harder to tell that he is missing two fingers on his right hand.  These were chopped off by an axe when he was just over 2 years old.  He thought he was being helpful when our older brother was chopping wood by putting a piece of wood on the chopping block - his timing was just not that good.  We were living in High Valley at the time and my folks had to make a mad dash to Emmett to have his hand stitched up (the length of time it took to get to medical help and the technology of the times did not allow him to have his fingers reattached).  This was the summer of 1948 and I'm not sure what kind of vehicle they had, but it had to have been an older model and the roads were long (about 65 miles), narrow, unpaved and crooked.  I can't imagine the panic my parents experienced in that trip.

Okay, back to the time behind the Garden Valley Store.  My brother Adrian was born in March and went to school in the fall after he turned 6 - 1952.  (In Garden Valley there was no Kindergarten.) I was born in November and my parents want to get me into school the next year while I was still 5, but the school said there were too many children going into the first grade so I would have to wait until the next year, when I was 6 (almost 7).  In August of 1954 I started first grade in a class of twelve (there had only been 7 or 8 the year before and I was more than ready, having studied and learned with Adrian.

One of my posts on "You Know You're From Garden Valley If:" FaceBook page: 

When elementary classes were held in a one-room building with outhouses and a wood-stove for heat, water being packed by bucket from the well across the highway.

Yes, it is hard to believe that someone born after World War II went to a one-room classroom like something out of the 1800s.  I just wish I had pictures of the school at that time.  I only have pictures of the first and second grade classes sitting beside it (below) and of the building that was being built at that time to house first to sixth grades with a lunchroom at the back (and indoor bathrooms).

These schools were geographically located just a short distance from the GV Store, so we easily walked to school each day.  And as you can see by the above pictures (the bottom picture is grades one through three: 1955-56), I had the same teacher for first through third grade, Mrs Gladys Harp - a wonderful woman who was a little scary because she had a breathing apparatus in her throat and she had to put her finger over it in order to talk to us.  She couldn't yell at us, but she could sure wield a mean ruler on the knuckles.