Teachers recollect rural life

GRANGEVILLE, Idaho – Back in the days of one-room schoolhouses, children arrived for the first day of class with their ears washed, their thinking caps on tight and no confusion about what might happen if they acted up.

“I swatted them in the right place,” recalls 93-year-old Evelyn Yenney, who started her teaching career in 1929 at the Battle Ridge School about four miles northwest of the town of Clearwater in Idaho County.

Like the eight children who attended her school, Yenney (then Evelyn Cox) rode a horse to and from classes. They all hauled water, used the privy out back and suffered through winter days that were cold enough to freeze their lunches and frostbite their toes.

Everyone went outside for recess, but not before the children mastered their daily lessons in reading, writing and arithmetic.

“My starting salary was $75 a month,” says Yenney. She retired in 1971 after moving to the Fort Misery School northeast of Cottonwood for about five years and then taught for 31 more years at Kooskia. She now lives in Orofino.

Yenney’s memories and the recollections of other members of the Upper Clearwater River Retired Teachers Association are contained in a 237-page book, “Pioneer Schools of Idaho County.”

The book features scores of photographs and essays written by teachers, students and parents about the 106 rural schools that once dotted Idaho County.

“I think I had not been retired too long and I thought it would be interesting to write a little booklet about the rural schools,” says Jean Snyder, 79, a former Kamiah schoolteacher who still lives in town.

As it turned out, more than 10 years of work went into the book. And the authors now are too many to list, other than to say the entire project was written, edited and published by members of the retired teachers association.

“Many people interviewed different teachers and students,” says Felicia Squires, 65, of Kamiah, a retired Kooskia and Kamiah teacher who came a bit late to the book project. She is credited by the others with doing most of the final typing and editing.

Mary Stinchcomb, 67, of Kamiah, who taught in Stites, Kooskia and Kamiah before retiring, did much of the interviewing. “And I wish I could have done a lot more,” she says.

More than 30 former teachers, including two men, are credited for contributing to the effort. In addition to gathering stories and photographs, the teachers pored over School District No. 241 records and archives in Grangeville. They used old maps to locate the schools and organized them according to 10 geographical areas.

In the process, they learned a few lessons, or perhaps relearned them.

“You know what impressed me so much,” says Snyder, “those parents back then wanted so badly for their children to be educated.”

They wanted it to the point where some of the schoolhouses were little more than outbuildings, erected by neighboring families who brought teachers in to make sure their children learned.

And the children not only wanted to learn, but had to endure hardships to get an education.

One of the stories is about teacher Katherine Mahurin, who taught at the Banner School near White Bird.

When she was a girl in Iowa, her teacher was walking her and a little boy home during a blizzard that became so intense the teacher decided to go for help. She covered the children with snow and told them to stay put.

The little boy didn’t and he died. Mahurin lost some fingers and both legs below the knees from frostbite.

“Despite this,” the book reads, “she went on to be an avid horsewoman and fine teacher, continuing her teaching career well into her 70s.”