The next memorable one was my second start on second grade. I had gone a couple of weeks to Jerome--Clark Street School--when Dad got the job to teach out at Camp Wood, a tiny community north and west of Prescott, AZ. Naturally since our small family was going to live out there at least M-F, I changed schools. It was a huge change! There were only eight kids in the entire school which went from grade 1 to grade 8 and I was the only girl!
That experience lasted for two years and almost all the generally vague memories I have of it were pleasant ones. Save details for another post. I had not fitted in too well in Jerome and was teased and bullied a bit because I often went to school dressed in trousers and did not know how to play with other kids very well. In those days, girls did NOT wear jeans or pants regardless of the weather so I stood out like a sore thumb!
At Camp Wood that was not a problem. Everyone dressed much the same and as one of the younger kids I became a bit of a pet of the older boys. I was not the teacher's pet, though, as I am convinced my teacher was twice as rough on me as anyone else!
Then another change happened. Yavapai County closed that little remote school and Dad started to teach at Willard School in Bridgeport, AZ, just south of Cottonwood. This was a "big" school--two rooms and a total of forty students or so. I started 4th grade in the lower half room under Mrs Velma Fuller. There I was not the only girl at all though I was the only one in 4th grade. It was fun to have some girl friends and jeans were quite okay. Most of the girls wore dresses most of the time, especially the younger ones, but some pupils brought their horses to school now and then and the three girls in the 8th grade wore "Levis" a lot.
For 5th grade I moved up to the upper half and the next year due to declining enrollment, they made the school a single room. I stayed there until the end of 7th grade. Again as memories become clearer, I know it was almost all a happy time. Sadly, all good things must end. That school also was closed and consolidated into the Cottonwood schools. Dad quit teaching and I started 8th grade in the Clarkdale system.
Talk about culture shock! I went from a one room school with about twenty five students to a "Junior High" environment where the 7th and 8th grades went to the same school as the high schoolers and also moved around to different rooms for various subjects. My class was about 20 and there were only eight girls, but I still felt very out of place and did not become an instant BWOC by any means! Still I was now more adaptable and found ways to get along and deal with whatever happened. I continued in that system through the first start of my 11th grade year; that was the year I dropped out for one year due to a riding accident and some other issues.
That's a good point to stop this narrative and stick in a few photos.
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| Our house in Jerome |
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| A fave dress I likely wore the first day |
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| The Camp Wood student body |
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| Most of the Willard 5th-8th graders C: 1952-3 |
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| The old Clarkdale High School |
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