Curtain Separated Classes at Decker One-Room School

By:   Ethel Chapman Duncan

Submitted by: Glenda Van Zandt Stroud  (Glenda states:  This was downloaded from the Internet.  Site no longer active.  Ethel Chapman Duncan, author, deceased)

I started my school days in 1914 in a small two room wooden school at Decker, in southern Nolan County.

This was a two room, two teacher school.  The first year I attended school in the building, it was one long room.  A large curtain was used to make rooms for grades one to six and grades seven to ten.  In 1915 a room was built on to the existing room to be used for the upper grades.

At this time lessons were taught from the same kind of books and written examinations were used the same as in town schools.  We bought all of our own school books.

Pupils attending this school lived from a short distance away up to five or six miles away, and they walked or rode on horseback, came in a buggy and some rode on a one seat, two wheeled cart.

The teachers worked out their own schedules to teach each class and grades.  When time came for a particular class, those in that class would go to the front of each room, sit on a bench.  The teacher taught each class and assigned a study for the next day.

We had fifteen minute recess at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and an hour at noon to eat lunch and play.

Games played included drop the handkerchief, farmer in the dell, pop the whip and the favorite, wolf over the river.

Sometimes the girls brought their dolls and played with them.  The boys would spin tops and play marbles.  We always had a good time at this school

When basketball playing started, we had a boys and girls team.  We played other small schools.  In the spring, baseball was popular.  We paid for balls and other equipment.  One method of raising the money was to have box suppers.

Decker had a nine month school term, but in the fall school would be dismissed two weeks so the kids could pick cotton.  Lunches were brought to school in syrup buckets, wrapped in paper and a few had lunch baskets.

The building was heated with two large coal stoves.  The teachers started the fires each morning.  The older boys helped keep the fires going.

The morning programs were started by singing school songs and talks.  Friday afternoon we had arithmetic and spelling matches.

Programs including plays, drills and speeches were given on Friday nights for community entertainment.  Many pupils have gone out from this little school to become leaders in the professional world.  They served their country during WW I and II.  Raymond George gave his life in the Pacific area in WWII and is buried in the Decker Cemetery.

Maggie Wilson Bullock, a former teacher and probably the only surviving one, lives in Roscoe at the present time.

I have never heard of a pupil from the Decker School being charged with a crime.  Each year we return for a summer reunion at the roadside park north of Blackwell, the first Sunday in June.