7. The Sixth Grade ... THE FARM EAST OF PINE VILLAGE

Charles’ teacher in the sixth grade was Mrs. Downy, but Mrs. Russell had taken her place by the time Robert was ready to begin his last year in the grade school of Pine Village. (Robert perceived the seventh and eighth grades as radically different because the students in those grades changed rooms to be taught different subjects.) Mrs. Elma Russell had been a classmate of Charles and Robert’s father.

Although her stature was slight, Mrs. Russell exerted an influence that was gigantic. She was one of the teachers that shaped the yielding clay of Robert’s perceptions. Mrs. Russell’s businesslike approach brooked no nonsense. Her smile meant she was pleased with the progress of the class. She smiled throughout the weeks that Robert’s class built a medieval castle.

A long table such as those in the cafeteria was placed by the east wall of the classroom, and the students were given the assignment to research and construct a castle resembling those of Europe in the Middle Ages. Mrs. Russell divided the class into teams, with each team responsible for completing one facet of the project. The team of which Robert was a member was to complete a backdrop. Wallpaper with the white side out was taped to the wall behind the table, and Robert’s team created a landscape in the appropriate scale for the cardboard castle buildings, which stood some two feet tall. The backdrop measured five feet tall by eight feet wide.

While his classmates laid out baileys and built walls and battlements, crenellated towers, and a rectangular keep, Robert sketched serfs working in fields and knights on horseback. Measurements were all there was of mathematics, but other subjects were fully incorporated in the project. Students gave oral reports on the history of medieval Europe, and they wrote papers about life in the Middle Ages. As the castle took shape day by day, the class’ sense of accomplishment grew.

During Robert’s time in Mrs. Russell’s class, his great uncle Marshall C. Rhode passed away. Robert’s father and his father’s first cousin Jay helped Marshall’s brother Charlie (Jay’s father) to prepare for an auction. On a cold day that threatened rain, the auctioneer’s repetitive tenor voice echoed down the valley from Marshall’s large house on the hill. While it wasn’t a castle, Marshall’s house was palatial for a farming community. It was a plain, two-story L-shaped home with fourteen rooms.

Joe was standing beside Ida when she said in an undertone, “I’m going to bid on the clock.”

Joe’s mouth fell open, and he stared at Ida. “What do we want with an old clock like that?” he asked.

“I like it,” Ida replied.

Joe closed his mouth. Ida stood determined in her boots, long blue winter coat with the big buttons, scarf tied over her hair, and pointy glasses: the picture of a farm wife in the 1960s.

The bidding turned to the so-called “mantel clock.” It was an old one: a Seth Thomas built in the early 1840s. The rectangular wooden box stood some two feet tall. The top glass over the face was intact, as was the bottom reverse-painted glass depicting a bouquet of flowers. The mechanism had to be wound each day and was powered by heavy weights that the act of winding caused to be lifted along the sides of the box on the inside. Gravity pulling on the weights did the rest, and a pendulum kept everything moving.

“Let’s start the bidding at fifty dollars,” cried the auctioneer. “Who will give me fifty dollars for the mantel clock?”

Catching an almost invisible gesture in the crowd, one of the auctioneer’s assistants yelped.

“Fifty, fifty, fifty, I have fifty, fifty, fifty,” the auctioneer began trilling. “Fifty-five, who will give me fifty-five, fifty-five, fifty-five?”

Ida nodded while Joe stared resolutely forward. A cold wind blew.

“Now sixty, now sixty,” the auctioneer warbled, warming to the contest. He pushed his cowboy hat back farther and leaned forward.

The auctioneer’s helper yelped again.

Eyes in the crowd went roaming in all directions to identify who was bidding.

Ida nodded, bringing the bid to sixty-five.

Joe whispered, “That’s a high price for an old clock.”

“It’s not polite to whisper,” Ida calmly explained.

“Now seventy, seventy, seventy,” sang the auctioneer, whose helper yelped almost immediately.

Ida recognized the dealer in antiques that she was bidding against. Joe was hoping she wouldn’t nod, but she did.

“Now eighty, now eighty, now eighty,” chirped the auctioneer. Within seconds, the assistant yelped again.

“I believe it’s time to stop,” Joe mumbled.

“I believe it’s time to bid again,” Ida said with the undaunted gallantry of a knight in the lists during a joust.

Exasperated, Joe muttered, “Oh, what do we want such an old clock for?”

“Try not to end on a preposition,” Ida said, nodding.

“Eighty-five, eighty-five, eighty-five, I have eighty-five, who will give me ninety, ninety, ninety?” the auctioneer yodeled. All eyes were on the antiques dealer, who finally shook his head.

“I have eighty-five, ninety? ninety? ninety? going once, going twice, SOLD to the little lady in the blue coat!”

“Let’s put the clock in the car, and I’ll show you why I like it,” Ida said to Joe, who tagged along after her as if he were a whipped puppy.

Once the clock was resting in the back seat, Ida carefully opened the glass door, reached into the bottom of the clock, and lifted a sheaf of papers.

“Here’s why I like the clock,” Ida said, smiling at Joe.

From 1806 until 1827, Joe’s Quaker ancestors had farmed along Caesar’s Creek, where their Quaker meetinghouse stood, and had attended “monthly meeting” in Waynesville, Ohio. In 1826 and 1827, they migrated to Indiana. The clock had been purchased only a decade and a half after the move. A family story told that Jonathan Rhode, who tried farming in Arkansas before returning to Indiana, had brought a mantel clock back to Indiana with him. The bundle of papers in the bottom of the Seth Thomas that Ida had bought for the exorbitant sum of eighty-five dollars included the handwritten tax receipts from Caesar’s Creek.

“This is your family’s history right here,” Ida beamed. “Nobody knew that these papers were in the bottom of the clock.”

“Well,” Joe grinned sheepishly, “I guess you knew what you were doing.”

“Oh, Joe, I always know what I’m doing,” Ida said in mock indignation.

At the end of the auction, a sleety drizzle began. People took the last of their prizes to their cars and trucks, and, soon, the grounds were largely deserted. The windows of the big house seemed to stare mournfully upon the emptiness.

Robert was staring at a broken dressing table that nobody wanted. It had been painted white, but the paint was chipping off. The heavy mirror had splintered the back of one of the supports and was detached, lying on top of the table with its single drawer. The legs were loose and wobbly. Tiny beads of rain covered the mirror and were reflected in it.

Joe read Robert’s mind. “Do you want that old table?” he asked Robert.

“I could refinish it, fix it up, and use it as my desk,” Robert said with a big smile.

Joe looked at Ida.

She said, “If that’s what he wants to do, let him take it.”

Joe lifted the dressing table and made room for it in the back of the GMC pickup.

Later, with advice from Aunt Margaret, who routinely restored furniture, Robert removed all traces of the white paint, sanded all the surfaces until they were smooth as glass, stained the piece a dark walnut, tightened the legs, and glued the splintered area. The day when he hung the mirror again was a victory. Many years later, it would bring a high price at another auction. Meanwhile, Robert sat at the desk every day and dreamed of becoming a writer.

That spring, a senior accomplished a dream of his. The Lafayette Journal and Courier for March the 26th in 1966 reported, “Central Catholic High School and Pine Village boys won the two top awards in the 14th Lafayette Regional Science Fair at Purdue University Saturday. Thomas Eberts, 16, a Central Catholic High School junior, won a trip to the International Science Fair at Dallas in May with his exhibit on ‘The Role of Testosterone in Red Cell Formation.’ Also winning an expense-paid trip to the International was Ted M. Willer, 17, a Pine Village junior, with his work on ‘Plasma Jet Studies of Re-entry Materials.’ In addition, Willer was named to receive a Navy Science Cruiser award. Sometime next summer, Willer will be a guest of the Navy on a tour of naval facilities, probably at Norfolk, Va.” The newspaper erred; Ted was a senior. Robert had stood in awe before Ted’s display at the local science fair. Ted went on to place third internationally.

From medieval castles to space exploration, the sixth-grade year impressed itself deeply in Robert’s memory.  

15. The School ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

At long last the day arrived! Robert was to enter the first grade at Pine Village School. He had spent the past two years wanting to go to school, and now he was finally going.

Ida had rehearsed with him everything that he was to do. Charles accompanied Robert to the pair of doors where he was to wait with the other children until the doors were opened from the inside. With his heart beating fast, Robert stood expectantly. He said hello to a boy who was also coming to school for the first time. His name was Mitch. He had a happy personality. Then Robert saw Susan, whom he already knew from church. She, too, would be in his class.

Suddenly, the doors were flung open, and the children crowded into the hallway. A teacher guided Mitch, Susan, and Robert to Mrs. Yvonne Hail’s room. It was at the far west end of the hallway. Mrs. Hail was friendly, but her demeanor made it clear that she expected compliance. Her eyes sparkled behind her pointy-framed glasses. Her red lipstick matched her red blouse worn beneath a stylish gray-checked short jacket and narrow skirt. When the room became too warm, she hung the jacket over her chair at the desk that stood in the front.

Mrs. Hail directed each student to an assigned seat. She wanted the class in alphabetical order by last name because she had so many students. Robert’s class was one of the largest in the school’s history! It was a huge elementary class by any standard and would have been split in a larger school. In the opening weeks, the students became acquainted with one another and bonded closely, forming many lifelong friendships. Robert liked everyone, and he liked learning. Mrs. Hail kept everything lively but orderly. Privately, she may have confessed that she had no idea how she would manage such a big class, but, in her room, day by day, she led her charges through the lessons with businesslike precision. In Mrs. Hail’s world, everything was shipshape!

Attending school measured up to Robert’s intense hopes.

Every noon, he walked briskly home to have dinner. Several of the children who did not ride a bus but who walked to school also walked home for dinner. Most farmers still preferred to call the noon meal “dinner,” rather than “lunch.” The former word implied a large meal, and farmers needed the energy from such large meals to continue their hard physical work throughout the afternoon. So Robert went home for dinner. Before long, though, he was calling the meal “lunch” because his classmates whose parents bought them tickets to eat in the cafeteria were on what was called the “school lunch” program. In the change from the word “dinner” to the word “lunch” could be detected a shift in farm life.

Robert had to hurry back so as not to be late for the resumption of lessons in the afternoon. Typically, he had finished eating in time to join his classmates for the recess after lunch.

Mrs. Hail had been Yvonne Lafferty when she attended the same school. She had married John Hail, who ran the elevator. When Robert was in elementary school, married women customarily were called by their husbands’ names. Accordingly, Mrs. Yvonne Hail should have been called “Mrs. John Hail,” but her first name was unusual in the town—so much so that people could not resist using her name. When she was called something besides “Mrs. Hail,” she was “Mrs. Yvonne Hail”!

Ida had given Robert strict orders that he was not to brag that he could read. She had told him that he was to take the reading lessons seriously, even if they repeated what he already knew. Had she only known it, Robert’s mother had no reason for concern. Robert had no desire to boast, and he enjoyed starting at the beginning and learning exactly how to read. For him, learning was the greatest joy.

One day at recess, Robert’s friend Dennis said there had been a fight on the playground between two older boys in his older brother’s class. One of the boys had sustained a bloody nose, and he had wiped his hand on a telephone post beside the road. Dennis, Robert, and a few of their friends took time out from the games to see the post. Sure enough, a red handprint was visible on the dark brown wood of the post. The sight turned Robert’s stomach. He wondered how anyone could willingly inflict such pain on a fellow human being. To him, a bloody handprint was a symbol of a terrible injury.

Robert’s ancestors were Quakers. They left South Carolina to come to Ohio in 1806, when Ohio had been a state for only three years. They migrated to Indiana in 1826 and 1827. Later, many would migrate onward to Iowa, but Robert’s ancestors stayed in Indiana. His great grandfather was raised in the Methodist Church, which had succeeded in attracting several of the Quakers. Even though there had been three generations of Methodists before Robert, several Quaker beliefs lay just beneath the surface of his upbringing. One was a determined belief in the efficacy of peace. The red handprint stood for whatever was the opposite of that peacefulness, and it was abhorrent to Robert.

Robert looked forward to the recess in the afternoon. Quite often, Mitch’s mother, who ran the cafeteria, brought trays of lettuce sandwiches to the playground for the children. The crisp lettuce, the fresh butter, and the soft white bread were delightful.

The girls’ restroom was adjacent to the classroom, but the boys’ restroom was all the way to the east end of the school. Those were the high school rooms. Again and again, Mrs. Hail told the boys to walk quietly in a line to the restroom, but, every now and then, a few of the boys would be boisterous—especially when cranking brown paper towels from the dispensers. The boys’ noise brought Mr. Taylor from his classroom. He always appeared in the doorway of the restroom as a towering giant with a yardstick in his hand. He slapped the wall of the restroom with the stick. The sound got the attention of all the boys. Mr. Taylor then patiently explained that they needed to remain quiet so that the high school students could learn their lessons. Robert was frightened of Mr. Taylor, but, years later, when Robert was in high school, he came to know and like him.

Mr. Horn was the principal. He demanded discipline, and his presence called for respect. One of his mannerisms was to slip his glasses from his nose, hold them in one hand, and wear a dignified expression on his face while gesturing with the hand that held the glasses. If he should step into the hallway from his office, an instantaneous hush would fall on any child otherwise inclined to cause a ruckus. He was known to paddle the worst offenders. Years later, Robert began to realize that Mr. Horn was a gracious gentleman who simply brooked no nonsense from students in his school.

Susan’s mother, Mrs. Brutus, was the secretary, and she, too, commanded respect. Robert knew her from church, where Mrs. Brutus played the organ, and he recognized that she had a kind heart.

In only a short while, Robert had settled into a pattern of schooling that would last for twelve years. He never regretted a moment of that time.