I have been working, today, on 23 pages of syllabi. That will cover two classes. Most of it makes sense, but I’ll revisit it on Friday and look for any errors or obvious landmines. That was the biggest part of the day, trying to make sense of schedules that will drive things through mid-December.
No big deal.
Also, I brought in some peaches. Just one basket worth today. We have about three baskets to do something with, plus an abundance of fruit still on the tree. It’s an incredibly bountiful crop.
Speaking of, I had to upgrade the bowl I’ve been using to harvest tomatoes, because the smaller bowl was obviously not up to the task today.
The only thing better than a peach still-warm from the sun might be a tomato you just twisted from the vine. Just sitting here, writing about it, I am counting the steps from my desk to the kitchen counter. Should I go back for more, at this late hour?
These are the questions of my day, and also “Is this too many reading assignments?”
This is the third installment in my tracking down the local historical markers. New county, new goals and all of that. I found a database with 115 markers in the county, so we’ll be at this for a good while.
You can find them all under the blog category, We Learn Wednesdays. What will we learn about today?
Here’s the local high school, which has a fine infographic-style marker out front. Their graduating class of 2012, who are all ancient now, sponsored the display, which was presented by the local historic commission. And there’s a lot of information because of it.
In May of 1922, President Warren Harding was passing through the area, on his way to Atlantic City. He stopped off briefly at the school and spoke briefly. The road that passes in front of the school had been named the Harding Highway, and part of the road was even paved. Big doings in 1922.
The school was still new at the time, having just opened in 1916. (The earliest local school house was nearby, and built in 1750.) A few years ago they opened a 1915 time capsule.
Inside the capsule included names of teachers and pupils in the school district; lead pencils; names of mayor and members of borough council; and a 1915 and 1905 Woodstown National Bank Almanac, to name a few.
No one told Harding about that in ’22. Seven years later it wasn’t forgotten, but it wasn’t top-of-mind.
Harding had a big May that year. There was a fire in the Treasury Building, he got the Soldier’s Bonus Bill — and vetoed it. He took that trip to Atlantic City, where he vacationed and spoke to the Women’s Club. He waded in on coal field prices, sat down with Big Steel over the matter of 12-hour workdays and haggled with the rail bosses. He also signed an important narcotics bill into law. At the end of the month he dedicated the Lincoln Memorial. May 1922.
His August 1923 wasn’t as good. He died, in office, 100 years ago this month.
I wonder how many schools there are in America that had that one visit by a president, and the story got passed down until it didn’t matter anymore. Harding probably barely shows up in the modern curriculum, right? Teapot Dome Scandal, his early death and, lately, his illegitimate daughter. Two of those might not even figure in to a high school class. It was a century ago and he was only in office for two-and-a-half years, after all. But, still.
Anyway, the school expanded in the 1930s, more floor space and a gymnasium. By the late-1950s the elementary school kids and the middle schoolers were in new, separate buildings. Another gym was built in the 1980s, the old one was turned into a library and additional classrooms. The last major renovations took place just a few years ago.
All of this modernity replaced eight one-room schoolhouses around the area. One of them still stands, as a period schoolhouse museum.
Here’s the next marker, which is also in front of the modern high school.
This bell, then, would have been in a school building that came to life in 1852, the second public school in the community. The first high school class graduated from there in 1885.
You wonder what other happy and sad news that belt might have rang about in its day. Maybe a few of the current students are interested in that bell. If their families have been here a long time, and they did the math, some student this year might realize that perhaps one of their a great-great-great-grandparents heard that bell.
You wonder what it sounded like.
