100 Years Ago

 

My youngest daughter's teacher started assigning her and one other girl extra projects at school. Since they are both top in their class, she is doing so to challenge them and keep them interested in learning. Her first assignment was to collaborate and do a slide slow presentation on school 100 years ago. When I learned of the assignment, my mind immediately gravitated to this picture which I scanned in a handful of years ago.

My great grandmother is seated in the second row far left (from the camera vantage point and not the front of the room) and the picture is probably 105 years old at that point. So I found it and sent it to my youngest daughter to include in her slide show. It could have been the end but I found myself inspecting it further now that I had it pulled up.

The buttons on the boys clothing appear to be really large compared to modern standards.

All the girls and boys have their collars buttoned all the way up and two of the girls appear to have some sort of bow tie, including my great grandmother. Hair flowers was evidently all the rage at that time too.

I ponder if the picture was taken in April due to the saying written on the back wall underneath Lincoln's portrait.

On the blackboard behind the boys on the farm left is a stanza out of Emily Huntington Miller's "The Bluebirds Song". It reads, 

Sweet little violets, hid from the cold,

Put on your mantles of purple and gold;

Daffodils! Daffodils! say, do you hear?

Summer is coming, and springtime is here!"

This also seems to confirm that spring is in the air when this photo was taken. 

There are two oval portraits hung on the wall to the left of the clock. I ponder who they are? Google's photo search pulls up a lot of similar styled pictures but none of the same lady.

Notice the strips of carpeting laid across the wood plank flooring between the rows of desk, presumably to quite the steps of children?  

Finally, I guess it is just another sign of getting old. When I was younger, I remember many such desks being auctioned off at various estate sales. I can't recall when the last time I have seen a similar desk for sale but it has probably been decades. They are probably hard to find now due to their construction where the seat of the desk in front of you is built into the front of the desk behind you. So in order to actually be functional, one would need two desks, one for the seat and the other for the desk. 

Because I am already here looking at pictures, below is one more for the road. The couple on the left are my great grandparents, the lady being the same as the one in the picture above. The third from the left in the light suit is my great uncle, her eldest son. The fourth is her mother, my great great grandmother. The couple on the right are my maternal grandparents, the one on the far right being the last in this picture to die when she passed away a few months back. Not pictured is most likely my great great grandfather who was probably the one taking the picture.