My Valley
Billy loved little children and when we were small, he
occasionally spent his hard earned cash to purchase a little gift for some one of us. I
recall his face glowing with kindness when he came into our old kitchen, drawing out from
his coat a package containing a mechanical toy- a boy on a Velocipede. Upon being wound
up, it spun around and round the room to my great delight. Other children had received
similar gifts at other times. I suppose he thought of his own barren childhood when
pleasure seldom came his way.
In time the old mother passed on and Billy married a German woman who was a great helpmate. They had two children both of whom had good minds, the boy exceptionally so- he eventually became a graduate of an engineering college. His sister became a nurse and Billy and Gretchen lived the rest of their lives on a small farm not far from the old place when he first became a land owner. (Sounds like an Alger story.)
Aunt Julia was my mother's sister and was not too professional in the technical sense, because she never went to the Academy; but through experience, she became a professional in public relations and was widely acclaimed as a fine old-time teacher. She taught in many schools in Sullivan County, where for years she "boarded around"- spending one week with each pupil. In discipline was her strength! When just starting school, in her home district, a new family moved in, bringing two handsome lads. One boy needed a licking- and got it. That very evening his parents came to call on the Squire. Said the mother, "Squire Gillespie, we have come to talk with you about Julia, who whipped our boy Eddie." Said the Squire, "Julia is 21 and can speak for herself- she's the teacher, not I. Come, Julia." And, said Julia, with eyes flashing, "When I first met your boys, I said what nice lads and what a fine addition to our school. But instead they make mischief and keep others from their lessons. If Ed does the like again, I'll thrash him twice as hard." That settled it- Aunt Julia won- both boys profited.
Another lad who felt the rod of Aunt Julia's displeasure was Charles Royce, who in time became my husband. When our home afterward became Aunt Julia's too, Charles would twit her about how she used to "lay it on" his back and she would laughingly reply, "Had I.but known then that you would become a member of my family, I would have given you more of it." Charles lived on a farm over toward White Lake, and was in the same school district as the Valley. The Red School House, up the hill and by the Methodist Church, was built there to accommodate the children of the farms as well as the Valley. After spending one year at the Tannery school with my Aunt Julia a change for the better took place in our own school about one and one-half miles west of the Valley. It was a hard walk for most of us being practically up a steep hill and no big school bus to gather us all in and deposit us without effort on our part at the school house door as at the present time. The teacher engaged was Dan Piper a young man from a nearby farm family, aspirant for a college education.
There were signs too that the Tannery school might be discontinued owing to lack of pupils so our folks decided that we could hold our own in our school and we too had decided ourselves that we should begin seriously to consider applying ourselves to some real study. The next year a similar young man applied for the job of teacher, the aforesaid Charles Royce. He too had college aspirations and the third year came Frank Kinne son of our church chorister- all three nearly of an age and same capabilities. It was during these years that our dancing feet led us to the carding mill by the Lybolt brook, but not every noon recess was engaged in whiling the hour away in following Terpschichore, for Frank Kinne had a good singing voice and after our lunches were eaten we would organize a choir in which sopranos predominated but with two Lybolt girls' alto, Frank's strong bass, one of the girls taking the tenor we made out to produce melody after our own heart.
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