EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITY  AND ROUTINES

   

One of the routines for boys was to carry in heater wood.  Men of the communi- ty would form work parties and do the needed work such as cut wood for winter heating in a wood heater.   I remember my father, while he was a trustee, built a metal screen around the wood heater to keep those who had to sit close to the heater from roasting while the students on the outer perimeter of the classroom would freeze.  The men would cut several cords of post oak wood to provide for heating.  The wood was stacked along the school yard fence and each day boys were assigned to carry in heater wood.

 

Another routine for the boys was to carry in drinking water.  There was no drinking well on the school grounds.  Water was carried by buckets from a spring on a neighboring farm.  This spring was in a ravine a short distance in back of the school grounds.  Each day the boys took turns to go carry water from the spring and pour it into a water cooler.  Each student had their own drinking cup hanging on a hook from which they drank the spring water.  The spring was only a few feet deep and was boxed in with a wood well box.  As you looked into the clear spring water you could see crawfish crawling around on the sandy bottom of the spring.

 

In 1936, Mr. Kountze, who represented the State Department of Health, came  to the school and urged the trustees to drill a well and put up a pump on the school grounds to provide a more sanitary water supply.  He met with some unusually strong opposition from the community.  The local school patrons argued that no one had ever gotten sick from drinking the spring water and  that the community had some of the most healthy children in Texas.  This spring had served previous generations and it was good enough now.  The  end result was that no well was ever drilled.

 

The girls also had assigned routines.  Their duties included sweeping the floor and cleaning up the classroom which included knocking out the chalk dust from felt erasers (quite a messy job).  Janitorial Services were not available in Skull Creek.

 

In the mid 1930’s to recover from the “Great Depression,” different federal government programs provided for public work projects.  The WPA forces  built sanitary toilets on the school grounds.  This was a big change from the  out houses used as toilets before that advent.  The sanitary toilets were built over septic tanks.  This was modernization coming to Skull Creek School.

 

In 1930, the school reached it’s peak enrollment.  In that year, the enrollment reached 45 students.  To facilitate that many students in the classroom, a cloakroom was added to the front of the main building.  The cloakroom was used to store lunches on a shelf built all around the room, and underneath the shelf was a place for each student to hang his coat and cap.  Also, the water cooler with the drinking cups was moved to the cloakroom.  This allowed for additional desks in the main classroom.  The enrollment stayed fairly steady until 1941 (the beginning of World War II).  After that, many families moved to Houston and other places to seek wartime jobs.

   

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