MY FIRST DAYS AT SCHOOL

Soon after little Allen left us, I started school. In those days, children were not sent to school until they were six or seven years old, but were taught many things at home. I remember some of the things that Mother and Father tried to teach me and how very clever I felt when I could spell "cat" and "dog" and could count to ten. Then one day, when father came home to dinner, he led me up to the old clock. That old clock has stood on the shelf for many years since Mother and Father left to join little Allen. Father asked me to tell him the time. How proud I was to be able to tell him that it was half past twelve! I think he was proud, too, for he said, "Young man, it is time that you were in school!"

That night when Dad came home, he had a package under his arm. I don't know who was more excited, brother John or I. We both knew that in that package were the things I needed to start school. Father hadn't stinted. There they were -- everything! A slate in a wooden frame, a soapstone pencil that wouldn't scratch the slate and leave scars, a primer, two lead pencils, a block of paper and a rubber eraser. All these things had to be bought and paid for by the parents. The city furnished no supplies.

On Monday of the second week in September 1888, I started out for school with my sister. On the east side of Main Street, this schoolhouse stood, opposite the Bangor Gas Works. It overlooked the Maine Central Railroad yards and the Penobscot River as far down as High Head. How busy the river was with the large and small craft coming and going! The largest were the Boston and Bangor steamers, which for many years arrived in Bangor at eleven a.m. and left at two a.m., six days a week, heavily loaded with freight and passengers.

This school stood there for many years and many children I grew up with attended it. Then their children also went there. Years later, as Bangor grew, a new schoolhouse was built at the corner of Union and First Streets. The old building was then moved across the street and used for a fire station. Later still, it was moved back to make room for a new, brick, fire station. Bangor's fire department was growing fast! The old schoolhouse was finally used as a city storehouse until it was demolished.

My first day at school was to be remembered all my life. My teacher, Miss Mabel Dealing, was a very pretty, blue-eyed girl with very light hair. She was wonderful to her pupils, always kind and never cross. She smiled and praised us as if everything we did was just right. For many years, Miss Dealing lived in a big white house across from the Bangor House, on a lot adjoining the Memorial Parlors built by the Unitarian Church. Years later, she became the drawing teacher for the Bangor Public Schools and married an artist from Germany.

Bangor House Today

Miss Dealing had the first, second and third grades. After finishing the third grade, the pupils were sent upstairs to where Miss Savage taught grades four and five. Miss Savage was a very short little old lady. I have always remembered her as wonderful, kind and good.

Our first morning in school began with scripture reading and then, all together, we said the Twenty-third Psalm and the Lord's Prayer. How I wish I could hear those children again! It didn't take me long to learn that twenty-third psalm! All through my life, that has been my favorite. The Lord is my Shepherd. I often wonder if some of the men and women who were children with me feel as I do about our first teacher.

I loved school, but most of all I loved my teacher. Fall and winter came and went too soon that first year and the following vacation was the longest one I ever spent. There were plenty of things to do and plenty of time to do them, but I loved school and missed my teacher. During vacation, one favorite pastime was to listen for the Boston Steamer to come around the bend at High Head. When she blew her whistle, all the boys in the neighborhood would light out for the river to get the waves. Stripping off our clothes as we ran, we would shout, "Last one in is it!" What that "it" meant, I never knew!

[Founded in 1845, the Boston & Bangor Steamship Company operated the City  of Bangor
which was built in 1894 at the William McKie yard in Boston, and carried as many as 700
passengers per trip on various Maine routes until she was retired in 1927.]
 

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