Last Friday our granddaughter Claire and her third-grade class went on a field trip to visit a one-room schoolhouse. It was probably similar to schools my grandparents attended at the turn of the 20th century.
"Learn to Think" is subtitled on my maternal grandfather's 1905 diploma, now framed and hanging in our living room, "Be it known, that Dan Knaus of School District No. 7 in the County of Boulder has completed the course of study prescribed for the Public Schools of Colorado" – he was just 15.
Another diploma, hanging nearby, proclaims that in May 1908 Daniel Knaus "has completed the prescribed course of study and practice in the Bookkeeping Department" at Boulder Business College, and "We therefore by these presents award him this TESTIMONIAL of HONORABLE GRADUATION and cheerfully recommend him to the favor of the business community." He was just 18, his destiny was to be a successful farmer like his immigrant father - with more education than most of the farmers had in that area at the time.
My maternal grandmother grew up in rural southwestern Iowa, now a ghost town, a daughter of immigrant Swedes. Life was hard, 3 of 9 children died young, but education must have been stressed in the family; she went on to graduate from Western Normal College, in Shenandoah, Iowa, before moving out to Colorado to live with an aunt, and meeting and marrying my grandfather. According to my mother, it was Grandma, not Granddad, who insisted that Mom and other siblings go on to college: "meanwhile, she and Dad were doing without little frivolities such as indoor plumbing!" Grandma's favorite saying about child-rearing was "The only thing you can give to your children is an education!"
My father's parents grew up in a medium-sized town in Wisconsin, both had some college, and my grandmother made sure my father was enrolled in college after WWII, funded by the GI Bill. And so I went to college of course; that was understood in my family. My daughter, Claire's mother, became a teacher. Claire represents a fifth generation; my grandmother had a point.
Dan Knaus with his grade school graduating class –
he is the one standing on the right.
No comments:
Post a Comment