Page 206 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

Restrooms for the girls were built onto the north end of the school
building and for the boys onto the south end of the school building.

At last, indoor toilets had arrived at Mason School.

A few years after I graduated in 1942, a lunchroom was added to the

school buildings.

The clay-covered highway went north and south on the east side of the

school grounds when the school was new. A few years later the highway
was moved to the present location of road 41 and paved.

A large stairway or stile with bannisters on each side went over the
schoolyard fence. The schoolyard had a gate, but the school children
were not allowed to use the gate because the teachers did not want to

risk the gate being left open.

Cattle and hogs were allowed to run free in the open country at that time.

The stairway solved the problem of keeping the animals out of the
schoolyard.

For years the school’s only water supply was a hand operated pump
owned by Walter Turner outside of the schoolyard. By the time I started

to school there in 1930 the pump had an attachment fixed onto it to
allow several people to drink water at the same time.

When I was in high school an electric pump was installed on the school
grounds and the water was piped to several water fountains.

Large outhouses were the only sanitation facilities in the early days of
the school. Writing on the walls of the toilets was a problem then as it is

today.

The women teachers were concerned about this problem. They would

talk to the girls and explain how cheap this was to ruin school property.
After the talking was over the girls would have to go out with soap and

water to wash the writing off the walls.

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