Continuing Education

Oak Grove School was a one-room school four miles east of Grandin, Missouri in Carter County. Polly started to school at Oak Grove in August, 1925. In 1929 her younger sister Ruth started first grade. Ruth was too little to walk that far so Polly carried her on her back to and from school. Polly talks about going to school.

I had to walk through the woods and I was so afraid of meeting a mad dog!

Several of the big kids rode horses to school and they were tied to trees at the edge of the school yard. Sometimes a horse carried several kids to school at the same time.The 8th grade boys would carry a younger child on his back while they all did hop-along races. How we all laughed!




This book was in Oak Grove School and loved by all of us.*

We moved to Grandin for my 7th grade. I hated school there because I was so homesick for the little one-room school. My teacher let me go visit my old school every Friday because I made perfect grades the other four days.The next year I was 8th grade valedictorian, as big an honor as college valedictorian is now because so few even finished grade school.

I stopped going to school during the 11th grade to stay home and help run the sawmill. However, I never stopped continuing my education. I studied for the GED in my mid forties and made the highest score in my class.



7th and 8th grades at Grandin, 1929 (Polly front row far right.)

It's never too late to finish high school! 

* Students at Oak Grove School: (as recalled by Polly in 1996)

• Herbert Joplin
• Elbert, Edgar and Milton Smelser
• Joe, Valeria and Stanley Szymarek
• Pauline Smelser
• Rosie and Eleanor Gargack
• Dexter and George Griffin
• Elmer, Jo, Burl and Jake Marley
• Elizabeth, Bob and Georgia Wynn
• Charlie and James Crozier
• Jim, Georgia and Eva Baggett
• Polly and Ruth Baggett
• Mildred and Lee Henson
• George Crowell
• Alma and Delma Dildine
• Robert and Clyde Hixon
• Johnny and Harding Sears
• Altha Mae Hixon