East Lakeview Grade School Schoolhouse

East Lakeview Grade School schoolhouse on Summit Ridge Colorado Photo taken Sept. 2008 by Ken Fenter

I visited the old school house when I went back to the 50th reunion of the class of 1958 at Montezuma County High School.

It was within these walls that I received the first eight years of my formal education. I look back on it now and wonder how the teacher did it. The teacher controlled around 20 to 25 students each year scattered among eight grades in this little building. Probably if you are about my age (closer to 70 than 69) or older and grew up in rural America, you probably attended a little school like this.

We didn't have prepared class materials. The blackboard, which was actually black, had lists of spelling words, math problems etc. that we copied in our tablets and memorized. The teacher had a copy machine of sorts called, I believe, a Hectograph. It had a jellylike bed. The teacher wrote or drew with special ink what he/she wanted to copy on paper which when placed on the Hectograph bed transferred the ink to leave an image that was good for about 25 copies. The Hectograph bed had to be cleaned immediately and couldn't be used again for 24 hours as I recall.

We each became teachers of sorts. Older kids tutored younger kids with flash cards, listened to spelling, helped with reading lessons.

Often the kids entered first grade hardly speaking English.

I think the most I got out of it was becoming a self learner. If I was quiet enough and studied on my own well enough, the teacher for the most part forgot I was there. As I was the only one in my grade most years, that suited me fine. I could read well and the teacher usually kept me supplied with books.

When I got to high school, I was appalled to learn there was something in math called algebra.

The desks were a hinged writing surface with a bin beneath to store books, pencils, tablets. They had ink wells, although we didn't use pen and ink. The front of the desk had the seat for the next student. Any movement that person made disturbed the person behind. Also their head was close enough that you could play with her hair.

It was closed as a school the following year after I graduated from there in 1954. My younger brother and sister went a half year there until the year closed in 1955 and all were sent down to the sister school at West Lakeview. My brother opted for a program offered in Cortez and went went to middle school in town so that he could be in band.

I took my daughter by the the old school house when she was in high school. I wanted her to see where I had attended grade school. At that time a sign hung on the front of the building proclaiming it as a church.

The door was unlocked in 2008 when I went by. It was filled with boxes so I just closed the door and left.

This is one of the settings in my novel, The Ruin.

Respectfully submitted.

Ken Fenter