Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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In 1938, I started school in the Marysville West School building at the corner of Seventh and Court Streets, and I spent nine years there. It was a wonderful old building, and over time I got to know just about every nook and cranny of the place. The first floor held all six elementary grades, and the second floor was for the Junior High students, grades seven, eight and nine.
All of us elementary kids seldom went to the basement. On rainy days, some of us were taken there during recess, while others went to the gym. When I was in the fourth grade, I sometimes went to the school on Saturdays to play on the playground equipment.
There was always a janitor working in the building on Saturday, and he usually left the west door unlocked. That was nice, so I could go inside to get a drink of water. If the janitor was working upstairs on either floor, it gave me a chance to do some exploring in the basement.
I found one room that was full of refrigerators and stoves, and another full of sewing machines. I asked my sister about that, and she told me it was there that they taught girls to cook and sew in something she called “Home Economics.”
One day I opened an unmarked door and I found myself in a room full of furnaces and water heaters. I didn’t stay there long, because it was a really spooky place. All in all, I saw just about everything in that basement.
But there was one room, in the southwest corner of the basement that was a mystery to me. The door was always locked, and it had a large red sign on it that said, “NO ADMITTANCE.” There were some other words in smaller letters, but they didn’t mean much to me.
Then one Saturday as I was nosing around in the basement, that door was a jar. I peeked inside and saw no one, so I went inside to look around. The room was full of different kinds of machines. I had no idea what they were, but I found out later that they were woodworking machines. There were several kinds of saws, plus drills, sanders and things like that.
On the floor, along the west wall, were all kinds of wooden things, small tables, stools, even a giant birdhouse that looked like a “bird hotel.” I was really curious, and over time, I found out that the room was where they taught something called “Manual Training.” It was a course for some high school boys, who wanted to learn how to build things with their hands. Oh boy, I made up my mind on the spot; when I get in high school, I would take Manual Training. I would build a giant birdhouse, just like the one I saw in that room.
Now fast-forward a few years to when I was scheduling the classes for my sophomore year. I had a full schedule, so I dropped my second year of Latin and substituted Manual Training. But when my parents saw my proposed schedule, they put a quick stop on that. I tried to tell them that learning to build something would be better than learning a language that no one speaks anymore, but they wouldn’t listen.
When school started, I didn’t take Manual Training. I took Latin II instead. So I never did make a giant birdhouse. However I did translate every bit of “Julius Caesar.” That’s not bad for a kid who had his heart set on building a birdhouse.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com