Curryville Competitions

In the Curryville two-room school, Bobbie Ritchey and I made up the first and second grades with a couple more students joining us in grades three through seven. Our eighth year, we attended junior high in Martinsburg.

Bob and I were a little competitive, especially grades five through seven. We not only knew the states and their capitals, we kept track of which ones the other missed. We probably both worked a little harder just to be sure we were not out-graded by the other. My favorite memory of Bobbie was how he dramatically explained a historic massacre.

He said, “They had to be careful or they would wake up dead.”

I could not compete with him in history. My favorite subjects were math and English. I thought fractions were amazing and I loved how a sentence was diagrammed. There was something about the teacher making it come alive by drawing lines on the board as she taught.

Each day our teacher played the piano and we would sing a patriotic song, a secular song and a hymn. We also had a music class once a week led by Mr. Fisher. For me, music always made everything better.

Our teacher, Mrs. Edith Strasser, must have been an excellent teacher because our high school classmates elected Robert as the president of our senior class and me as the vice president of our junior class. One would not expect that from students from a two-room school. Perhaps it was the strength our classmates saw in us because of our Curryville grooming. It could also be because we knew how to enjoy life and were relaxed with all its responsibilities.

I wasn’t able to attend practices held after hours at the high school. I didn’t have transportation. However, even with that handicap, I was able to hold my own in track meets, inter-mural basketball and as a cheerleader for our basketball team.

After school I delivered the Altoona Mirror to most everyone in Curryville. As I biked along my route, I would often get a team together to play ball. I would tell the kids what time to be at what ball field and that I would be the pitcher. The ball field choices were either the school or Hoovers. I don’t know why they showed up, but they did and I had no doubt about it. Some probably cared who won. I just wanted to play hard. The field between Hoovers and Dewey Kauffman’s was always mowed for us. We knew we were supported and cared for. This was our Curryville.