Teachers recall 'good

old days'

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

WEST NEWTON TOWNSHIP -- A pair of retired teachers compared what it was like to teach in one-room schools decades ago to modern day teaching Sunday at the Harkin Store.

Alpha Fussner and Ruth Sands, both of New Ulm, spoke candidly about their careers with history buffs at a small table covered with old school books.

Fussner taught for 12 years at rural schools in Brown and Watonwan Counties. Sands spread her wings a little further, teaching in one-room schools in Brown, Nicollet, Martin and Jackson Counties before retiring at Jefferson School in New Ulm after teaching for 27 years.

Sands said students seemed like family in her early teaching days, there were many more rules for students and teachers and the job was more labor intensive.

"I remember the time we got smoke in the room at the Hilltop school west of Lafayette," Sands said. "I had to call the school board and they fixed the problem. But I still had to clean up all the soot."

Sands recalled the rules she had to follow as a teacher a half century ago. She had to go to church and couldn't visit bars.

"I thought they didn't want me to go to bars in case I came across the parent of one of my students," Sands said. "Well, I did once. I ordered a Coke. The mother said I needed something stronger because I spent most of the day with her child."

Sands said she could never have had a teaching career and keep house without plenty of help from her husband Ernest. Some of the old rules carried weight in more modern times.

"I used to cry because I had to go to teach school when my kids were small," Sands said.

Sand admitted the computer age put her behind the students.

"They knew more about computers than I did," Sands said. "They didn't like it much either when I made them do their school work first before allowing them to play games on computers."

Rules for teachers in the 1870s:

* Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and scuttle of coal for the day's lesson.

* Male teachers may take one night each week for courting purposes, or two nights a week with their regular girlfriend.

* Female teachers who marry or engage in unseemly (improper) conduct will be discharged.

* After school, teachers must spend the time until supper reading the Bible or other good books.

* Teachers should lay aside from each month's pay a goodly sum for their declining years so they will not become a burden on society.

* Teachers who smoke, use liquor in any form, frequent pool halls or are shaved in a barber shop shall give good reason to suspect their worth, integrity, and honesty.

* Teachers that perform their duties regularly and faithfully, without fault for five years will be given a pay increase of 25 cents a week.

Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at fbusch@nujournal.com