On December 23, 1921, the American Falls Press printed a picture of a whole school: one teacher and eight children in School District No. 6, between Pauline and Crystal in Arbon Valley. The headline read "District No. Six Has Eight Pupils Belonging to Only Three Families." Arbon had been in Oneida County until 1913; by 1920 its schools answered to Power County.
A new district
In April 1920 the county commissioners approved "the formation of a new school district No. six, from 13 and 14 in Pauline and Crystal." District 13 was the Pauline school; District 14 was Crystal's, with its Central School of 1912. That spring the new district, listed under the name "Davis," elected Sheldon Armstrong, Robert Wheatley and Owen Marley as trustees. Wheatley was probably the Robert Wheatley who bought grain at the Pauline platform in 1917. The first teacher on record was Melvin Thomas.
The Press placed the school "at Crystal," but its families came from both sides. The site's Daniels family history notes that a 1938 U.S. Geological Survey map shows the Armstrong school in Section 32, Township 9 South, Range 34 East, north-east of Pauline toward Crystal.
Eight pupils
The county superintendent, Miss Goldie Drake, listed Ethel Hopkins as a teacher at Crystal for 1921–22, in District 6's place in the list. In December the Press ran her school's picture with this account:
There is little difficulty in complying with the cubic air and floor space requirements of the school in district number six at Crystal. The teacher Miss Ethel Hopkins and her eight pupils are the entire student body and educational staff: But they are a mighty happy little family from all reports and appearances.
The writer wished the school had a standard framed picture, "a flag, rope and pole to keep Old Glory flying every clear day of school," and a piece or two of playground apparatus. With only eight pupils, though, the board could not improve as fast as larger districts, and it was fixing up the building as fast as its money allowed. "Everything seems to be unusually harmonious in District Number Six," the article said.
The pupils, by grade, were Earl Lewis in the first; Clarice, Nelda and Marvin Armstrong in the second; Stanley Erickson in the third; Linne Erickson and Asa Armstrong in the fourth; and Price Armstrong in the fifth. The directors were Felix Erickson, chairman, Robert Wheatley, clerk, and Hyrum Lewis.
Earl was probably Hyrum Lewis's son; the 1920 census lists a son Earl, then four, in his household at Pauline. Asa and Marvin were very likely sons of Walter S. Armstrong, a Virginia-born farmer at Crystal whose 1920 household included an Asa, 8, a Marvin, 5, and a daughter of 7 read as Melda, perhaps Nelda. The papers do not say whose children Clarice and Price were.
In the children's own words
In the fall of 1923 Mrs. Cora Darling, by then county superintendent, spent two weeks visiting the valley's schools, among them "the Armstrong school in district six taught by Miss Rosa Sack," the name it went by from then on. She sometimes rode between schools on a grain rack, and once in a while "she walked two or three miles rather than have anyone stop harvest to take her around."
That school year the Press printed honor rolls and rural school news, much of it written by the pupils. The Armstrong school gave a Halloween program and dance that raised money for a clock, and Asa Armstrong won a race to carry the most pumpkin seeds on a knife blade the length of the room.
Two years after the Press had wished it a flag, the school had one. "The school has sold pencils for a flag," the children reported in December. "The flag has arrived and all salute it every morning." Miss Sack kept a "grave yard" on the blackboard for bad English such as "ain't and hain't." The same column told of one noon hour:
The pupils of Dist. 6 were out sleigh riding last Friday during the noon hour and run off the road down in a deep ditch and got stuck and all had to get out till the team could pull the sleigh back on the road.
The Armstrong, Crystal and Lapland schools planned a joint program for December 21. On December 20, though, the Press reported the Armstrong school closed that week because children had scarlet fever, and the Crystal Central school's program put off until after New Year's "because of so much sickness in Crystal."
A swing and a teeter-totter
In February 1924 the pupils gave their parents a Washington's birthday program, with a salute to the flag. They were also to meet with the trustees "to decide on a play ground apparatus which is going to be built," and they knew what they wanted: a swing and a teeter-totter. By March they had the poles and were looking for someone to help put them up. By April they were watching the paper:
We looked in the Press to see if our names were in there. Some could find the first name and others part of their last name. We hope next week we can find one or two of our names. We are anxious for next week's Press to come.
That June Stanley Erickson won a county gold certificate for a full year of perfect attendance. Mrs. Darling credited much of the year's rural attendance, "about twice as good as usual," to the honor roll printed monthly in the Press.
In September 1925 the county named Amelia Neff teacher at the Armstrong school. A month later Mrs. Darling described a small school whose district number is lost in the scan of the page, but whose clerk was Hyrum Lewis and whose third trustee was O. Armstrong; it was almost certainly District 6. Its playground now had a simple swing and a teeter-totter made of poles from the hills, and the clerk reminded her that he and another man had walked through the snow to get them. There were seven boys and girls and "a gentleman teacher" ready to play with them at noon and recess, and all the school needed, she wrote, was a well and more pupils. The papers read for this post do not explain why a man was teaching where the September list named Amelia Neff, or say when District 6 closed.
On this site: the Daniels family history maps the homesteads around the school; see also Crystal, Pauline and West Fork and Schools of Arbon Valley.
Sources
- American Falls Press, April 16, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, May 28, 1920, page 1
- American Falls Press, January 21, 1921, page 3
- American Falls Press, September 16, 1921, page 5
- American Falls Press, December 23, 1921, page 4
- American Falls Press, November 1, 1923, page 1
- American Falls Press, November 22, 1923, page 2
- American Falls Press, December 13, 1923, page 7
- American Falls Press, December 20, 1923, page 2
- American Falls Press, March 6, 1924, page 1
- American Falls Press, March 13, 1924, page 2
- American Falls Press, April 3, 1924, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 12, 1924, page 2
- American Falls Press, September 17, 1925, page 4
- American Falls Press, October 29, 1925, page 1
- 1920 U.S. census, Power County, Idaho, Pauline precinct (household of Hyrum Lewis)
- 1920 U.S. census, Power County, Idaho, Crystal precinct (household of Walter S. Armstrong)