Growing up, our house had limited space for books. We had one small bookcase, in the farm house living room, which Mom still uses in her apartment over 75 years later. The children regularly brought home books from the country school library and collectively probably read most of the books in that library. Tommy remembers seeing our parents regularly read newspapers (St Paul Pioneer Press, Fairmont Sentinel, Jackson Pilot, Minneapolis Sunday and Drovers Journal) farm journals (St Paul Farmer & Farm Journal) and many other subscriptions (Saturday Evening Post, Readers Digest, National Geographic). Tommy remembers Mom reading to him and Kent in the north bedroom before going to bed.
Guiding Family Philosophies
Mom told us more than once that if you get a good education, it can never be taken away from you. She gave the example of how fast the Germans recovered after WW II and being able to build the best cars in the world.
Dad strongly felt we could learn as much by traveling as being in the classroom. The family made three long trips to see various parts of the U.S. Two of the trips were during January (California and Florida) and one during the summer to the Pacific Northwest and Canada.
Mom and Dad enjoyed reading and thought it was very important to being a good citizen. Good books and reading materials are precious. At the county school, the book collection was small and somewhat limited. To this day, Tommy has a real reluctance to write in, underline or deface a book in any way.
Tommy remembers a grade school spelling test where he just didn’t take the time to study. When he brought his report card home, there was a very low grade in spelling along with the rest of the very good grades. Mom asked “What happened?” and there was a tear coming down from her eye. Right then and there, he got the message that school was serious business.

District 93 Country School
Although we called it a one room country school, there were actually 7 separate rooms counting the basement. The main classroom occupied about ¾ of the east side with desks facing south toward a blackboard and a piano in the southeast corner. The wooden desks were in rows fastened to wooden runners. There was a small library on the southwest corner and going north a girl’s cloakroom, a middle entry way and a boy’s cloakroom with a water dispenser which had to be filled with a bucket of water from the outside well hand pump. There was an enclosed porch on the west side which served as the first entry way. It was an open porch in its earlier days. The basement had the coal burning furnace and was rather dirty because of dumping coal there. When the school converted to oil heat, it was much cleaner but still an oily smell down there. The basement was painted white and we were able to play a form (low ceiling) of basketball during really cold weather. It would not have been a country school without boys and girls pit toilets which meant a long run outdoors through a cold Minnesota blizzard in the winter. There were no trees on the acre school yard to break the wind with the exception of one scrubby one for a little shade in the southeast corner.
Most of the grades had 2 or 3 students; however, occasionally there was only one as when Tommy started first grade and Kent had 4 in his grade. The teacher would rotate among grades giving and checking assignments, answering questions, giving quizzes and tests, and keeping order. There was a lot of energy in that one room when you had between 15 and 25 farm kids in different grades. One incident comes to mind where hyper Jimmy, who could try any teacher’s patience, was acting up and she hit him on the back of the head which caused it to hit the table and a tooth was chipped.
One of the key decisions made by the District 93 school board was to hire Mrs. Ben (Velma) Vickmark who was considered one of the best grade school teachers in Jackson County. Mrs. Vickmark had a profound influence on Tommy, Kent, Kathy and Marita in their educational achievements.
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| Mrs. Vickmark and her students (1951) |
Christmas Program
A Christmas program in 1930 was very important and memorable because that is when Mom and Dad met for the first time.
One of the big events of the school year was the Christmas program where the school children would practice skits and perform an evening program for the parents and community just before a two week school vacation. By selling advertising panels on the face of the curtain, the school was able to acquire a curtain which could be rolled up and down by ropes.
Tommy had one unforgettable Christmas skit where the plot line was that his pants need to be shortened. In the skit there were at least two females in the family that each wacked off a lot of the pant legs. Tommy was supposed to pull up his regular pants far enough and put the altered pair over the top. The dressing room was the library so he didn’t think he could take off his regular pants. He could just barely pull up his regular pants far enough so they wouldn’t show under the altered pants which were about as long as Bermuda shorts. This skinny little kid jumping on the stage demanding to know which family seamstress cut his pants so short brought down the house.
Dad had certain duties as a member of the school board. Among these tasks was tipping up and putting the outhouses back on the pits after Halloween shenanigans. Somebody also had to pump the well at the beginning of the school year to get all the old possibly contaminated water so that fresh, safe water would flow into the well. One year after lifting off the pump and platform, a mouse could be seen floating on the water surface. The answer was to dip out the mouse and pump longer. It took a long time for his sons to pump until they got plenty of fresh water flushed through the system with that old hand pump.
Jackson High School
Sometime during the 1950s, a decision was made to start sending the eighth graders to join town kids to get them ready for freshmen year. Both eighth and freshmen grades were part of junior high in the old south building (the original high school building Mom and Dad attended). It was a wonderful time to go to high school with prosperity of the recovery from WWII, the start and blossoming of rock and roll, first generation of teenagers to drive and own fairly recent vintage cars and watching TV (but through a snow storm due to poor reception).
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| Tommy JHS Graduation (1958) |
College
Most of the family has no idea why Mom’s children and grandchildren earned seven degrees from Iowa State University and ten if you count the in-laws. I never remember my parents specifically talking to me about college. In high school, I took math and chemistry which was recommended if you were interested in college. However, indirectly Mom had a very important role in deciding where I went to college. Mom, at the supper table, said that she had seen an ad in the St. Paul Farmer listing Hampshire ewes for sale by Reuben Kietzer. Reuben would sell purebred registered ewes for $45 when they reached five years old. Since I had started to show market lambs at the Jackson County Fair and wasn’t winning, this seemed like a chance to raise some class winners. The ewes were bred to an Iowa State College Hampshire ram from which we got a ewe class winner, Black Beauty. We went to the Minnesota Bred Ewe sale, the Cornbelt Classic in Des Moines, IA and other purebred sales to buy more Hampshires. We also went to the Iowa State College campus in Ames Iowa to buy a Hampshire ram, Icey. That trip got me interested in Iowa State College. I was accepted by both the University of Minnesota and Iowa State College. I decided to go to Iowa State because I wouldn’t have to commute across the Twin Cities to the main campus. Also, Minnesota assigned you a number and said get used to being just one of 8000 new freshmen which was almost the student body size at Iowa State.
It is a real tribute to those hardy Scandinavian and German pioneers who started District 93 in the 1890s and could only afford to pay a teacher for 2 or 3 months. The dedicated teachers such as our grandmother, Mary Rawle, Mom and Mrs. Vickmark were part of the heritage that allowed all 4 kids to earn college degrees in 4 years and one an Ivy League Ph.D.
We are also grateful to Mom and Dad who taught us the importance of education. All 4 of us graduated from college with no debt due to scholarships and money we earned from 4-H livestock projects plus summer jobs on and off the farm. -Tommy
District 93
First building was erected in 1893 at a cost of $450 - addition to building in 1899.
Early years 7 or 8 month terms - sometimes less New law - 1947 - require 9 month school for state aid purposes
1894-1895 - Mary Rawle (second teacher at Dist. 93) Early 1930's - Esther Hansen
Teacher taught all 8 grades - must do own janitor work
Tommy
1st grade - 1946 - Mrs. Betlach
2nd grade - Mrs. Betlach
3rd grade - Mrs. Don Doll
4-7 grade - Mrs. Vickmark
8th grade –Jackson-graduated from JHS in 1958
ISU-1962, U of Missouri-MS-1964 Cornell U.-PhD-1968
Kent
1st grade - 1948 - Mrs. Don Doll
Gr. 2-7 - Mrs. Vickmark
8th grade - Jackson - graduated from JHS in 1960
ISU - 1964
Kathy
Kindergarten - April 1951
1 - 4 grades - Mrs. Vickmark
5-7 grades - Mrs. Betlach
8th grade - Jackson - graduated from JHS in 1963
St. Olaf College - 1967
Marita
Kindergarten - April 1955 - Mrs. Vickmark
1-5 grades - Mrs. Betlach
6th grade - Mrs. Mellum
7th grade - Jackson - graduated in 1967
ISU - 1971
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Esther Hansen’s 1930-31 pupils, her first year teaching at Dist. 93 school. The year when Tom and Esther met at the school Christmas program.
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