Flipside: School Days--My memories from the 1950's

Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join. I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside. AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024. Sometimes I get lazy. 😁 Let's see how well I keep up.

Week # 15 (April 8-April 14) is School Days.

I have touched on this subject in other blogs; however, I've never addressed it in total. Again it features moi. I am finding that some of the 52 Ancestors Weeks topics I have blogged about ad infinitum on other family members. I guess the time about me has come. 😁

1952 All ready for Kindergarten

I can remember that I was very excited to be going to Kindergarten when I turned five. My Dad was not the photographer. He serving with the Army in Korea as the head doctor at an aid station somewhere on the front lines. I imagine my Mom and Dad's oldest friend and now our neighbor, Dr. Joseph N. Arthur, took the photograph.

As I carefully inspect the photo up close, the dress was definitely made by my maternal Grandmother aka Teek. As I conveyed in her blog, she made almost all of my clothes while I was in elementary school.

West View Street Car # 10

My Mom never drove a car until Dad was sent to Korea. I wonder who taught her to drive? The late summer of 1952 was the beginning of an annual trip into Pittsburgh to buy the new school necessities. I know Mom did not drive the two of us in town. I imagine she drove the car into the Borough of West View and we took the streetcar into Pittsburgh.

My brother, Ken, was born that year; however, he was never part of the trip. Where was he? Who was taking care of him for the day? Maybe Grams and Pop Pop came to the house to watch him. Maybe Pop Pop actually drove Mom and I to West View. So many questions. What's an almost seventy-seven year old to remember back seventy-two years. 😊

This picture is from an earlier time;
however, this is where Teek was sitting

We got off the street car somewhere near Joseph Horne's Department Store. Teek was always there before us and would wave as we walked in the front entrance. She choose a chair at the front of the balcony overlooking the first floor.

Remember these?????

After hugs we headed to the children's shoe department for those practical school shoes. It was an era of shoe salesmanship when the salesman would pull out a metal foot measuring tool and actually fit the shoes to your foot. Imagine that!

And, when it came to practical shoes in the 1950's, it was Buster Brown.

We had a TV in our home by 1953, when Dad came back from Korea and Buster Brown and Tide commercials were shown in the morning with the children's programs. Of course every child, who was fortunate to have a television in the home, desired a Buster Brown shoe.

That first year, the routine was purchasing school shoes, gratefully paid for by Teek, and then to the Horne's Tea Room for lunch.

1953 First Grade

The August ritual continued to be in place in 1953. New Buster Brown shoes and a metal lunch box added.

I'm not certain how many more years this very special August event took place; however, I do know it was at a minimum until August of 1956 when I was entering fourth grade.

Added to the shoe purchase was a pencil box. In the 50's the boxes were heavy duty cardboard, like a cigar box. They were sold in a special table on Horne's first floor. It was fun to choose one with a favorite picture on top.

The last pencil box I selected was a larger one that had a pull out drawer in it. More room for all those school supplies, pencils, crayons, scissors, ruler, etc.

I know by 1958 and my last year in elementary school, the school shoes and supplies were purchased at the local shopping mall. Looks like I moved from Mary Jane's to penny loafers. Ruthie and I turned in our lunch box and pencil box for matching brief cases.

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