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Many of county people attended rural schools and have fond
memories of of the Christmas holidays and the programs their
school presented. This weeks article is The Christmas Theatre by
former teacher Elsie Aune (Footsteps in Educations 1894-1970,
Rural Teachers of Roseau County).
Of the many fond memories of early school days, Christmas Programs
will perhaps be the most often recalled.
Remember the excitement of peeking around the neighborhood sheets
firmly hung by wires across the front of the room? And those
glamorous pantomimes and drills! Such screams when someone’s hair
caught on fire from the carelessly held candle in the “March of
Lights!”
Grass Lake School became practically famous for its well-performed
plays. Records show that as many as 350 people turned out to see
the Christmas Programs performance. This was duplicated in every
rural school in the county! Of course, they couldn’t all get in
the building so they looked through the windows!
Much of the fun of the Christmas Programs was had during the
preparation of the programs. Several days were taken to learn when
to come on. What a task it was to get the little ones to put
expression into their voices? Rate of speaking was another
problem. The teacher would work long and hard to get inflections
into the children’s speech but the night of the performance they
would wring their hands, put their shirts sideways, stand on one
leg and at the same time go off like an express train!
Every Christmas Program had its Santa Claus all dressed up in a
red suit with white cotton “fur”, with facemask and black boots.
Many times the little preschoolers would scoot from their front
row seats to the protective cover of Mother’s voluminous skirts!
(What do the little ones of today hide behind!?)
When the program was over Santa’s helpers came out with bags and
boxes full of large paper bags that had nuts, peanuts, candy and
apples in them. In that far off day each pupil guarded his bag of
goodies because it was almost certain that it would be many days
before they would get such a treat again!
RCHS Footnotes
Two new staff personnel, Toni (Anderson) Donarski of Greenbush and
Barbara Wood of Vassar Manitoba have joined our staff.
In Toni’s own words. “I was born and raised west and south of
Greenbush. For many years I lived away from the area and have now
returned to be closer to my roots. For many, myself included,
spend their early hears figuring out a way to get away from rural
life, and the rest of the their life trying to figure out how they
are going to get “home again.” I am at “HOME” where I want to be.”
Barbara Wood was born in Baudette. Although she spent most of her
life in Winnipeg she considers herself a Minnesota country girl at
heart. She too is happy to return to the area of her roots. She
attended the University of Winnipeg.
Both Toni and Barb have studied Physical Geography and
Anthropology at universities and will be an asset to RCHS.
We would like to thank all those who have purchased 75th
Anniversary RCHS cookbooks. Sheila Winstead and the cookbook
committee put forth great effort to produce a book that will be
enjoyed for generations to come. One man wrote that it was “Roseau
County’s World Famous Recipe Book” when he placed his order.
Cookbooks are available for sale at Mattson’s Pharmacy, Mike’s
Drug, Pam’s Pantry, Wally’s and the Museum in Roseau; the Twin’s
Café and JBZ Market in Badger; Bozes, Greenbush Pharmacy, Ace
Hardware, Squid’s Super Valu in Greenbush, and any RCHS board of
director member.
Military Service History Forms are available at the Roseau County
Museum or from any Veteran’s Service club. The service person or
their family may fill them out.
Listen to A Look Back in Time Sunday at 8:30 am on KJ102 Radio.
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