Banker Family Tree

This is a picture of the one room school house at Clearfield. I use it only as a reference point in the small tale. Besides it looks lot nicer than the one my dad and all his sibblings attended back before I was even a thought.

I had heard a couple tales about my dad, Edward Sr. Banker, and how he reportedly the school bully and often chewed tabbaco in school and and one time had carved his name on his school desk. A latter tale told that the desks were all removed and were in storage in the shed on the school grounds.

I wanted to see that school house and locate the desk my carved his name on, maybe even haul it home as a keep sake. So my cousin Doc Sheppard took me there to try and locate the desk.

What we found was a run down one room school house and that old shed. The school house was filled with hay for storage. So was the old shed. A check around got a follow tale that the desks were stored in the shed at one time. Then when the buildings were used for storing baled hay, the old desks were used for fire wood.

Not all tales have a happy ending.

My dad's oldest sister use to tell about how there was no such thing as overshoes in those days. When it snowed you wore your regular shoes and by the time you got the one mile to school, your feet were all wet and near frozen.

Emma, dad's sister, use to take old gunny sacks (feed sacks) and tie them around her feet and legs to keep dry and warm on the way to school. Some of the "richer" kids would ride a horse to school or get a ride in a wagon. These kids poked fun of them poor dirt farmer kids and their raggedy leggings.

Emma would stop in the woods not far from the school and take off the feed sacks and hide them so she could wear them on the way home again. "Laugh all they want, least I am warm and dry once I get to school."

All are copyrighted by me, MDB