Back to School - Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This year's challenge is 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and is run by Amy Johnson Crow.

Information on the Topic

Week 37's theme is "Back to School." Any stories of schools days in your family? (I'm thankful for the collection of my dad's grade cards through 8th grade.) What about teachers or principals in the family?

I think this is going to be a short and sweet post. 

I know when I started school at Walden Elementary, my mother asked the teacher standing there where she dropped me off. The teacher pointed, after my mother was rude, towards the stairs. My was told to get up there and then whispered to me to be a good girl or else. Then she turned and walked off to work. No pictures, no nothing. 

These are the stairs we used to have to wait on before and after school at Walden Elementary school. 

This is a more updated picture of Walden Elementary School as it never had bushes or a sign out the front of the place. 

In later years, she bought me "school" clothes for about 3 to 4 days including a new pair of sneakers. Then when I started to bring books home I got different bags shoved at me not of my choosing. 

I never had anyone celebrate it, no pictures taken, and nothing much done. 

As for my nieces, we tried to make it more of a celebration thing by getting them more clothes and school things they liked rather than have them shoved at them. My sister and I, when the girls were young, always took them to the teachers and wished them a good day. In later years, I was on the bus with them and I made sure they looked good, had everything, and wished them a good day. When we had money for film, we always tried to take pictures of them too, but usually they never came out. We were bad photographers then. 

Like I said, nothing much to write home about starting school or even ending it. For my graduations (I had a high school one, a trade school one and a college one) and none of them were really made special. The college one, I went and picked up 2 of my nieces and tried to make it special, but it really was a flop after my friends and nieces left. If anything, my mother was mad at me, and wouldn't speak to me because she wanted to know why I didn't tell her I went to school with people from certain places. Confused me, but I told her I needed an education and they just happened to be around, but she was still really mad at me. 

One of only 3 pictures I have from High School graduation my sister took. 

I told you we were bad at taking pictures. 

I'm where the first told is. This was taken and in the local newspaper. This is the only photo I have of me getting my high school diploma. 

This only 1 of 2 pictures I have of my trade school or BOCES graduation for a trade. My sister took this. Yep, another bad one!

My friends and I at OCCC graduation. 

A professional picture of me at OCCC graduation.

Two of my nieces and me at my OCCC graduation. I only have a handful of pictures from this too but at least they are better!

It wasn't until years later, I found and put a reason to her being mad and that was because her family lived in other areas and I think she was mad that I might have ran into them or something. 

Teachers

To put an upswing on things, I did have a few teachers within the family. The ones I knew most about were my paternal aunt and uncle. 

Uncle John taught all levels of math in a high school. Credit: Marlboro High School

Aunt Jenny taught business classes at the same high school.  Credit: Marlboro High School

They had offices just down the hallway from each other until my uncle retired. They always had kids over to their house and were very well loved. 

It was very sad to see adults come to my uncle's funeral when he passed but he had a HUGE amount of people there.