When I was four years old going on five, we lived in a top floor apartment in Newark, New Jersey – me, Mom, Dad, and my baby brother Stuart. I attended nursery school at the YMHA near our building and graduated summa cum laude (just kidding!).
Next, I entered kindergarten at the public school at the bottom of the block. I walked down the hill every day with Marcia, the neighbor’s daughter, a couple of years older than me. I remember her white blouse, plaid jumper, and braids, the clothing of a big girl, while I wore cotton dresses with little puffed sleeves.
But a darker vision overtakes me, the image of a stern and unsmiling lady, holding my hand tightly and escorting me down the block to the school, instead of Marcia. I remember the descent down that long, steep hill minute by minute. It might just as well have been the Green Mile through my child’s eyes.
Then, the ascent up the steps through the double-door entrance into the old brick building. But it is there that my recollection of what it looked like on the inside, or anything about that day at school, ends.
TRUANT OFFICER ! ! !
I was a quiet and compliant child, wanting to do everything right. How could this have happened?
Not long afterwards, we moved to a new house in Linden, a suburb far from the decaying center of the densely populated and worn out city, thanks to financial help from my grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa wanted us to live safely, near new schools, synagogues, and other young families. He had lived the American Dream as an immigrant from Lemberg, Austria (now L’viv in the Ukraine), first starting out as watchmaker on the Lower East Side, then moving to a town on Long Island and opening a hardware store to support his family of seven children, including my mother Rose.
When his children were of marriageable age, he saw that the post-war American Dream had re-invented itself with the children of immigrants becoming educated and moving to new split-level and ranch house developments in the suburbs. He hastened our departure to this new way of life.
But the geographical change did not erase my memory of the day when five year old me didn’t want to go to school. If I had been sick, my mom would surely have kept me home, but if I was just reluctant or scared, why did she let that strange lady drag me down the hill?
My mother is gone now, nearly 99 years old when she passed away in 2014. I had never in all of my years thought to ask her if she remembered that a Truant Officer came for me in Newark. Maybe they called the house to see why I wasn’t at school, and then sent someone to get me. This incident seems out of character for my mom.
But I suspect that in those days, the early 1950s, authority figures like school principals and their minions inspired fear and went unquestioned in carrying out their responsibilities. My dad left early for his shift as an apprentice at the machine shop and mom was alone that morning with my brother and me. Unless the dad intervened, the mother, most likely a full-time homemaker, was overpowered and expected to act “like a lady,” in keeping with the rigid gender roles that prevailed at the time.
My mom was a sweet and gentle lady and loved me very much, from the very beginning of my life to her last breath. And nothing she might have explained to me later on — had I asked her — would have changed my loving feelings for her in return.
What happened back then is a curious event that will never be explained, receding long ago in the rear view mirror of my lifetime.
My mom fulfilled her lifelong dream – interrupted by The Great Depression – of becoming a teacher, graduating in 1965 at the age of fifty. I like to think that she welcomed her students with warmth and devotion, always showing kindness and giving them the benefit of the doubt if some kind of problem occurred.
Whatever happened with me on that day, this knowledge has a healing effect . . . .
POSTSCRIPT:
Soon after we moved into the new house in Linden, it was time for my first day of kindergarten. The new school in our neighborhood was still under construction, so I had to take the bus downtown to School No. 1.
My mother, still in her apron, held my brother in her arms and took me to the corner to wait for the bus. I figured she was planning to take me to school.
The yellow bus came to a halt, the hydraulic brakes groaning and the door unfolding, opening into the unknown for me to enter. I had never been on a bus alone. I would not let go of my mother’s hand so she stepped onto the bus with me. I clutched her desperately as the driver grew impatient to resume his route. Mom had no choice but to stay with me for the ride instead of trying to peel an upset child off of her.
I have no idea how she got home. The school was on a public bus route and I do hope she had some change in her apron pockets for the #44.
The kindergarten teacher, Miss Standish, was a young woman with red hair, a softer color than my mother’s auburn, but still familiar. She wore a pretty white blouse, a flowing skirt that covered her calves, and thick braids that reminded me of Princess SummerFall WinterSpring on television.
Miss Standish was beautiful. I still remember the gentle voice and radiant smile that welcomed me into her classroom.
After that, I loved school and hardly missed a day, ever (except for mumps, measles, and chickenpox).
From then on, it was all going to be okay.
I love how your mind remembers – and doesn’t! So much makes up our lives and memories, so much mystery, too.
Thank you Carole for your insightful comment.
I remember Miss Standish who was also my K teacher, a year after you, in the brand new elementary school. I also recall her being pretty, standing against the big picture windows.
Mostly I remember the red wagon filled with milk cartons and cookies being pulled into the classroom for snack time and making colorful paper links. I can still smell the glue. Selective memories combined with those we’re not sure about: Did they happen or not? We will never know.
You had Miss Standish too, wow! I do remember getting milk and a snack but I don’t think there was a red cart in School #1. Thank you for sharing your memories!
That’s a lovely memory, Barrie. I can see School #1 in my mind. We followed your family a few years later, leaving Elizabeth for the wilds of Linden, the Sunnyside section, where I started the third grade at the new, Highland Avenue school. A truant officer! I always thought they were an urban myth.
Thanks Terry for sharing your Linden memories. I also enjoy reading your newsletter.
Continue to recall and to recount. Always a pleasure, Barrie!
Thanks Josh for commenting. I remember the very nice haiku poetry you wrote for the senior center class and open mics.
Your mother was absolutely gorgeous! This was good story for me, being a teacher (I’m an American Jew, living and teaching primary school in Lyon, France, and have been for five years!) and that impression that a teacher makes on the first time a child encounters them is so crucial as to if the child feels welcome and protected, they will enjoy school, and hopefully through their educational years! A child that encounters a teacher with no smile, a poor attitude, that can affect a child that school is a punishment and can change a child’s outlook on education for their life, based on that one interaction. I have always been a larger than life character, always saying hello to students that aren’t even mine, stopping to bend down and hear a child’s weekend adventure, or to see what toy they’ve brought to school, and ask them to tell me all about it, big smile in the morning, throughout the day and through to dismissal at 5:00pm. Through listening, keeping an open door policy, always making myself available to my students or any child that needs someone just to LISTEN to them, as they don’t receive that at home these days. The parents put them in front of an iPad or phone or TV and don’t LISTEN. I’m so sad that my generation that had children (I was born in December 26, 1978, and no, I decided never to have children because I didn’t feel I could give another life the time and dedication they deserve,) is so egoist, and self-centered and I watch how children are just either an annoying problem, or if the parent(s) are in the mood, the children are out on display like a new purse, or the newest fad. Then plopped in front of technology so the parents can be on their phones or computers or taking care of themselves. That is why I feel so lucky to be a “pseudo” parent to 46 students this year, that know they are loved, listened to, their opinions matter, and they always have a safe place to come to and a safe person to share their cares, their scares, their worries or their joys with.
The world is a better place place because of you and our future is brighter too. Thank you and all great teachers.
Thank you Erin for relating your experiences and strong, humane values as a teacher. Whatever brought you to live and work in France, your life sounds like an adventure.
Thanks Barrie. Your memories, well told, bring back many of my own early school experiences.
Thanks Larry for continuing to read my (occasional) blog. I always enjoyed our coffee breaks while working in Salem, hope all is well!
Thank you for your wonderful essay & photos. I laughed because it brought back memories that have been mostly forgotten at my age. My family lived in a rural part of town & I took a bus to Kindergarten in town in the late 40’s. Besides the music teacher, what I recall is deciding to walk out of Broadway Elementary down a few blocks to my aunt & uncles deli to seek refuge from my tormenter. The desks were placed in rows & the boy behind me liked to pull my braids. So I escaped!
Love your writing about your very rich experiences!
Thank you Ann for sharing your own early school experiences. The things we remember!
I love that you were summa cum laude even in nursery school. How many people can claim that rare honor!!!!!!! I knew that you were extraorinary in unusual ways! Not unexpected, though!
Davida
Thank you Davida for your loyal readership of my blog! 🙋🏻♀️💖🙏
Great story as usual Barrie. Took me back to Strawberry Mansion in Phila. I was a very shy child & a cry baby. My mother walked me kindergarten & I cried every day. One day I came out of school carrying a large Hershey bar. The teacher told my mother that the Hershey bar was because I didn’t cry that day. I remember the teacher’s name but nothing else about kindergarten.
Sweet memory, thank you for sharing!
That explains everything: the law career, the “upholder” personality type … all to protect yourself from a repetition of this early traumatic experience, and exactly on schedule (five years old), says Dr. Freud.
Just kidding (or am I?). In any case, a well-told tale of either your errant youth or the abuse of power by an authoritarian enforcer.
We’ll never know which.
One sure thing about my youth, it was not errant! Thanks for your intriguing comment and for your service as admin of my blog.
Hi Barrie, Happy Belated New Year. Wishing you and family much good health…I love your posts. I have a class picture of when I was also in nursey school, also in cap and gown. I have it framed and love looking at it. Harvey Katz was also in my class. We attended Geraldien Nursery School which was in Cranford. I recently was in the area, and it was torn down an now an office building.
Thanks Karen for sharing your memories. And I do remember Harvey, and so many other Linden classmates from elementary through high school.
Once again, thank you so much for bringing back the wonderful memories of my early years in Linden’s School #1 with Miss Standish. I, too, remember the cookies and milk wagon at snack time!!
I visited my dad in Linden every month until he passed in 2018. We would always drive around various parts of Linden and memories would come rushing into my senses.
I miss my dad very much and the nostalgia of the sights and sounds of the wonderful place in which I grew into the person I am today.