As schoolchildren, we sang in simpler times in 1954 | Opinion
“People, this morning we will have Community Sing. Please file quietly through the halls. Kindergarten and first grade classrooms will now begin.”
And so we did. Quietly.
Principal Ruth Skeeles’ loudspeaker voice was law. Next, second and third graders, then fourth and fifth, and finally, sixth, seventh and eighth graders — back row, standing by the steps, pretending to look bored. After all, this was old stuff for the big kids.
Teachers directed traffic. Chatty rule breakers got “the look.” Miss Skeeles was tall, hefty and imposing. In her dreaded office, the paddle hung in plain site, often warm from bigger boys’ bottoms.
In those early school years, she was scary. Later in elementary, we figured out that a soft heartbeat underneath that ample bosom.
The littlest kids stood in front, closest to the tree and, especially for us kindergartners, what a tree it was. The tallest and brightest and most beautiful Christmas tree in the whole wide world. The glittery silver star touched the ceiling in the vast upstairs hallway of Worley Elementary School. Mrs. Shearer played the piano. Together, we sang.
Tiny voices in front rows stumbled over new words and tunes. In the back rows, loud cracking voices from gangly boys showed off for quiet and unsure girls. Off-key or on, we sang every classic carol: “The First Noel,” “Joy to the World,” “We Three Kings,” and “I Have a Little Dreidel.”
Some songs were just plain fun: “Up on the Housetop,” “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” (lean your ear this way …) and that new popular song about a red-nosed reindeer. “Silent Night,” always sung last, echoed softly through the hallways as we filed back to our classrooms … quietly.
In those busy days before Christmas, Miss Skeeles gathered us again to watch movies in the auditorium — the same movies every year, in black and white (or mostly grainy gray).
Though I’ve searched and can’t find the others, it is “The Littlest Angel” that I best remember. The sad little guy was clumsy and naughty, but, oh, that last scene, when the Littlest Angel is chosen to offer his precious and humble treasures to God.
We filled every desk in every classroom in September 1954. The Canton Repository featured a front-page photo of all of the students in the school, posing on the playground. Eventually, we’d be known as baby boomers. Our dads came home from World War II and our parents got busy. We, the children of the Greatest Generation, are the elders now.
The building that echoed with our voices is gone; a modern elementary school stands where our playground once was. Nostalgia, some say, can be dangerous because it sanitizes reality. Still, I take the liberty to speak for many fellow boomers. Our “influencers” were our moms and dads, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors, teachers and, yes, our principal.
Miss Skeeles never married and had no children, but she parented thousands of us toward adulthood. There is a large gravestone on a hill in West Lawn Cemetery. It is simply engraved “Skeeles.” No first name, no dates.
I’m pretty sure it’s her. Next time I’m there, we’ll talk. She’ll understand. I’ll explain that the world is different. Ours was simpler, smaller. We were lucky. I want to be sure to thank her.
Because together, we sang.
Christine Haymond, who lives in Jackson Township, is a retired educator and a consultant at a local community high school. She is author of the soon to be published “Heartwork; The Language of Resilience.“
This article originally appeared on The Repository: As schoolchildren, we sang in simpler times in 1954 | Opinion
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