When my wife Dee and I were getting ready to move from our home of 44 years of wedded bliss to the Van Mall retirement community, we went through all the stuff in the attic and found a contract I signed in 1940.
My dad had died in 1939. He and I were born in the same house, which is now on the south end of Northeast Moe Avenue in the Highland community, about 6 miles northeast of La Center.
The men in Highland tried to fill the vacancies in my life, not having a father, in any way they could. The chairman of the school board called and asked if I would like to have the janitor job at the one-room Highland School. It paid $6 per month.
I was 11½ years old and would be starting the sixth grade in about a month. Six dollars a month would make me the richest kid in Highland!
When we found the contract, we wondered — what should we do with it? Send it to the La Center Museum!
So I wrote a story to send with it. I told about how I had to get there early and start the fire, take the flag out and put it up the pole, take the water bucket out to the well and hand pump it full to take in to the water fountain crock inside, check the two outhouses, and, after school, go out to the woodshed and split and carry in the firewood for the next day. And, of course, the room temperature had to be maintained all day.
Now if you don’t believe me, you can read the contract.
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