Crayolas and Mrs. Wheeler
Lowell L. Getz
These days I really do not need anyone to remind me that I am old. The
calendar readily attests to the fact that rapidly I am approaching 86 years. If that is
not enough, peripheral neuropathy has almost completely eliminated sensory
messages from my feet to the brain, causing me difficulty in maintaining any
semblance of balance. My forehead now extends to the top of my head. That my
back and legs ache with even the slightest act of bending over only exacerbates the
sense of being old.
Then comes an announcement from Crayola that it is discontinuing one of its
iconic colors, Dandelion. “Iconic?” Dandelion was not even added to the array of
colors until 1990, 53 years after I bought my first box of 8 Crayola crayons (red,
yellow, blue, green, orange, brown, purple, and black) upon entering the First Grade
of Chesterfield, Illinois Grade School in September 1937. If Dandelion is “iconic”,
then what am I? I really did not need that.
A Crayola box similar to the first one my Mom bought for me at Chet Towse’s
drug store in September 1937, the day before I started the First Grade. (eBay)
Chesterfield Grade School, early 1940s.
There was a gymnasium under the building, the ceiling extending one floor above
ground. Three classrooms were on the (second) floor above the gym. In 1937, the
room on the right of the building housed grades 1-3 (Mrs. Olive L. Wheeler), the
center room, grades 4 and 5 (Miss Wilma Followell) and the room to the left, grades
6-8 (Miss Marie Hewitt). The room on the third floor was used as storage.
Stairwells that led to the classrooms were located at each of the side doors. Grades
1-4 lined up on the right stairwell and grades 5-8 on the left stairwell, to await the
final bell to go up the classrooms. Barely visible to the left of the sidewalk going up
to the school is the trough that drained water away from the pump where we got
our drinking water.
The news from Crayola, even though I had never heard of the color
Dandelion, elicited reminisces of the times associated with that first box of crayons.
As was the case for all school supplies back then, my Mom purchased the box of
Crayola crayons at Chet Towse’s drug store. The excited anticipation of beginning
school and using the crayons still resonates in my brain. The day before classes
started, after buying the box of crayons and other school supplies, my Mom took me
to visit what was to be my classroom and teacher for the next four years. The
teacher, Mrs. Olive L. Wheeler (I soon learned the students called her “Olive Oyl”,
after the character in the Popeye cartoon popular in those days) met us at the door
when we arrived. Mrs. Wheeler had been my Mom’s first grade teacher 24 years
earlier. To me she looked like a very old woman. My most vivid memory of that
visit is of the six small newly painted bright red chairs at the front of the room. This
was where students sat to “recite” their lessons when Mrs. Wheeler called a class to
come up. The next day I began what was to be 20 years of attending school,
culminating in a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Michigan. There were four
of us (Buddy Rands, Floyd Riddle and Jackie Releford) in the first grade, and only
seven more in grades two and three.
Originally, Mrs. Wheeler’s room included grades one through three. As our
third grade drew to a close, the three of us boys were looking forward to next year
and moving on to young, attractive, Miss Followell’s room. Depression hit us, when
informed, that because there were too few students to warrant a separate teacher
for the fourth and fifth grade students, the fourth grade would be taught by Mrs.
Wheeler and the fifth by Miss Hewitt, who had been teaching grades six through
eight. Another year of Olive Oyl! I would be remiss, if I did not acknowledge that
Mrs. Wheeler became one of my foremost supporters throughout the rest of my
academic career. I hope I lived up to her ambitious predictions for me, albeit based
on very early, tenuous observations.
My nostalgic mind swirls around those first four years of grade school.
Slowly mastering reading, “Dick and Jane”, “See Spot Run.” Conquering the Palmer
Method of writing, the controlled flowing style of writing, which, did not stay with
me, my writing now resembling drunken slug slime trails. Learning to stay within
the lines when coloring, using the Crayola crayons. Requesting permission to go to
the “bathroom”, actually outhouses (one for the girls, one for the boys) 100 feet
from the back of the school, by standing at the classroom door and holding up our
hand with one or two fingers extended, indicating the “nature” of our request, until
Mrs. Wheeler gave us permission leave (sometimes so engrossed in the recitation of
a class, it would take Mrs. Wheeler awhile to see the student twisting and dancing in
agony). Using small aluminum folding cups to drink from the hand pump in front of
the school building (no running water in the building). Lining up on the stairs,
waiting for the bell telling us it was time to go on up to our classrooms. In winter
one of the boys often would put a snowball on the hot radiator in the dressing room
at the base of the stairs, the stench of the scorching melted snow wafting up the
stairwells as we waited for the bell. Sometimes, if no snow, a boy would pee on the
radiator. Those days we were more than anxious for the bell to ring so that we
could start our school day. Once and awhile, when Mrs. Wheeler had to leave the
room, unbeknownst to her, one of the boys or girls would jump on a desk, facing the
rest of the room, drop his pants or the pull up her dress and drop her panties (I
never did). For known transgressions that deserved disciplinary action, there was
the “Paddling Machine” Mrs. Wheeler kept on the third floor. No one was ever
subjected to the paddling machine, but we all knew it was there and tried to avoid
doing anything that would result in a trip to the third floor.
When weather permitted, before school, during the two recesses and at
noontime, outdoor activities included playing on teeter-totters, play ground
equipment no longer present at most schools because of liability concerns. We boys
reveled in “bucking” contests, attempting to throw the boy on the other end off his
seat. No one broke any bones, but if had, would have been considered just a
growing up experience. Who ever heard of suing the school over such a minor
thing? Every time we played outside, some of the boys played a version of an early
ball game, Rounders. When in the first and second grades, the boys often played
“Cowboy and Indians.” We made “six-shooters” from small tree branches, grounds
for expulsion these days. Even the name of the game would not be acceptable. The
girls excelled at skipping rope, especially “Double Dutch.” Both, boys and girls
played Red-Rover, another no-no recess activity now days. Imagine a broken arm as
someone tried to break through the chain of students holding hands. Back then,
would simply have been another “one of those things that happen.” During
inclement weather the boys and girls chose-up sides and played basketball in the
gym below the school.
Valentine’s day was a looked-forward-to day. Girls shared valentines with
girls and boys with boys. We boys would never consider giving a girl a valentine.
Then, there was the visit of the photographer each year to take student pictures. We
boys exchanged photographs, but as with valentines, who would risk the
embarrassing teasing, if they asked a girl for her picture. When in the second grade
I was most “smitten”, as was the common term in those days, with Virginia Mathis, a
girl in the third grade. I timidly asked Mrs. Wheeler if she would ask Virginia for a
picture and give it to me. She did. I kept the picture for years and still remember
the dark brown dress with a lighter brocade floral design on the bodice. Forty-four
years later I reminded Virginia of the photograph episode. She did not remember
the event or even the dress. So much for early romances.
Every Tuesday morning Charity Fletcher came to the school to play the piano
for a song session in the gym, attended by all eight grades. We sang from The Golden
Book of Favorite Songs for about 45 minutes, some of the songs becoming firmly
ingrained in my mind. The most vivid to me are the melancholy World War I song,
“The Long-Long Trail” and “The Little Brown Church In The Vail”, the latter most
likely also a no-no now. Singing was followed by a marching routine as Mrs.
Fletcher played Marching Through Georgia. For 15 minutes, we marched in complex
patterns of coalescing and separating columns moving around the sides and down
the center of the gym.
There was a small library in a closet next to Mrs. Wheeler’s classroom. It was
there I found and read books that shaped my future career as a field biologist,
Thornton W. Burgess’ “Mother West Wind Stories” and others of his that told stories
of nature, through the lives of animals such as Bobby Raccoon, Reddy Fox, Jimmy
Skunk, Jerry Muskrat, Billy Mink, Danny Meadow Mouse [meadow mice later
became the primary subjects of my research career], and Old Mr. Toad, among
others. There also was a small book, the author and title of which I do not recall,
which left an indelible impression upon me. I vividly remember that it described
the origin of life, development primitive single celled plants and animals and
multicellular plants and animals. It was not until fifteen years later, when I was
studying for my doctorate in Zoology at the University of Michigan, that I realized
the book started with Alexander Oparin’s newly expressed theory of the origin of
life and continued from there with the still accepted, at that time, evolution of single
celled plants and animals, and the progression to multi-celled organisms. A book on
evolution. How such a book, based on the theory of evolution, found its way into the
library of a school in the Southern Illinois in that religiously conservative era is
beyond me.
These are just a few of the memories of those first four years of school that
came back to me when I read the Crayola announcement. It does not seem possible
that it has been 80 years since I went with my Mom to Chet Towse’s drug store to
buy that first box of Crayola crayons. Mrs. Wheeler provided the elementary
ground-work and encouragement that stood me well throughout the rest of my
school years. For that I am eternally grateful. I traveled far beyond anything I could
have imagined, even if I could have understood, when I opened that first box of
Crayola crayons. Each of us has a Mrs. Wheeler to whom we owe much of our
success in life. Olive Oyl was my Mrs. Wheeler.