Going to School

February 20, 1933  The children and Mama did laundry.  I took care of the children.  John went to school.

 In the days when families were large and when the standard farm size was a quarter section, even rural schools were in walking distance for nearly all children.  And control really was local with the parents on the school board able to see directly what was going on.  Thus, John went to the Oakland school that was ¾ miles north from the Siemens’ house.  Cornelius does not often mention specifically that John went to school, but he does often mention the work that the other three older children did without mentioning work that John did.  So we can assume that most days, John was attending school.  He was fifteen at this time; and according to the 1940 census, he completed seven grades; so 1933 was probably close to the end of his school years.

Pleasant Hill school in Meade County, about 1930.  Source:  http://fhsuguides.fhsu.edu/kansasheritage/meadecounty

I doubt that the other older children attended school in Kansas.  Mary and Corney completed five grades and Jake three according to the 1940 census.  Based on their ages when they moved to Kansas, it seems likely that they got all their education in Canada.  There were legal requirements to attend school during certain ages, but they were widely unenforced in rural areas because it was understood that farmers needed their children to help on the farm.  And if children were not very interested in studying, it was easy for them to stay home to do farm work.  Plus with the grief and lack of a mother in the Siemens’ family from 1920 to 1930, I am sure that the children’s education suffered.  For example, the 1921 Canadian census reports that none of the four older children attended school during the 1920-1921 school year. 

The younger three children (Henry, Elmer, and Anna) attended McNulty school in later years, which was two miles south of their farm, because Oakland school had closed.  All of them completed eight grades, and Elmer got three semesters of high school at Meade Bible Academy.