From Kindergarten to 6th grade I went to school at Lorin Farr Elementary School in Ogden, Utah.  It was located on the Southwest corner of 22nd Street and Harrison, 2 1/2 blocks from my house, uphill only one way. It is the same school my father went to because he lived in the same house we did when he was a boy. He and Mom came back to raise their family in that house. All of my siblings attended this school too. Kindergarten was ok. Lorin Farr was a three storey building and the Kindergarten class rooms were on the bottom floor. I went in the morning session. I think I only cried the first few days. Cherie took me to my classroom before she went to hers and she stayed with me till I stopped crying. Not wanting to make her late and not wanting the other kids to see my cry was good incentive to stop. It was more enjoyable later on. Mom and Ricky (we called him Ricky until he was about 8 or 9) walked to pick me up after school at first, but I knew the way and felt good about walking home by myself.

I remember Mrs. Brown being very kind and soft spoken. She might have been short or else she sat and spoke to us on our level much of the time. Each student had a small locker with their name on it. I think there were two names; one for the morning student and one for the afternoon student.  We hung our coats or sweaters there and put our boots in it after we struggled to pull them off. Mrs. Brown probably helped with that as well as getting them back on us when it was time to go home. Winter boots were worn over our shoes and they were hard to get on and off.

There were some large wood blocks and a small kitchen set to play with before school started and during play time. The room was colorful and lined with windows on the north side. We had small brown chairs to sit on and there were some small tables. We each had a box of 8 fat crayons with our name on it and a fat pencil too. I think these were given to us when we needed them. I don’t think they were in our little open lockers where our coats were stored. I don’t think those lockers had a shelf, just two hooks.

For a snack we had a little glass bottle of milk with a cardboard top that opened by pulling a tab and lifting up. That top was later replaced with a foil lid that we had to peel off. We drank our milk with a straw. I think there were graham crackers or some kind of wafer too. We rotated assignments of passing out the napkins and straws, but I think only the teacher gave us our milk bottles. After that we had a rest period where we unrolled our brown mats and laid down on the floor for a while. I think she read stories to us during this brief time. I loved hearing her read to us.

You can see from the picture that the girls were outnumbered by the boys. Girls wore dresses to school. It sure was good to get home and take the dress off and put on play clothes; pants and a shirt.