Last week I wrote about the establishment of Winiam State School 2530, where many of my relatives started and completed their education. This week, I showcase more of the children who attended the school.
How did you get to school? Walk? By Bus? Car? Horse?
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| Norma Rowe, Mavis Pilgrim, Rita Moulden, Dorrie Pilgrim & Marge Moulden on Ernie the Horse Going to School - Winiam, Victoria |
My Grand Aunt, Mavis Pilgrim, wrote me:
"Uncle Stanley had two grey horses which they rode and Rita (Marge's sister who was the oldest) and Marge would ride to our top gate as we called it; then Dorrie and I would walk up our lane and Rita would get the horse near a post and we would get on and the four of us would go to school like that. Uncle Stanley said to just walk the horse but when we got over the hill Rita would make him canter. Sometimes they would ride the other horse which was a bit more sprightly and Marge was always on the back and would put her toes under its flank and it would buck; but thankfully we didn't fall off. I sat in front of Rita, Dorrie behind her and Marge on the rump".
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| Pilgrim children - 1924 Winiam Lloyd aka John, Hazel, Edna & Eva (my grandmother) |
My grandmother, Eva Scott (nee Pilgrim) wrote me:
"I boarded with Aunty Alice while going to High School and had visions of being a teacher, but Mum was going through change of life and when she went down with measles, I had to go home at 14. I only had 6 years of schooling, as we lived over 3 miles from the school. At first we had to walk. They kept me home till I was 8 and John was 6. Then he (dad) bought a pony for us and we got boils in summer from horse sweat, as we rode bareback. So then he bought a flap, big enough for 2, but quite flat, with stirrups and we didn't get so many busters. Old Trix was very quiet, but would shy at anything different, even a piece of paper on the road. One day Miss Darker, our teacher, came around the dunny – as they were always known then - and Trix lashed out and broke a button on her cardi. Dad reckoned Trix must have been asleep and got a fright. After that we had to put her in a small yard at Uncle Ned Pilgrim’s – a bit further on.
One day one of the neighbors went by on his tractor and Trix jumped out and went home. She always went home if we fell off. While at High, I always went home for week ends and often got a ride back with the minister on Sunday. If not I rode Trix in Monday morning – 10 miles. Tied the reins up and let her go."
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| 22 March 1928 Winiam Sports Day Fred Voigt walked into photo |
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| September 1937 - Winiam State School (I believe it is my grandmother on the horse on the far left) |
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| Play time Winiam State School |
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| Play time Winiam State School |
What games did you play at School?
I remember my favourites were:
Tree Climbing
Basketball
Skipping Rope (rhyming team games)
Hop Scotch
Elastics
Monkey Bars and Ropes
Water fights in Summer
I remember my favourites were:
Tree Climbing
Basketball
Skipping Rope (rhyming team games)
Hop Scotch
Elastics
Monkey Bars and Ropes
Water fights in Summer
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| Skip over to Sepia Saturday for more posts |
Another interesting post with wonderful photos! Thanks for sharing them Sharon. I remember playing with marbles and knuckle bones as well as skipping ropes and elastics. Climbing the laurel hedge behind the girls' toilets was definitely a no no. The monkey bars and the rings (on a pole) and the swinging log were also very popular though rather dangerous. I ended up with stitched after being hit by the bolt on the swing log.
ReplyDeleteBig smiles here Maureen. You just reminded me of more games that we played as kids.
DeleteI could climb better than most of the boys and was the first to have the courage to climb to the top of the big pine tree and tied my jumper at the top like a flag. All recess I had to write lines on the blackboard "I must not climb trees". But then after school, I climbed back up to get my jumper so I wouldn't get into trouble from Mum when I got home!
A great post and a way to go to school that would never have come our way our way in England where it was a question of walk, train or bus.
ReplyDeleteI love that the horse would find it's own way home if they fell off, alerting their parents.
DeleteYes I went on a school bus every day as did my kids.
We didn't have a chance to ride horses to school in Detroit. I walked miles though, up hill both ways from the time I was 5 through highschool. Through rain, sleet and snow.
ReplyDeleteIn gym class my most unfavorite game was dodge ball. Whoever had the ball would throw it hard as they could at the rest. Outside, when we'd get to school early, I remember two games, king of the hill on a small hill of dirt that appeared from somewhere and boys chase girls around the playground.
I can't imagine having to walk miles through snow.
DeleteI've heard of dodge ball but I don't remember ever playing it. I am not sure what "King of the Hill" is.
I was amazed at how all four riders managed to stay on the horse. When I was in grade school I walked or rode my bike. In junior high and high school I rode the bus because the schools were farther away.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when Marge made it buck! No helmets in those days!
DeleteWe walked to school in Primary School but went by bus in High School (Aussie terminology). We would take a short cut across the train lines, jumping of the unmanned platform and casually strolling across the lines (not many trains came through our small country town). Once my sister fell and all of a sudden a train was coming around the corner. What a bad sister I was, I didn't go back and get my sister but just yelled at her over and over again in panic. "Get Up Quick - a train is coming". Luckily she did. She has never forgotten and neither have I. We never took that short cut again!
Wonderful evocative photos Sharon, thanks for sharing them.
ReplyDeleteI boarded at junior school and we travelled by car to get there at the beginning and end of term, also going home every two or three weekends during the term. Games - there were many. I enjoyed playing marbles but I was hopeless - I remember swapping some of my stamps for a cup full of marbles, and within a couple of days I had lost the lot. Anyone else remember "crack the whip"? An exhilarating rough and tumble activity, but pretty dangerous, and eventually banned at our school because of the frequent injuries.
Thanks Brett.
DeleteI have never heard of "crack the whip". Please tell me more.
Oh Sharon, these are wonderful photos. When I saw the horse, I wondered what Mavis did with the horse once she got to school. Her recollections are so sweet. I'm glad you included them. In elementary school, I lived across the street, so walking was easy. I had further to walk to junior high and high school. Today, the kids probably ride the bus but in my day, our house was considered close enough to school to walk. My favorite games in elementary were the monkey bars and games of hop scotch and dodge ball. In junior high I LOVED it when we had square dancing.
ReplyDeleteThank you Wendy.
DeleteMy grandmother loved horses and has written many things about them, including the fund that they had chasing kangaroos on horseback.
Fantastic collection!!...I'm getting to know the Pilgrims well.
ReplyDeleteThank you Nigel.
DeleteI am very lucky that my grandmother was a keen photographer and kept family memorabilia so I have a lot of information and photos about the Pilgrims. Unfortunately not so with other "branches" of the family.
Great photos Sharon, I went by bus to primary school and high school. For some of that time my Mum was the bus driver. People still occasionally stop her and ask if she remembers them.
ReplyDeleteWe had husband and wife bus drivers. Mrs Walker was lovely but we were all scared of Grumpy Mr Walker. Was it a good thing or bad thing having your mum as the driver? Maybe you got to sit up the back?
DeleteWe played basketball in the rain during summers, all of us including the family dog. Skipping rope was fun too.
ReplyDeleteHazel
The family dog too? Intriguing.
DeleteMy father trained us for basketball for a while. I did not like Dad being our coach as he was so tough on my sister and I. He would sit us out as he didn't want other parents to think he was favouring us at all.
A perfect photo to end with, and how cool they were all sitting pretty still for the photo. In the first photo I'm wondering if the horse was thinking, okay hurry up take the picture and please somebody get these people off me! Ha! Ha!
ReplyDeleteThank you Karen.
DeleteThe horse in the first photo was used to carrying four children but not five, so probably wasn't happy at all.
What a fun collection of photographs and your grandmother's memories! There were certainly a lot of Pilgrims in that school!
ReplyDeleteJames Pilgrim had 11 children and then they each had large families so there were a lot of Pilgrims in the area!
DeleteWho knew you could get boils from horse sweat?? I guess whenyou have five people on a horse, there might be a lot of human sweat too. I had a fleeting moment of comparison with the families in Vietnam riding four or five on a bike around Hanoi.
DeleteThe photos are great and the
pilgrims a handsome bunch. Most enjoyable read!
Thank you Helen.
DeleteGran went on to write about sitting on a bucket of hot water to bring the boils to a head for popping. Eeeewwww!
Wonderful photos, especially the one of them all sitting on the old tree. We had a climbing frame at my school - set on hard tarmac! There were grassy slopes which we loved to roly-poly down, but climbing trees would have been forbidden - more's the pity!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I cannot recognise anyone in that photo and it did not have names or dates on the back.
DeleteI especially liked hearing about Trixx!!
ReplyDeleteLooks like there were a lot of pilgrims at Winiam's...
;)~
HUGZ
I have many more stories and photos about Trix and her foal. She was certainly a favourite horse.
DeleteI enjoyed all your photos. A horse is a good transport to go to school, probably the only one then. My children went by bus, I drove them to the bus station and in the afternoon picked them up again.
ReplyDeleteThank you Titania. The horses played a very large part in farm life (and my grandmothers childhood).
DeleteFabulous pictures Sharon which are brought even more to life by your commentary. The words are like the colour tinting on old photographs : highlighting particular areas of fascination. What a great post.
ReplyDeleteThank you Alan.
DeleteI think that my grandmother used her photo album to prompt a lot of the note book that she wrote me. I am very lucky to be able to put a lot of her text to photos.
How lucky you are to have those stories from your grandmother. My grandparents all died when I was small and I have always wished i could have known them longer. Your stories and photos are fascinating. Many country kids in Australia rode to school - few buses back then and most families had horses and carts, not cars. We didn't have a car and I had to catch two trams or a tram and a bus to get to school. If I missed the last bus (through sports practice or just playing at a friend's) I had to walk 10 kms to get home. I remember playing Cats' Cradle, Knucklebones, skipping games, ball throwing/bouncing games, Hide and Seek as a little kid, then Hockey, Basketball(now called Netball), tennis and rounders as I got older.
ReplyDeleteYes I am very lucky that my grandmother wrote me so many letters and stories. Unfortunately not the same on the other side of my family.
DeleteI hope that you didn't have to walk home too many times. My son missed the bus once and couldn't get hold of us so he jogged the 16 kms home! I keep telling him that he should get into long distance running but he is not interested.