Ready for School

“I can see it still. My childhood school was set atop a hill, with the east and south sides of that hill making for wonderful sled riding in the winter,” Deloris said. “Mama would give us a piece of sausage and a piece of bread or a peanut and jelly sandwich and a pint of milk. I loved milk. I still love milk." – Deloris (Ehman) Ulmer, Ashley, North Dakota.

Alma (Janke) Schott of Gackle, ND, shared: “We had no thermos bottles, like for coffee. We had to take a quart jar or pint jar with water. We had our lunch pails. We had a gallon syrup pail. Years ago parents bought a lot of syrup for bread and when they were empty we would wash them out and that was our lunch pail. Mom and Dad didn’t go out and buy lunch buckets."

Donna (Hoffman) Eszlinger of Ashley, ND, shares: “Some of the kids would have to spend time in the corner if they spoke German. How are they supposed to talk. English? How, if you talk German the whole time growing up, are you supposed to know English when you got there.”

In the Preface, Sue Balcom writes: “Just for fun, this book was designed to reflect some (but not all) old printing practices – wide margins, justified columns, deep heading, black and white photos and some Fleur de Lis.”

Persons who contributed memories and photos to the book include: Connie Dahlke, Violet (Eiseman) Diegel, Mavia (Kautz) Erlenbusch, Delbert Eszlinger, Donna (Hoffman) Eszlinger, Laura (Schulz) Hellmuth, Alice (Rohrich) Kramer, Arlene (Wagner) Kramer, Frieda (Thurn) Ketterling, Ida (Schilling) Meidinger, Wilbert Mediinger, Bernice (Zinck) Nagel, Elfrieda (Zinck) Norris, Benjamin Vetter, Delphine (Eberhardt) Vetter, Lillian (Schwind) Sayler, and Alma (Janke) Schott.