January 1, 2011 Coats Museum News
Shall we continue our journey into the happenings in the Coats area as written about by the late Daniel Stewart (1903-2000) who served as the Director of the N.C. Department of Conservation and Development. Stewart had lived in the “Old Hotel “ in Coats from 1912 until he left for college and later visited there until his mother Mollie (Molly) Ennis Stewart stopped operating it in 1938.
Stewart recalled that housekeeping was arduous at the old hotel requiring many hours to keep it clean for its boarders and renters. Washing linens for seven bedrooms was a time consuming job as was keeping the floors clean of dirt which was brought into the building from the dirt roads and streets that existed everywhere in the area. Much patience had to be practiced by Mollie as she worked to raise money to feed her two children, Vada and Daniel.
Daniel had to help with the various chores as well as to walk to attend the little school at the other end of town. Daniel remembered that the school had three rooms in it. (This was the Grove # 3 school and it was replaced by the 1920 first brick building which is now in disrepair on the original Coats High School campus off Highway NC27. After 1914, an additional two rooms were added to accommodate students and this is the building which houses the Coats Heritage Museum on Coats Heritage Square.)
Daniel wrote in his autobiography, “Thank you Lord for a Good Life”, that the Coats Grove #3 had nine grades that were divided into groups of three grades which were taught by a teacher in each group. Daniel recollected that the day began with chapel assembly in the largest of the three classrooms. The Bible was read by the principal Owen Odum who also gave a motto starting with a letter of the alphabet. For “A” example , he recalled the motto “A” boy who feels timid about doing anything mean is far from being a coward.” For “K” “Keep your pennies and and you’ll never want for dollars.”
The little school had no water, no bathrooms, and no central heat as we know today. Water was from a well that had a pulley and chain to draw up the water from the bottom of the well. (Two questions—What is another name for the apparatus to draw water and where was the well located on that clay hill where the school was located?) Stewart stated that the well bucket was tipped over and the students drank out of it like it was a giant cup. If a dipper was available, everyone drank after each other.
Since there were no indoor toilets at the school, the boys and girls had designated places to use as bathrooms. The thick woods below the school building were divided by a road referred to on the old Williams deeds as the “New Road” and later as Highway 40 and then N.C. 27. The boys were assigned to go on one side of the road and the girls on the other side according to Daniel. (Keep in mind that likely none of the students had indoor plumbing in 1912 and hence this practice was normal to the students.
Heating of the school was from cast iron stoves that the older boys had been assigned the responsibility of keeping cord wood in each of them. The boys were given two week shifts after which two new boys took on the shared tasks. On occasions getting the lightwood to start the fire was gathered by searching around the school. (Were they limited to which side of the road to gather the lightwood?)
From Daniel’s book, his readers have a picture of what physical education or recess was like in the early school. The games he recalled were playing marbles, leap frog, baseball, and “pop the whip”. All boys carried a bag of marbles. The game consisted of drawing a circle with the diameter of three to four feet and each student who wanted to play put so many marbles in the middle of the circle. Each player had a big marble referred to as the “shooter” that was used for shooting from the circumference of the circle trying to knock the marbles out of the circle. Any which were knocked out, the student got to keep. The player continued shooting until he did not knock any out. The marbles in one student’s bag one day could end up in another student’s bag on another day.
Baseball was enjoyed by students because it could be played before and after school. The balls were usually homemade from an unraveled old wool sock. The wool thread was wrapped around a small rock and then a needle and thread were used to sew it all around to keep it from unraveling. The bat was a large stick that was larger at one end. Large rocks were used for the bases. Wow—was life really that uncomplicated in the very early 1900’s?
Read future columns to discover more happenings in Coats and elsewhere at the time that Daniel was growing up in the “Old Hotel”.
Please be mindful that this column was published in the Daily Record in 2011.