First Day at Venice Elementary School

by Sandy Penny (Formerly Sandra DuBoise)
I was seven years old when we moved to the Venice Homes government housing project from Granite City, Illinois. The house we had lived in was condemned, torn down and turned into a parking lot. In that house, I had to share a room with all my sisters, but at our new apartment, I only had to share with my sister, Patty. I felt like it was a mansion. And we had a playground with monkey bars, swings and a merry-go-round. I missed living across the street from the church we attended, Mt. Zion General Baptist, where I would go to Wednesday night potluck and have a feast. And I didn’t know if I’d still be able to go to Sunday School, which I loved. And I lived across the street from my first elementary school, where my brother was a patrol boy, and I had proudly crossed the street with his protection. I would miss those things at our new home, but I was always up for a move.
School was about to begin in the fall, and I was excited but a little bit afraid as well. My family had my two brothers go to school the first day and see what it was like. They didn’t know if it was a rough neighborhood, and they wanted to be sure I was going to be safe before letting me go. My brothers, Bob, four years older, and Curt, two years older, gave their stamp of approval, and I was allowed to go a couple of days later. All that fear seems so odd to me now. I wonder what they would have done if it had been a dangerous place.
We lived about 10 blocks from the school, and I walked with my brothers in the morning, but in the afternoon, they got out later than I did. That seems strange to me now, but it was the case at the time. Since I was new to town, and the distance to my house was just short of the bus route, the teacher felt that I needed someone to walk me home for a few days until I was confident of finding my way. Billy Crump, who also lived in the “Homes” was assigned that task. He seemed amenable to it, and was polite to the teacher. Ms. Ulfers was our teacher, and she was aptly nicknamed Ms. Ulcers. She was tense and controlling and would walk along the lines of children yelling, “Get back in line and stand up straight.” I was not used to that tone of voice, so I was scared out of my wits and did exactly as she said.
That first day at school, I felt very grown up as I thought about walking home, and I couldn’t get lost because the teacher told Billy Crump to show me the way. He lived in the Venice Homes, like me. As soon as we got off the school grounds, however, Billy took off running, turning around to laugh and point at me, then run off faster than I could go. I was shocked that he would disobey Ms. Ulfers like that, but I was mad too. I had never really known any boys except my brothers, and they would never have done that, well, not to me, anyway. I felt like crying, but I was so mad, I wouldn’t allow myself to act like a baby. I remember saying as I stomped along, “I don’t need no stupid boy to show me the way home. I can find it on my own.” And I did, I retraced in my mind the way my brothers and I had walked that morning, and I arrived safely at home, proud of myself for being so grown up. That day began a lack of trust for boys though, and I’m not sure if that was a good or bad thing in those days, but later in life, my extreme independence has haunted my relationships. Funny how one event like that can affect your whole life.
My mother was not too happy when I told her what happened, but now she was confident that I could get home without my brothers. Besides, there were lots of other kids walking home at the same time. All I had to do was stick with them, even if I didn’t know them yet, and I’d be safe. Life was simpler then, safer, more trusting, except of course, for me and Billy Crump.  

Love Comes Late

Love Comes Late

by Sandy Penny 2-10-2014

Clarabell Rynearson had always been a school teacher. Even as a child, she loved to learn and teach others. She also loved the children she taught in the poor midwestern town of Venice, Illinois, located on the banks of the Mississippi River directly across from the famous St. Louis Arch. She watched the Arch being built and thought the money could have been better spent to improve the lives of those who languished in the shadow of it. But that was not her decision, so she focused on her own life and left those decisions to the men in charge. It was 1961, and the men were definitely still in charge, although the women's movement was making headway. She secretly liked that and felt empowered by it, but she was too much a lady to ever speak it in public.

Miss Rynearson was built a bit like the nickname her students gave her, Miss Rhinoceros. She was short and stocky and plain. She didn't have much time to be glamorous. Her life was filled with responsibilities she never expected. Her mother had cancer, and everyone knew she was not going to live much longer, so Clarabelle took great care of her. She was kind, shopped and cooked for her, and had long since moved back into her mother's house to be there as needed. No one really knew the struggles she had, and she was not about to tell them. She was completely capable of handling them herself. She was a private person.

Although the kids in her classes respected and feared her somewhat, she had a sense of humor. Clarabell was the name of the clown on the Howdy Doody show, and of course, the kids had a field day making jokes about that. She headed them off at the pass, buying up Clarabell dolls, and giving one of them the place of honor displayed on a table beside her desk for all the kids to see. Each week the best speller got to keep the Clarabell doll for the weekend. It was amazing how no one ever harmed the Clarabell doll during their weekend stays, in hopes they would be the one to win it. At the end of the year, the top speller from the weekly spelling bees got to keep the doll. The next year, another one would magically appear in the class. It was a coveted award and a testament to her understanding of her students. No class was ever more motivated to learn their spelling words.

Years passed, and Miss Rynearson's mother died. We never knew how old our teacher was, and of course, we thought she was ancient, which she probably wasn't. But soon after her mother passed, a rumor started that Ms. Rynearson (we had become liberated and changed from Miss to Ms. by this time) had a boyfriend. No one knew who he was, and speculation ran rampant, but a secret was never better kept in Venice than this one.

One September, when school started after Labor Day, Ms. Rynearson announced that she was married now, and her name was no longer Rynearson. She had married the school janitor, which seemed a bit of a scandal as teachers and janitors were of a different class in those days, but that's not how she saw it. She was more open minded than most people. I never figured out how that romance began. Was she working late one day grading papers, and he came in to empty her trash cans, and they began to talk? Had she admired the way he polished the granite floors and made them shine day after day of little feet scuffing them up? She never said and left it to her students to gossip and speculate.

But one thing was sure, they stayed together for the rest of their lives. Love may have come late, but when it arrived, it decided to stay.