Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection.
DATA ON SCHOOL TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS ATTENDED BY
ELEANOR C. W. JARVIS
First page, second page is missing...
In January 1862 I attended school two weeks in a large tent belonging to
Brother Asa Calkins, taught by Jabez Woodward, on the old campground. The
school was discontinued when the big flood came and the tent was taken down
to Tonaquint for the people to take shelter in whose homes had been flooded.
It was pitched at the point of the black ridge above the flood line. After
we moved onto the townsite, Sister Orpha Everett opened a school in her tent,
which I attended. After the willow schoolhouse was built in the First Ward
she taught there and later when the adobe building was built on the same
location, she taught in it both of which I attended. Those are the first
school buildings erected in St. George, and dances and meetings were often
held in the adobe one. The fourth was ready for occupancy the winter of 1870,
the first term beginning in the fall of '69 being held in the basement of
the social hall (now Foster's Store.) The winter of '65 I attended James
G. Bleak's school, Miss Sarah Clark assisted him, in the basement of the
social hall. Brother Black had conducted a school the previous winter in
a room of Brother Jesse Crosby's home. Brother Burgen taught that winter
in the First Ward. In the winter of '66 and '67 Geo. Spencer taught in the
Social Hall which I attended. I think Brother Samuel Miles taught in the
First Ward that winter but am not positive. In the winter of '67 and '68
Brother Samuel Miles taught in the First Ward which I attended and assisted
him by teaching some of the A.B.C. class to pay for my tuition. Will say
that there were many classes in these early schools owing to the fact that
text books were hard to obtain. And the pupils took with them any kind that
they could procure, often some that their parents or elder brothers and sisters
had used in schools before moving to the Dixie country. Consequently many
classes had only two, or three or four up to a dozen or two, according to
what kind of books they had. The McGuffey and Wilson readers were the most
frequent. Then in Sister Everett's school we had one class in the Book of
Mormon, the Wilson and Blue Back (or elementary) spellers and various kinds
of arithmetics, geographies (the Olney being one) and grammars were in use.
For quite a number of years I used an arithmetic, geography, and grammar
that my father had used while attending school in Massachusetts before the
year 1845 when he was a boy. And as they were the only ones of that kind
in the schools I was obliged to recite alone if I recited at all, which I
sometimes did after the school was dismissed, if the teacher had not time
during school hours. In the winter of '68 and '69 I attended school in the
Social Hall again, taught by Guglielmo Sangiovanni, commonly called Sanjo,
a half-brother of Brother Horatio Pickett. I assisted him by teaching a small
class in reading and spelling forenoon and afternoon in payment for my own
Page Missing from book.
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection.
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