It was quite a shock to find out we were living in Robbinsdale, and not in Minneapolis, in the house behind the Victory Flagpole. After all, the flagpole property had once been in Robbinsdale and was now Minneapolis. It somehow majestically changed when Albert Nordby sold part of his farm to the Park Board. And every one of our five different addresses in that house was a Minneapolis address!
The thing that made the most difference in our location was that of the school situation. Being as how we thought we were in Minneapolis, we started school at Loring. My sister started a year before me so she was there twice as long. I just went there for kindergarten. The school board somehow discovered the discrepancy and had us shoveled off to the country school, even though we were only three blocks from Loring and could walk it easily.
But somehow, things turned out OK, as we could take the school bus to Twin Lake School, Dist. 25, which was in Brooklyn Center. Every morning we had to be at the bus stop, which was at the Nordby driveway on Lake Drive. We only had to scoot across the flagpole property to get there. The bus went south down the Drive, wound around Sanborn Terrace by Crystal Lake, back to Lake Drive and west up to France Ave. From there it picked up kids who lived close to Twin Lake then straight east to school. It traveled the same route for eight years.
It was a wonderful little school! The classes were small - about eight kids per class and you really got to know your classmates, spending eight years together. As you went in the front door of the school there were steps that went up to the four classrooms and steps that went down to the auditorium, where we ate. Also, the kitchen and lavatories were downstairs. Each of the classrooms had multiple classes. There were three teachers. Miss Adams taught 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Miss Homman taught 4th, 5th and 6th and Mrs. Brown, the principal, taught 7th and 8th grades.
The fourth room was for manual training for the boys, where they made all kinds of things out of wood. I remember one time someone wrote a bad word on a birdhouse, and we were grilled for hours, but no one confessed. Mrs. Houchins was the cook, and she made wonderful hot meals for lunchtime. She also cooked tons of beans for the annual Bean Feed which went along with a Bunco Party. Every year they had an accordion player by the name of Bennihof to entertain the crowd.
There were a lot of extra-curricular activities going on at country schools in those days. Once a year there was a “play day” where we were bussed to other country schools, like Earle Brown and Lincoln, to compete in various games. There was a yearly field trip by bus to places like Como Park in St. Paul. Instructors were sent to teach us special skills like tap-dancing, acting, sewing, puppetry and barn dancing (Virginia Reel.) Of course, at recess the main sport was baseball, which we played every day. All year long we made things to send to the Minnesota State Fair, in hopes of winning a blue ribbon. The best thing about country schools was the one-on-one attention we got from the teachers, because of the small classes.
There is one mysterious thing I have never heard talked about since I left that school. One summer day some bricks were removed from one corner of the building – I think it was the southwest corner. All of us were instructed to write a note to put in a box, as a time capsule. They said it would be found when the building was torn down in 50 years or so. The building is still there, so the time capsule remains, and I will probably not be around to find out what was written and put in that box. So future generations please note: Be sure to check the corners of that country school and see just what we put in there!