David Solberg: My first school teacher at the Albertville School
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(Editor’s note: David Solberg grew up in the Albertville area. While his recollections of his first day of school and his first teacher are not related to Christmas, Gladys Jenson Berg recalls in her story that her teacher, Mrs. Benson, promised to help her learn to speak English because Gladys only spoke Norwegian at home before she started school.)
By David Solberg
COLFAX — My first day of school was the last Monday of August, 1944, at the Albertville School, located in a small village of about 30 people just a mile and a quarter walk from home.
Identified as Joint District #10, Chippewa County, State of Wisconsin, the school was a typical white, one room structure located at the edge of the small community.
The building had two halls at the front, the half on the right for the girls to enter, and the other one for the boys. Strict rules were enforced, no boys in the girls’ cloak room and no girls in the boys’.
Grades one through eight were taught there with about 35 students and one teacher. The first grade class that beautiful late August day was only three of us, two girls and me.
Upon arriving home with my older brother, a third grader, we were greeted by our mother.
Her first question was how school had been for me that first day.
“Fine, I guess,” was probably my response.
Then Mom asked, “Who is your teacher?”
I replied, “Her name is Mrs. Benson.”
To my surprise, Mom said, “She was my teacher, too.”
A few days later my grandparents came for a visit and were at our house when we arrived home.
They immediately asked how school was going that first week.
Then my grandma asked, “Who is your teacher?”
“Her name is Mrs. Benson,” I told my grandparents.
To my amazement, Grandma said, “David, she was my teacher, too.”
And Grandpa shocked me by adding immediately, “And she’s my older sister.”
I wondered how that could even be possible, Mrs. Benson teaching my grandmother, my mother and now me.
Upon finishing secondary school, Mrs. Benson attended a two-year Normal school teacher-training program and was teaching in the common school at just 18 years of age.
My grandma was in the eighth grade that year Mrs. Benson started teaching school. Grandma was 15 years of age as she had waited a year to start her schooling in order for a younger brother to accompany her. There was no secondary education for Grandma, and five years later, she and Grandpa were married.
I learned that Mrs. Benson had been teaching some 16 or 17 years when Mom started in that school at six years of age.
About two and a half decades later, Mrs. Benson had moved on to the Albertville school where I was a first grader.
Imagine that, a teacher teaching the third generation of the family!
When our granddaughter Sarah, now a high school sophomore, entered first grade, I asked her about her teacher and the school.
She said little about the school but told me all about her teacher.
Then I told her the story of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Benson, who also taught my mother, my grandmothers and was my grandfather’s older sister.
With amazement, Sarah proclaimed, “Wow, she must have been really old when she taught you in the first grade!”
My great aunt, Mrs. Benson, was fortunate that my great-grandfather insisted his daughters get an education. Mrs. Benson and three sisters earned a secondary education and then went to a Normal school teaching-training program offered in the county.
Normal schools were established chiefly to train elementary-school teachers for the common schools comprised of eight grades.
She was to teach into her 70s, a career of over 50 years, as was the case with two of her three sisters.