SRU Oral History
“SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY IN THE SIXTIES”
INTERVIEWEE: Mrs. Helen Beighley
INTERVIEWERS: Dr. Joseph Riggs and Leah M. Brown
05 AUGUST 1992
Sitting in on the interview is Mrs. Beighley’s daughter, Dr. Ruth Beighley.
Mrs. Helen Beighley is a graduate of the Class of 1922 at Slippery Rock
State Normal School. Her name was Helen Leola Cratty.
H BE = Helen Beighley
R BE = Ruth Beighley
LB = Leah Brown
R = Joseph Riggs
BR:

Why did you decide to Slippery Rock State Normal
School?

H BE:

I guess our old minister at the church, he came out to the
fields one day and talked to my dad about sending me here.

R BE:

Why did he have to talk to your Dad? What did Grandpa
think about girls going to school?

H BE:

Well, he listened to him, anyway.

R BE:

But before Reverend Warren talked, what was Grandpa’s
opinion of girls going to school after the country school?

H BE:

He didn’t talk much about it. We didn’t have a high school
then near where we were.

R BE:

Did he think it was necessary for girl to go on to college?

H BE:

Oh, yes, he did.

LB:

That was very progressive of him. Where did you live?

H BE:

This house in Franklin Township.

LB:

Right around here.

H BE:

RD 1. Toward Butler.

(2)
LB:

How old were you when you went to Slippery Rock
Normal School?

H BE:

I guess about 16. A cousin of mine went with me. We were
the same age. We always had been in the same grade. We
lived together in Dr. Barber’s home. They rented out rooms
to different students. I think they had eight when we were
there.

R:

Was he a teacher or a medical doctor?

H BE:

No. He worked for himself as a medical doctor in the
community.

LB:

So you lived with him when you went to college? When
you went to the Normal School?

H BE:

I lived in Dr. Barber’s home.

LB:

In Slippery Rock?

H BE:

In Slippery Rock. He had two daughters but they were both
high school teachers and away from home. Six other girls
lived there too.

LB:

So he had a dormitory in his home. Did you take your
meals with the Barbers too?

H BE:

We bought our own groceries and did our own cooking
ourselves.

R:

Out of his kitchen or was there another kitchen?

H BE:

No. She had a kitchen on purpose for the students.

R BE:

Where was it? Was it in the cellar?

H BE:

Yes. They had a pretty nice basement.

LB:

Still on getting started at Slippery Rock, you said that you
were at the country school, and so you didn’t go to a high
school? Was there not a high school?

H BE:

No. We went to the Normal School.

LB:

What grade would that have been? Eighth grade? Ninth
grade?

H BE:

We had eight grades.

(3)
LB:

And right after that you went up to the Normal School?

H BE:

Yes.

LB:

So was the Normal School like a college or like a high
school and a college?

H BE:

We were there two years at the Normal School, and then
the state changed everything around, and then it had a new
name.

LB:

So you spent two years there?

H BE:

Then I went summer terms, too, because with the little bit
of time, there wasn’t a chance to get in all that I needed. So
I took that in summer time, and then I was alright in the
end.

R BE:

I think it was a combination to me of high school and junior
college. Then they got a certificate or diploma. To me it
was like an equivalent of a junior college level with high
school, and then she went on and got extra.

H BE:

They didn’t have a high school.

LB:

So you went straight to Slippery Rock.

H BE:

Yes. That’s what everyone did then.

R BE:

She was only sixteen, not twelve.

H BE:

They started with high school subjects, too. I had every
course that Prospect High School has to offer now, and the
same number of hours. We went to school at 7:45 a.m. for
the first class, then got out at five o’clock.

LB:

Are you talking about Prospect school that did that or at
Slippery Rock when you went so early in the morning?
Which school was that?

H BE:

It never opened till nine here. We were always having
Class A at 7:45.

R BE:

You mean at Slippery Rock?

H BE:

Yes.

R:

And you took classes all day long?

(4)
H BE:

Yes. We never had a vacant period. I never did.

R:

Just lunch? You did get a lunch break?

H BE:

Oh, yes.

R BE:

Where did you eat?

H BE:

We hurried home or took your own dinner. We didn’t cook
because we couldn’t. We made our own sandwiches, and
fixed a drink and whatever we were having. We didn’t
always eat at the same time and the same food. Everybody
had their own, and we just divided up into groups and ate
together our own selves. It wasn’t assigned to us that way.

R:

Do you remember how long a class period was?

H BE:

Forty-five minutes at first.

R:

I see. So you had six or seven different teachers through
the day, and six or seven different classes?

H BE:

Yes.

R:

Do you recall what subjects? Was it math and science and
such?

H BE:

We started with algebra, and then we just had the plain
geometry, we didn’t have to take the solid geometry then.
They kept changing everything from year to year some.
They were teaching geometry and solid geometry before
we left.

R:

Was there program broken up into half years, semesters?

H BE:

They were working towards the program they have today.
They were planning for the program they have now. They
had planned for that gradually.

R BE:

Did you take algebra all year long or just one semester?

H BE:

I took algebra only once.

R BE:

One semester.

H BE:

There wasn’t any space in my semester.

LB:

What were some of the other classes that you had?

(5)
H BE:

The first year I had I remember now. I had never that about
that ever again. We always had English for one. I had
teaching of reading. We had all the history that they had
textbooks for. We had botany and we made our scrapbooks
for our plants. We had several pretty long hikes.

R:

Do you remember the teacher for that? Did you have Ruff
and Hamm?

H BE:

We had Ruff, I think. I had Dr. Ruff but he didn’t teach
that subject. Dr. Murphy was our history teacher always. I
didn’t have him in my second year when we started in with
college subjects. But we had every subject they had in high
school today, and now too. We had it all the way through.

R BE:

I think part of what they had at Hickory Corner, at the
country school, would be what we call freshman and
sophomore high school courses, maybe not algebra.
Because she didn’t go just eight years, she went longer than
eight years till she was sixteen. So, I think, they went on
with that.

R:

Post high school stuff.

R BE:

Post eighth grade at the country school.

H BE:

Dr. Eisenberg was against the program that we had, but he
was working as hard as he could do planning to have a
college there instead of what they had. So we had to do
away with a few of the classes that were high school
classes, and added some new ones that were really college
classes. Then till we got every subject that was necessary
to finish high school and college both. He didn’t like that
because he said as soon as he could get it all arranged, it
would just be college because there weren’t any more hours
in the day to have classes, and we couldn’t get it all
squeezed in. But he said it didn’t seem to hurt us that were
there too much anyway.

LB:

Working all that hard.

H BE:

We were working too much at night. We couldn’t study in
study hours. We didn’t have any.

(6)
LB:

Where there any of those teachers that you liked very
much?

H BE:

Yes. They were the ones that had been there since the
beginning. The only one I missed was Dr. McClymonds, I
think. His daughter taught art there at school. Dr. Hamm
was our physics teacher. We had four or five classes under
him. Dr. Hamm was German. His wife, Mrs. Hamm,
taught kindergarten there at the college, and they had been
in Germany a good while. They had one daughter, but she
was dead. She had graduated from Slippery Rock. He was
very, very strict. Nobody turned their heads sideways. No
one spoke. He said the first day, I don’t care if you study
your lesson in three or four hours or if you just study for
fifteen minutes, just so you get it.

R:

That’s good.

R BE:

How did he want his name pronounced?

H BE:

We always called him Professor Hamm (ham) or Doctor
Hamm, because he had his doctorate degree. But he always
said Hamm (hahm), for that was the German.

R:

Were other teachers as strict as he was?

H BE:

No. He had the name for being the most strict for about
fifty years.

R:

Were you allowed to ask questions of him?

H BE:

When he gave us an opportunity. He wanted you to have a
pretty good purpose behind your questions.

LB:

No dumb questions.

R:

What did Professor Ruff teach?

H BE:

He taught geography. It was not quite the same depth of
study for that.

R BE:

What did Dr. Eisenberg teach?

H BE:

He never taught a regular class. He subbed for most
anyone that was absent.

LB:

So he could teach anything?

(7)
H BE:

I think so. All that we had.

R:

Was he an interesting person?

H BE:

Yes. He was very strict. There were very few jokes told
by him. But he knew every student’s name, first and last
names, when he wanted to speak with them. He knew
where they lived, and where they made their home during
school. He knew where they were. He had a record of that.
He went around and checked on all of the mothers to see if
any of us had made them any trouble. So we didn’t make
much trouble. The lessons we had, and to get ready at
night, was enough. We didn’t have too much time to get
into trouble.

R:

How did you dress?

H BE:

We dressed pretty plain.

R:

But you didn’t wear uniforms?

H BE:

We did have to wear a uniform for gym, but we couldn’t go
home and change uniforms so when we had gym class we
had to go to school at 7:45 a.m. with our gym clothes on.
There wasn’t any way to change.

R:

Did you wear those until lunch time?

H BE:

Yes. Until our classes were over.

LB:

What did your gym clothes look like?

H BE:

We had white middies and had to have black ties, no matter
what. It had to be black, and the bloomers were black.
Heavy cotton.

LB:

To below your knees?

H BE:

Yes. They had elastic in the top and were pretty full.

LB:

And then socks or stockings under that?

H BE:

Mostly stockings. They didn’t wear socks then. You
changed over at lunch time.

LB:

So you had to make your clothes or buy them?

H BE:

My mother and I together made most of them. We always
made them always anyway.

(8)
LB:

Did you have to do your own laundry?

H BE:

Yes. Every Saturday.

LB:

Did you come home on the weekends?

H BE:

No. We had twelve miles. There wasn’t any way of
getting back and forth except in your touring car that
belonged to your family. The farmers had too much to do
to come and get you. They couldn’t transport their boy or
girl. They were too busy at home.

R:

And the roads were bad in the wintertime.

H BE:

It sure was. A lot of snow and deep in mud, too. We didn’t
have very many paved roads then. Route 8 was paved to
Butler.

R:

So you didn’t see your parents for a month or two at a
time?

H BE:

Oh, no. I went home about once between September and
Christmas. We had a full schedule. It took you studying
all the time.

R:

On weekends you had free time then? Saturday and
Sunday?

H BE:

Well, it was demanded of us to do the church and Sunday
School both.

LB:

Up there at the college?

H BE:

Yes, but we could go to the church of our choice that we
chose to go to from there. It was the only place to go
because nobody had a car to go anyplace. And you
probably had to go to Slippery Rock to church where they
could walk.

R:

How did they know you had gone to church?

H BE:

We had to fill in blanks on the registration sheet at the
church we attended, and they always demanded that all the
Protestants that they had to be there and at Bible school on
Sunday afternoon. Great big Bible school that we had here
up at the chapel. It was taught by Dr. Hamm.

R:

Did you have dances?

(9)
H BE:

Yes. A couple of times we had a little bit of like a formal
dance or party. It was just for playing waltzes. Like they
had in the first place in the south.

LB:

Were there mostly women or girls in your class?

H BE:

More, yes. Twice as many girls as boys.

LB:

So when you had these dances did they bring in extra boys?

H BE:

No. Well, I’d suppose half the couples on the floor would
be both girls. That was the only way they could do it.

R:

The tallest girl got to lead then.

H BE:

Yes.

R BE:

Was there anyone who didn’t have to go to chapel?

H BE:

No. Everybody had to go to chapel they all would make
announcements for every day was told by the president.

R BE:

On Sunday afternoons who didn’t have to go?

H BE:

No. I had to go to Bible school on Sunday afternoon. It
was called a Bible class. It was mighty good. That
building was full.

R BE:

But the Catholics didn’t have to go?

H BE:

No. The Catholics didn’t have to go. They didn’t have to
go to the local church on Sunday morning. That wasn’t
their church home there. They weren’t forced to go to the
Protestant church. But there weren’t many Catholics.

R:

Did people skip classes or church from time to time?

H BE:

Yes. There were all sorts of punishments. To begin with
you got a lecture from the president. It was a personal
lecture. They got it face to face in the office.

LB:

After the lecture you, you didn’t skip anymore?

H BE:

No. You better not if you were concerned about your
grades. All the services in the churches. We were all free
to go if we wished. We were expected to go unless you
were Catholic and your parents didn’t want you to go, then
you didn’t have to go. But they built a Catholic church in

(10)
H BE:

Slippery Rock. So they had one Catholic church then.
After that I think they all went.

R:

Did the college just have one building?

H BE:

No. There was a gymnasium and a chapel and Old Main.
The elementary school. That is where we did our practice
teaching. Then we had to teach about four months. Half
days because we had classes during the other times. The
rest of the time was full too.

LB:

I wanted to go back for a minute. We talked about gym
class and the bloomers and the uniform. Did you play any
sports like basketball or volleyball?

H BE:

Yes. We got that in. And climb rope. We could climb the
rope up to the second floor. That was kind of strenuous. I
could climb the rope. The city folks didn’t have the
muscles.

R:

The rope had knots tied in it.

H BE:

No. You had to grip on tight and it held your weight. You
held on with one hand while you changed.

LB:

Were there teams? Were you on any basketball team or a
volleyball team?

H BE:

I didn’t play basketball much because of my program. The
classes I had didn’t permit me to play on a team. But I
played any chance I had.

R BE:

What did they call you? You were a backup team, weren’t
you?

H BE:

I got on a scrub team before that. When they played a real
good game and if our school was way ahead with points
then on the last quarter they took off the good team and put
us scrubs on for the last quarter. Then we were so far
ahead anyways that it wasn’t very hard to make it.

R:

Did they play against other schools?

H BE:

Yes.

R BE:

Are you in this picture? The Bible class picture?

(11)
H BE:

Well, I ought to be. That’s not me. I guess I’m not there. I
don’t know why.
We had two literary societies. We had a program every
Friday night.

R:

Did you do debates and lectures?

H BE:

Debates and readings. Now there is a picture of one of the
events of the Philomathean Literary Society.

R BE:

That was a big group.

H BE:

Then we had another one, and this was Bryant. I was a
Bryant.

R:

Did everyone participate in the readings and the debates?

H BE:

They didn’t have to belong to the literary society, but most
everybody did, cause it was pretty good sometimes. That’s
were we would go on Friday nights.

R:

Do you remember any of the topics of debate or special
things that you talked about? The war or peace or
international happenings?

H BE:

Sometimes it was just a long poem. A really good one.
Something like Thanatopsis.

R BE:

Hiawatha?

End of side A, tape 1
H BE:

Yes.

R:

Did you have special friends? Can you remember some of
them?

H BE:

Yes. We usually kept to our own bunch. We were either
sophomores or freshmen.

R:

You had a roommate?

H BE:

Yes. She was my cousin.

R BE:

What was her name?

H BE:

Viletta Stamm. Her dad was an old school teacher. Her
mother was my dad’s sister. We didn’t live very far apart.

(12)
R:

You grew up with her?

H BE:

I saw her every week at church, a couple of times, but we
didn’t see her any other time. We were always together
when we had any chance or reason to be together.

R:

Were there outstanding students in the class? Were some
students recognized more than others?

H BE:

Yes. We had just a few who were honor students.

R:

How large were the classes?

H BE:

At graduation I think there were 167.

R:

But in a classroom, how many would you have?

H BE:

We didn’t have any more than 60 seats. There were some
that didn’t have quite that many. There were 50 plus some.

LB:

You mentioned your cousin, Viletta, and were there other
girls that you were especially friendly with? Do you
remember any of those?

H BE:

A Thompson girl that I was always with, but we were
raised together, former neighbors. We met there right after
sixteen or twenty years. We had been separated that long.

LB:

Ruth said that you had a friend, Clara Sankey? Was she a
special friend?

H BE:

Yes. We roomed in the same house. If we went any place,
whoever lived there went together mostly.

R:

Did you buy groceries and things in the town?

H BE:

Yes, but then we had things from home, too, because we
were all farmers.

R BE:

What were some of the things that you brought from home?

H BE:

I didn’t bring any milk. I never used very much.

Tape 1 Side B
R BE:

You don’t like milk, but what else did you bring? Did you
bring homemade bread?

H BE:

We did when we went home during vacation time, but not
for a short stay.

(13)
R BE:

Did you bring canned stuff like peaches?

H BE:

Yes. Canned peaches. I don’t remember everything but we
always had peaches though. If they had a kind of fruit that
would keep a while, like apples are the best, well than we
brought lots of apples because we had real good ones at
home.

R BE:

What else did you bring? Pies, cakes, cookies?

H BE:

More cookies because they could survive better, and they
keep longer.

R BE:

Did you have a refrigerator?

H BE:

No. But we had a special room where there wasn’t any
heat.

R:

Sort of a root cellar?

H BE:

Yes, exactly like a root cellar. This was all cemented.
We kept our fruit in this big room. There wasn’t any heat
in it.

R:

All eight of you ate together then in this house?

H BE:

No. Just how ever we divided it up ourselves.

R:

Did you have a dining room or did you eat in your rooms?

H BE:

We ate in the cellar, which was the kitchen, and it had a
table in it. We all ate at the same table. It was a pretty big
table.

R:

So you shared expenses with your cousin?

H BE:

Yes.

R BE:

Which of you brought the best food?

H BE:

Viletta and I were cousins and we always ate together, and
we always shared alike. She and I ate everything.

R BE:

Did you have more food to bring than she did?

H BE:

Well, some have things at home that others don’t have.
Not everybody had a big farm, and no one would buy
apples at home. Whatever apples we took from home we
picked from the trees at home ourselves. We got them free

(14)
H BE:

so we took as many as we could. We could always pass them on.

R BE:

Which one of you did the most cooking, you or Viletta?

H BE:

I did most of the cooking because she was taking music, piano.
She graduated in piano a year before we both graduated.

R:

Did they have a choir?

H BE:

No. I didn’t. But we had a choir.

R:

Did you bring potatoes?

H BE:

Oh, yes.

R:

Yes. Everyone had potatoes.

H BE:

We always had five dozen bushels or more at home.

LB:

That was a big farm.

H BE:

We would start selling potatoes in September and it would be
March before they were gone. Every week we went to Pittsburgh
with a big truckload. Like three days. We had to eat some.

R BE:

How did you get home in the wintertime?

H BE:

We had to come home in the sled a few times because the roads
weren’t plowed out.

R:

So by horse.

H BE:

The folks that lived in our area, my dad used to take his bobsled
and the horses and take us all.

R:

Could you say something about the town of Slippery Rock then?

H BE:

It had three churches. We didn’t have a Baptist church there. We
always went to the Presbyterian church there. It was about the best
we thought.

R BE:

How many stores?

H BE:

We just had two good grocery stores. There were some smaller
places, but when you went to get a week’s supply you went to
either one of the grocery stores to get it.

R BE:

What were their names?

(15)
H BE:

Bard’s was one, and Gibson’s.

R BE:

Did you have a kids’ store like a five and ten cent store?

H BE:

No. They had a little something like that along with the bookstore.

LB:

Tell us about Bard’s Grocery Store.

H BE:

Well, Bard’s and Gibson’s were the best grocery stores, but they
had hardware and ready-made clothing, and gadgets and things like
that. They had a big counter of yardage, too. I would usually get
thread or most any little thing you wanted.

LB:

Just like a department store?

H BE:

It was on the order of a department store, mainly groceries.

R:

How large was the town then? Did they have a thousand people or
much less?

H BE:

Oh, it was a little more than a thousand.

R:

Was there a doctor who took care of the students at the college?

H BE:

Yes. At the home we lived was the one doctor.

R:

You had your own doctor at the house.

H BE:

Yes. He had a nice little office at the house when the town had the
flu epidemic.

R:

In 1918. The United States had a flu epidemic, and it was here as
well?

H BE:

Yes, we had it way back in 1918.

R:

They lost a half million people in the country in 1918.

H BE:

We had it pretty good at home, but we were in this place and we
were well taken care of.

R BE:

Did you kind of make it into an infirmary or hospital?

H BE:

No. We were all down with the same thing so everybody was in
their own room where we were all the time.

LB:

What did he do for you? What kind of medicine or treatment did
he have?

H BE:

I can’t tell you what kind of medicine it was. It’s been such an
awful long time ago.

(16)
LB:

Just had to rest and stay in bed?

H BE:

Yes, until he said that you could get up.

R BE:

He never gave you a spoonful of whiskey and water?

H BE:

No.

R BE:

Your grandmother did. She was a teetotaler but she gave her a
spoonful of whiskey and water.

LB:

For medicinal purposes.

R:

Was there a fire department in Slippery Rock?

H BE:

Yes. We had a pretty good fire department. We had one
dormitory burn down in my day. A girls dormitory burned. I
don’t know what was the cause. The fire came from the kitchen.

R:

So there were lots of live-in students who lived on the campus?

H BE:

Yes. No one had to go home, but they made themselves temporary
places for classes, and for food. You could buy a meal then.

R BE:

Did you buy a meal at the dorm?

H BE:

No.

LB:

When you lived with the doctor, was that nicer or cheaper than
living in the dorms? What was the reason that you stayed with
him?

R BE:

It was cheaper than living in the dorm?

H BE:

Oh, my yes. It cost a lot of money to live in the dorm.

R BE:

How much cheaper?

H BE:

I don’t remember that.

R BE:

What was this picture about?

H BE:

We had class of school gardening. That was about the funniest
class. I had seven rows, I think, that were pretty long like from
here to the road. You pulled the weeds by hand. I had little onions
and tomatoes and other things.

R:

You mean a whole class put in a garden. And who got the
groceries?

(17)
H BE:

Yes. Two rows or something like that, and they used them in the
dining room. They had a lot of chickens. Way back over the hill,
they had a great big, monstrous chicken house, and they would fry
eggs for everybody in the dormitory for breakfast with our own
eggs.

R:

The college owned chicken houses?

H BE:

Yes, and they had 50 sheep. They didn’t use that meat, though, but
they sold the wool.

R:

Did they have cows as well?

H BE:

No.

R BE:

No hogs?

H BE:

No other meat.

R:

So their milk came from local dairies?

H BE:

It came from a big dairy farm.

LB:

So you tended the garden? You had to work in the garden.

H BE:

I had to do my own rows myself.

LB:

But you didn’t get those onions.

H BE:

No. They used them in the dorms.

LB:

That’s too bad.

H BE:

I had to crawl along on my knees to tend those little wee plants,
and stoop down, and sometimes it was more comfortable to drag
your knees along to see if those weeds were all out, and I had a
big, fat, young fellow about 20, I suppose. Studebaker was his last
name. He had onions beside me. The next two rows, and
sometimes we worked together with both of us crawling around on
our knees working in our own rows. But we talked all the time we
were pulling weeds. He lived on a farm, too.

R:

How did they grade you for your course in gardening? Did you get
A, B, C?

H BE:

I don’t know. We just kept the weeds out.

R:

Do you remember your grades?

H BE:

No. I haven’t thought about that for years.

(18)
R:

But they gave A, B, C, is that how it worked?

H BE:

I guess.

R:

You got a report card?

H BE:

Yes, it was on the report card. But they would fry eggs for
breakfast. That would be a total of about 500. Now to fry eggs for
50 people would be awful, but to fry them for 500 would be a bit
of a chore. Because the first ones to get on would be cooked long
before the rest were hardly started.

R BE:

Did you eat in shifts or did you eat all at one time?

H BE:

No. They ate all at one time.

R:

Did students prepare and serve the meals?

H BE:

Yes, but they got credit for their tuition.

R:

Yes. So there were student workers then.

H BE:

Yes and they got their meal. One boy there just fed the sheep.
That’s all he did. He worked his way through college, paying his
college expenses himself. The ones who worked here in the hen
house, too, they got free lodging and meals. I couldn’t break 20
eggs at one time and have them all turn out all right.

R:

Had some of the men who were going to school there, had they
already been to the war?

Tape 1 Side B
H BE:

No, but there were a lot of them who went to war. A whole lot of
the student body. They took them.

R:

After they graduated?

H BE:

No. They hadn’t graduated yet. See that World War was on.

R:

Oh, they drafted them out of the college?

H BE:

Yes.

R:

Or they volunteered.

H BE:

Oh, they did one or the other. They were to come back then when
they got to it.

R:

Were people kicked out of school for not behaving sometimes?

(19)
H BE:

There were two or three.

R:

Very small numbers.

H BE:

They were really punished pretty hard right there.

R BE:

What were they kicked out for?

H BE:

For skipping classes. A couple of them would get homesick. They
just started to go home.

R:

Was there much of a failure rate at the end of the year? Did a lot
of the students not come back?

H BE:

No.

R:

There wasn’t a high school in Slippery Rock at the time, only the
Normal?

H BE:

Well, they had a big grade school on the campus, and you would
see all of the Slippery Rock population. It was a pretty big town.
They sent their children to the same school. So these little school
kids, even the kindergarten kids, went to classes on the same
property.

R:

What was your practice teaching like? It was about a half a day?

H BE:

One practice teacher had writing, another had geography classes
that she looked after, another teacher mathematics and something
like that, and reading. They couldn’t read all that work that they
had handed in.

R:

What did you teach?

H BE:

I had fourth grade mostly.

R:

All subjects in the fourth grade?

H BE:

Yes. We had to go to class then when we had our other work
down at the grade school.

R:

So you were in front of the class just like a regular teacher?

H BE:

Yes. Just the same, but maybe she came in during the day, and lots
of days I didn’t see her.

R:

So supervision was not real close?

(20)
H BE:

No, not real close, but then we didn’t have much trouble with them
either. There were too many people around. The janitors, two of
them, and too many to see.

R:

So you didn’t have behavior problems in class?

H BE:

No. Not in fourth grade. I had some pretty nice boys.

LB:

Mrs. Beighley, when you finished at Slippery Rock, did you feel
you were ready to be a teacher or were you a little worried about
it?

H BE:

No. I thought I was good. Maybe I had a little too good opinion of
myself, I don’t know.

LB:

But they gave you a good education?

H BE:

Pretty good. Yes. When I started to teach I was in a rural school.
I had the first four years, and I that type of a school so liked that
part of it, that you had to teach different grades at once. Three or
four anyway. Now there I only had fourth grade.

LB:

When you were a student practice teaching was fourth grade, but
when you got your job you were teaching several grades.

H BE:

All eight.

LB:

All eight in one school.

R BE:

Did you combine some subjects like art?

H BE:

The County Superintendent made the schedule and there were
some subjects combined, the lesser important ones.

LB:

Where was the school where you were teaching all eight grades?

H BE:

I taught in Franklin Township about eight years, and I taught in
Butler, it’s a big place, where I taught in the fourth and sixth
grades of a great big school. Why we had about 1600 in Lyndora
school. That’s where they had the big steel mills and people like
that lived. It is very densely populated.

R BE:

But what subject did you teach?

H BE:

I had every subject.

R BE:

Didn’t you teach fifth grade math and geography? You taught
geography at Lyndora, and didn’t you teach math at Lyndora?

(21)
H BE:

Yes. I taught math all the time down there.

R BE:

Can you tell the story of Dr. Connell, when he came in and asked
some boy about fractions and pi?

H BE:

I forgot that. I don’t know that now.

R BE:

He asked him if he wanted a fifth of a lemon pie…

H BE:

Oh, yes, I remember that now. There was the superintendent came
to visit in my class. He asked one of my boys a bunch of questions
in arithmetic about fractions like a fourth and two-fourths and a
third. He had to have the least common denominator. So he asked
him about if he would rather have a fifth of a piece of pumpkin pie
or would you rather have four-fifths, or something, or seveneighths, maybe. Would you rather have that size of a piece of pie
or another one? He said that he didn’t like that kind of pie. I don’t
like pumpkin pie. Apple pie was his favorite.

R:

Were boys and girls allowed to go out together at the school, at
Slippery Rock?

H BE:

They would have to be at home, and go out from their parents’
home.

R:

So there was no dating or courting going on at the college?

H BE:

No. Just walking across campus together in the daylight wasn’t
very…

R BE:

Did you have to have a chaperone?

H BE:

Yes. We were chaperoned pretty close.

R:

Were there a lot of tricksters and pranks being played on people?
Jokes?

H BE:

Not too many. A few. The ones who should not have had any
jokes played on them, they couldn’t take it, were the ones who got
the most of it. Most everybody shook off any jokes and didn’t
think about it very long.

R:

Did you have a curfew? A time when everyone had to be in?

H BE:

Yes. Nine o’clock.

R:

Even if it wasn’t dark?

(22)
H BE:

Some of them had good grades and they would get lesser time to
study, but if you weren’t hardly up to it then you got more hours to
spend on it.

R BE:

What subject were you the best in? What were you famous for?
What was your best subject?

H BE:

Writing, I guess. That’s what I always got credit for.

R:

Did you have any of the things you wrote?

H BE:

No.

R BE:

Handwriting. Penmanship. That was a big, big thing, and she was
famous all over Butler county. She had a reputation for having the
best penmanship with Dr. Connell.

R:

Penmanship. So her stuff was exhibited, I gather.

H BE:

Our superintendent, Dr. Connell, used to make me so many visits.
When he had someone in his office in Butler, some people from
Pennsylvania that had something to do with teaching or hiring
teachers, he used to take them in his car and he would always come
to my school to show them what I had up on my blackboard. They
came just on purpose to see my blackboards.

R BE:

He was still living my first year of teaching, and I was scared to
death that he was going to come visit me, and compare me with my
mother.

End of Tape 1, Side B
H BE:

Whoever was superintendent in Harrisburg had to look after the
kind of writing we used. He had a little copy book we used. They
wanted to see all the letters formed alike. That was a job.

R BE:

What was the name of this system? Palmer?

H BE:

Palmer system. So they usually asked me where I learned my
writing. I learned that at Slippery Rock College. I had just a
certain way of making it, and they asked me how I stuck to it.
Well, there was one other teacher, too, that was always doing it
with me in class, and she had her diploma on the type of writing,
on that system. We got a diploma on that one system if we earned
it. You didn’t have to have it.

(23)
R:

Did you keep on going to school after you started teaching? Did
you go to school in the summers?

H BE:

No. I didn’t go back to summer school in the summers. Yes, I
quit.

R BE:

You took in-service training.

H BE:

Yes.

R:

Were those summer courses?

R BE:

You didn’t go to school any summers?

H BE:

I did around my first. Three summers I went. See, I wanted to get
a few extra subjects that would make up for high school. Subjects
that I really lost because I didn’t get to squeeze it in. So I took
summer school and filled it up with subjects that I had lost. You
couldn’t have two classes at the same time.

R BE:

She took one course in art, I remember. She made a table cloth.
Kind of a screen printing. She had to make her own pattern, and
her own stencil. I have this table cloth. Then they made them take
in-service in modern math, and things like that to bring them up to
date.

R:

How is the last name spelled? Beighley?

H BE:

B E I G H L E Y. See, that’s German. I wasn’t from a German
family at home.

LB:

How long did you teach, Mrs. Beighley? You taught at the country
school, the one room school for a while.

H BE:

I did it most. It wound up I had the last 15 years in a big school in
Butler where there were 1600 kids enrolled. They would have
three or four rooms of each grade. Fifth grade A class, fifth grade
B class.

R BE:

That was Lyndora?

H BE:

Yes.

R BE:

See, she taught ten years before she got married. Two years in
Mount Chestnut and two years in McCandless School. Didn’t you
have 60 people at one time?

(24)
H BE:

Oh, yes, at the McCandless School I had 60 kids in one classroom,
eight grades, all subjects.

LB:

And you were by yourself? One teacher?

H BE:

Yes.

R BE: You had programs? Christmas programs, end of the year school picnics.
H BE:

The principal said we couldn’t do it so we ended it. He stopped
my programs, and he would give me so many days in one grade,
and some other time in another. Divided it up so it would be sort
of even.

R BE:

Then she went to Lyndora. How many years were you in
Lyndora?

H BE:

Six. I had three or four years of just first graders. They were
awful big rooms, about 60. That’s a raft of little kids.

R BE:

At Lyndora you taught subjects, not regular grades. Then what did
you do after Lyndora?

H BE:

Well, I was there a long time. I finished there. I do what I’m
doing now.

R BE:

She got married. Then when I was eight years old, she went back
to teaching and taught for 25 more years. She taught 10 years
before she got married. Then she was married for two years and
had me. Then when I was eight, then she went back to teaching
and then taught 25 years and put me through school. For a total of
thirty-five years.

LB:

Where did you go to college?

R BE:

Everywhere. I graduated from Bob Jones and I took summer work
at Slippery Rock. I got my master’s from Westminster. I got my
doctorate at ASU [Arizona State University]. Then I took a couple
of courses at Indiana State University in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

LB:

And you’re still taking classes now? You said you were going to
finish a course with Dr. Craig.

R BE:

I just want to finish it for self-satisfaction.

H BE:

We couldn’t handle one grade at that school. It was too big a
place. We had five rooms of fifth graders. There was no way of

(25)
H BE:

ever having an auditorium party that would squeeze all of that
bunch in.

R BE:

Then towards the end of your twenty-five years, you taught at a
country school, but you didn’t teach all eight grades. They shifted

R BE:

around so that she had third graders in one school and first graders
went to another school.

H BE:

We put the third and fourth grades together.

R BE:

First and second grade, and fifth and sixth, and seventh and eighth.
There were four teachers and they were all buddies.

LB:

What did you like to teach best? Which subjects or what kind of
students?

H BE:

Well, I don’t know if I liked it the best, but I got along with it the
best, teaching penmanship.

R:

All of the students at the Normal School were training to be
teachers? Everyone at Slippery Rock was training to be a teacher?

H BE:

Yes.

R:

Did they all get jobs when they graduated?

H BE:

Pretty much.

R:

There were lots of jobs around then.

H BE:

Yes. But there’s not now. They can’t get a job that easy. I just
started in my own home township. We lived there all our lives.
Four or five generations born there. Anyway, a long, long time.

R:

Was it easier for women to get teaching jobs than men?

H BE:

Yes, it was because a man couldn’t live on that. A single woman
could manage.

R BE:

How much did you make your first year?

H BE:

My first school check was $96 exactly. They called it a hundred.

R:

For the month?

H BE:

Yes. We joined the National Education Association [NEA]. My
dues were $4. So my first moth teaching at my first school, I got
docked $4 for the dues.

(26)
R BE:

How many months a year did you teach? The first year you didn’t
teach nine months.

H BE:

Eight months.

R BE:

And you said about women. What was your opinion if the woman
got married?

H BE:

Well, she was supposed to quit.

LB:

Why was that? Why did they think she should quit?

H BE:

Oh, it was just the notion of the school board people everywhere.

R:

It was part of the contract in many instances?

H BE:

Yes. It was.

R:

Because the minute you were married you were out of a job.

R BE:

Or else you got married secretly.

R:

That happened a lot, too, I gather.

R BE:

They lived with him only on weekends. What did the one
principal ask about one woman if she was married?

H BE:

It was kind of a funny joke. At a school directors’ meeting, the
school board, they were very critical of this one principal because
he didn’t report to them the names of the teachers that were
married. Then whoever had the meeting said to this young fellow,
he said, is Miss so-and-so married? Then why didn’t you report
that she was married now and some more people. He didn’t know,
of course. He said to them, what do you expect me to do. I just
look at their teeth and decide whether they are married or not?
That’s the way you do with a horse. You can tell how old a horse
is.

LB:

Could you live on $96 a month?

H BE:

Yes. I was living at home.

R BE:

She was rich.

H BE:

Yes. I had more money than I had ever had in my life. I had more
than I could spend.

R:

Did you buy a car?

H BE:

No. My dad didn’t allow me to.

(27)
R BE:

What did he allow you to do? He allowed you to drive his car?

H BE:

I got my driver’s license with him not knowing it. I drove some
cars around with different friends without any license and I got
things covered up and I took my test right and I got my driver’s
license. Then I surprised him by showing it to him.

R:

Where did you live when you were teaching at first? Did you
board out?

H BE:

I was about three miles out. I stayed at home.

R BE:

In bad weather what did you do?

H BE:

Well, I had to stay away from home all night. I stayed with folks I
knew pretty well. I paid for my room then and board.

R BE:

Tell about the supper you cooked. Tell them about the family that
invited you home for supper.

H BE:

You find funny people in this country. This family were mighty
good people. They were good, Christian people, but the mother
was good enough to her children, but she just couldn’t do anything.
Just about nothing. She couldn’t sew. She couldn’t cook. She
couldn’t keep house. She couldn’t do anything. I had some of the
family at school. So she invited my home one night after school.
So I went. I told one of the neighbor men there in Mount Chestnut.
I told him I’m going to Hoffman’s tomorrow night for supper. He
was about shocked about that. Well, I went with her kids and they
waited for me while I swept the schoolhouse and I went home with
them for supper. When I got there, I felt a little funny because she
hadn’t made one little move towards supper or getting supper
ready. I thought I’m not going to say much about any of this, and
they won’t find out from me what I had for supper. So after a
while the Mrs. said, well, I always have certain things that I do at
the barn every night. It’s my job to do at the barn, and I’m going
to be going out to the barn so the kids will be here in the house
here with you. Then we’ll get some supper when I come in. While
she was at the barn doing her work, the kids were all pretty good
chunks. The oldest boy was a pretty good size. I said, we might
do something, and here he went to the cellar and he brought out a
great big ham that had been cut two or three times. I said, you
bring the skillet over here and we’ll just cut off some more meat
and fry it. He went and got some potatoes and everything else and
I had them on the stove and cooked when she came in. We had the

(28)
H BE:

table set and the kids all helped me. I couldn’t have gone into a
strange house that way, but they were all working with me. So
when they came in, we had supper. We had meat and potatoes and
a vegetable, and a good many more things.

R BE:

Did you have canned fruit?

H BE:

Yes. It was kind of strange the things we put together to have
them at one meal. But it just about knocked her over when she
came in, and Mr. Hoffman was so tickled. He ate like a pig.

R BE:

Then what happened the next day when somebody asked you how
supper was?

H BE:

That man lived in the same town, but he never ate there or
anything. He asked me, well, how did you get along out at the
Hoffman’s last night. I said we had a good supper, and I had a
good time. But I didn’t tell him the details.

LB:

Did Mrs. Hoffman ask you to come back again?

H BE:

No, she never did.

LB:

I thought she would like to have all that good help.

H BE:

Well, I wouldn’t want to go into a strange house and just start
opening things up. I wouldn’t want to do that, but the oldest boy
he made the choices. He went around and brought them to me to
open.

R BE:

What about the policy about recess, that the teachers had to be
outside?

H BE:

Our principal demanded that we always stay. That we go out on
the school ground and play with the kids at the big school when I
had fifth grade. No difference how cold or snowing or what, we
had to go out. When he wasn’t there, his car was gone, you knew
he was gone. When he wasn’t there to see what was going on, the
teachers would put their coats on and they would go out and sort of
stand there in their little shelter or porch. They didn’t go out and
play when he wasn’t there. They just stood back where they could
see. He didn’t find out for a while or catch on about that either.
After a while he caught on. He was pretty cross at the teachers
about that. The old janitor, an old eighty-year-old man, he used
him to fish around to find things out. This old janitor, he was a
white-haired man. He was pretty well up in his years, and Mr.

(29)
H BE:

Bolivar, the principal, he says hey Arch, see he was down in the
boiler room. He asked, was Fleeger out in the playground? He
was just checking. Our old janitor says, ‘Don’t know. Didn’t see.
Wasn’t looking.’ I always think that it’s a pretty good thing
sometimes not to be looking. I often say, ‘Wasn’t looking”.

R BE:

Tell about the teachers’ party and the one game you played at a
teachers’ party.

H BE:

We had a first party in the fall, all the teachers and the principal, at
his home. So we always played pretty good games together. Not
card games. We wanted to play a game and somebody says, we’ll
just make up a game. We’re going to have a day of school. The
one boy was secretary in the office and he was supposed to be
green as grass and very inexperienced. They named him to be the
teacher in this class. Just in the game! We were all there. I
wondered what I would get into there but nothing happened to me,
but they picked this young fellow, his first year of teaching. They
didn’t deliberately pick him. They picked him out and asked him
to come up front and bring a book or a pencil and some paper and
teach a class, but don’t say a word. Not a word spoken by no one.
You were to teach the class, but you’re not to speak. You’re to do
it without any voice at all. So he had a slate with chalk. He took
his slate up and got ready to write something, and he said we have
to have opening exercises first thing in school. So he just sort of
bowed his head like we were having the opening part. Nobody
responded. We stood still. We acted like nobody understood what
he wanted. He wasn’t supposed to be. He took a slate that he had
there and he wrote it on the slate. Printed it on. He said, pray. He
was putting his head down, bowing his head, but he didn’t say
anything. Then there was no one else saying anything either so he
wrote on his slate, pray, darn you. Then he turned the slate around
real quick to tell us what we were supposed to do. That principal
laughed. That ended that game.

R:

All the teachers belonged to church then?

R BE:

Almost.

R:

There were exceptions?

R BE:

Not everybody belonged to a church, did they?

H BE:

As far as I knew of our teachers they all went to church.

(30)
R:

That was frequently a condition of contract.

H BE:

They all were pretty good church members. They had a lot of
respect for everything.

R BE:

No smoking.

R:

Could you smoke?

H BE:

No.

R:

No drinking?

H BE:

No swearing, no bad language, no indecent language, not anything
like that.

R:

Did you spank your students?

H BE:

Oh my, yes. We used a wooden paddle.

R:

A big wooden paddle? Not a ruler?

H BE:

No, not a ruler. We had a paddle given to us, same as our books.
If we paddled anyone, we had to write a written page telling what
happened, what the student did, and what you did, and turn it in at
the office at night. It would be a little bit of trouble. Nobody liked
to paddle.

LB:

What other games did you play that night?

H BE:

Silly things like that. But the principal threw his head back and
laughed. He never laughed so hard at anything in all his life. He
had a pretty high position in the World War. He was at that age.
He was a young man. He was the age to be in the Army.

R:

Do you remember his name?

H BE:

Mr. Bolivar.

R BE:

Tell them about the trip you took to Washington, D. C.

H BE:

We had this trip to Washington, D. C. for three days. I didn’t go
with my class when they graduated because it cost a good bit. So
the next year when the that had been the juniors, I knew them all.
Of course, you can’t be in a school without knowing all the kids
even though they were not in your grade. So I made the trip to
Washington, D. C. for a week. Then another girl did the same
thing. We stuck together all that time.

(31)
LB:

How did you go down there?

H BE:

By train. We went in the evening and we slept on the train in a
berth. I had the upper one. That was quite a trip.

LB:

In Washington where did you stay? In a hotel?

H BE:

Yes. We had one metropolitan hotel.

LB:

They took you to the capitol and everything.

End of Side A, Tape 2
LB:

You couldn’t do that very well today. There’s no train service.

H BE:

We ate on the train. At least one good meal. I’ve had a little
variety in my life.

R:

Yes. Did you see airplanes back then?

H BE:

No. We had airplanes before I stopped teaching.

R:

You met Mr. Beighley in your first teaching job.

H BE:

No.

LB:

How did you meet your husband, Mrs. Beighley?

H BE:

Well, honestly, we went to the same church all of our life. I had
known him for many, many years. So I never met him in a formal
way.

R:

Did you get back to the college often, to the reunions?

H BE:

Yes, I did go at first, but I didn’t go this year.

LB:

Her sixtieth she did. But you went to reunions.

H BE:

Oh, yes.

LB:

Your cousin, Viletta, is she living? Is Clara Sankey still living?

H BE:

No, not living.

LB:

Any of your friends from college, do you still see any of them?

H BE:

Not any more. I did, I suppose for twelve or fifteen years.

R BE:

Is there anybody still living from that class?

H BE:

Well, I don’t think there’s more than three. I think somebody told
me there were three of us.

(32)
LB:

We’re sort of skipping back and forth, but you said you met Mr.
Beighley at your church.

H BE:

Because we both went there. I didn’t really ever meet him at
anything. I knew him for a long time. When you’ve known
somebody for fifteen or twenty years, you don’t say what’s your
name or ask about your family or anything.

R BE:

Both families would go back and forth once in a while on Sundays
to visit. It was Cratty and Beighley. We would go back and forth.

LB:

What did he do? What was his work?

H BE:

He taught school and he was a carpenter. He didn’t farm much.
He lived on a farm, but he wasn’t a born farmer.

R BE:

He also was in World War I, and an enlistee at West Point. He
was in the medical corps, and he took care of people in 1918 with
the flu.

H BE:

He was only a young soldier at the time of the flu. 1918. He was
caring for forty soldiers. Some had died and some were terrible.
He gave medicine on night turn. All night. Forty, he had to give
medicine to. They about wore him out.

R BE:

How did they thank him?

H BE:

When one soldier boy would leave, they would always give him a
linen handkerchief, a white one, a good one.

R BE:

How many did he have?

H BE:

He had over a hundred. Because he was giving them medicine,
and a little extra something to eat. Whatever you do for them.
Forty was too many to be assigned for night duty.

LB:

Where was that?

H BE:

He was in West Point.

R:

Well, we’ll have to look up the class of 1918, and see who the
famous people were. The people he may have taken care of. He
must have had some famous generals come out of there from the
class of 1918.

R BE:

Then he went to Washington and Jefferson [Washington,
Pennsylvania] for a year. He wanted to be a doctor but he couldn’t
afford it.

(33)
H BE:

He was great in subjects that pertained in any way to medicine.

LB:

You said he taught? That he was a teacher? Where did he teach?

R BE:

Wasn’t it near Connoquenessing?

H BE:

Yes.

R BE:

Didn’t he just teach one year?

H BE:

Yes.

R BE:

Why did he not want to teach? Why didn’t he want to keep
teaching? Because he didn’t want to be confined so many hours to
a strict schedule. He wanted to be on his own where he didn’t
have to check in one hour and check out another hour. That was
my dad.

LB:

The pay was probably not very good for a family man.

H BE:

It paid better where he was. He had so many credits towards a
doctor anyways. He knew something about medicine.

R BE:

You asked her how much she earned her first year. The last year
when she taught, I looked up in the records, and it was not quite
$7,000 in 1967.

LB:

When I started at Slippery Rock in 1969, I think I started at $8,000,
so I’m glad that the elementary teachers were making $7,000 then.
We didn’t think that was bad at the time.

H BE:

Everything was cheaper then.

LB:

That’s right.

R:

So she retired in ’65?

R BE:

In 1967. That was mandatory then. Now it’s up to seventy for
mandatory retirement.

R:

I think they’ve changed it again.

LB:

Starting next year there will be no retirement age. Starting in
1993. I don’t think anybody can make you retire if you don’t want
to.

R BE:

I have two cousins who had to retire at age seventy.

LB:

That has already happened.

(34)
R:

That’s the present situation, but it changes in another year.

R BE:

Is your contract renewed every year? So that if you are not
mentally or physically able to continue.

R:

I don’t know that’s a part of the contract at all. I think they are
treated just like all other faculty. I don’t know that they have a
one-year contract.

R BE:

Even if you are not quite mentally sharp, you still can teach?

LB:

I’m not sure what they will do.

R BE:

I mean if you are beginning to get a little slow?

LB:

They can’t do a thing about it.

R:

That’s like looking at their teeth to see if they are married.

H BE:

I liked that principal. He could always say something that
answered it anyway.

R:

He was a progressive man.

H BE:

Yes, he was.

R:

Rules are not for everybody.

R BE:

Tell them about the time Dr. Bolivar blamed you for something
that somebody else did. He brought you in and scolded you.

H BE:

Yes. He gave me a kind of scolding. He blamed me for doing
something that I didn’t do. So he told me about it in the hall one
day. I knew it but I kept quiet and didn’t say anything. Then later
on, somewhere, he found out that I just didn’t tell. That what he
blamed me for was something that I hadn’t done anyway. So he
stopped me in the hall one day and he said, when I blamed you for
so and so and I scolded you about something, and you had never
done it, why didn’t you say so? Why didn’t you tell me then? I
said, well, in my whole life I’ve been blamed for lots of things I
never did so I thought that to be blamed for something again that I
didn’t do that just wouldn’t change my life very much one way or
the other. He never said no more.

R:

He could just think what he wanted to think.

R BE:

Her daughter isn’t quite like that.

LB:

You would have told him.

(35)
R BE:

Politely.

LB:

Well, I think he learned something from that. I hope he did.

R:

We appreciate getting a chance to talk to you.

LB:

Good stories. I’m glad we talked to you.