Dear Readers,
There are still a few of us living in this community that attended a country school. I, for one, attended the second half of second grade at Springbrook School, which was located on the corner of County X and State Highway 64 approximately 10 miles east of Merrill. The year was 1937. From third grade to seventh grade, I attended Prospect School, located at the junction of County X and County P east of Merrill. The years were 1938 to 1943.
Because of WWII and gasoline rationing, we were forced to move to Merrill, so then it was Junior High then High School. Anyway, country schools always had a Christmas program which all the kids participated in, one way or the other, from singing groups, to music groups or solos, acting in plays, curtain pullers and the like. Just think, there was no ACLU running around telling us we could not celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in a public school!
Another thing comes to mind. At Springbrook and Prospect schools we always started the day with singing songs before the start of classes. One song was a song of prayer we never failed to sing daily. Some of you will recall the melody, the lyrics are as follows:
With this new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter through the night,
For health and food for love of friends,
For everything thy goodness sends,
Father In Heaven, we thank thee.
Now, wouldn’t the ACLU have a hemmorage over that??
Hopefully there are enough of us citizens living in this great country to maintain some sort of sanity in deciding what and where in regard to church and state. Remember, the pilgrims came over here because of religious persecution.
Thank you for your time.
Bill Jensen
Tug Lake