Believe Them

 

Maya Angelou quote: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the...

Growing Up In Small Town America Part 17

                                 STRUCTURED ACTIVITIES OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL

Ready for the Recital

one last practice

My big brother, Bryan, watches over me.

Piano Lessons

Taking piano lessons was another cultural experience. I gained way more than I realized at the time. Learning to play the piano takes a lot of discipline and I was actually pretty good at it.  My piano teacher, Mrs. Connor, would eventually become one of my greatest mentors. She was a no nonsense person, but she had a definite passion to teach us well about how to read music and play to the best of our abilities. She made us attend Music Theory Lessons once a week during our first couple of years, along with our once a week private lesson.  She expected us to practice and could definitely tell when we had not done so. We brought our spiral notebook each week with our practice log and she would document our progress and write down the goals for the next week. It was a little scary when she became frustrated as she would take out her red pencil and begin to mark heavily on our music sheet of what we should be noticing. It was a tremendous learning experience and also a test of true discipline as we prepared each year for a public recital at the auditorium and also for National Auditions where ten pieces were played by memory for scrutiny in front of a judge.  We would be dismissed from school in order to participate in auditions. It was always a relief to have that behind me. In high school, I grew interested in other activities, though I still loved piano, I was not keeping up with practice. Mrs. Connor finally approached Mother about how it was wasting everyone’s time to continue. I was a little sad to not be around Mrs. Connor any longer, but it was for the best. I look back at her fondly as someone who enriched my life, helping me to set better standards.

Growing Up In Small Town America Part 16

STRUCTURED ACTIVITIES OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL

I am dressed in my Bluebird outfit. Paula was a cheerleader in Junior High.

 Camp Fire Girls and Horizon Club

Mother and Daddy made sure that I was involved in the community outside of the school setting. They wanted us to be raised with etiquette and culture and became members of the Community Concerts which was a cultural show of some kind each month at the auditorium. We would dress in our Sunday best and attend these monthly concerts.

 Mother also placed me in Camp Fire Girls. I started in Blue Birds, with 10 other hand chosen girls since my mother knew their mothers. We moved our way up to Camp Fire Girls, staying with the organization until we graduated high school. The top rank was Horizon Club. These girls became my core base of friends, forming my closest connections within its boundaries. We participated in monthly meetings, earning beads with our service to community and learning to do crafts, etc. We sewed our beads onto a vest in our own chosen patterns. I attended Day Camp every summer at the beautiful rustic Camp Fire Property on the outskirts of town. I started as a camper, and eventually became a camp counselor leading a group of younger kids.  I loved the Camp Fire director, Norma Jean Nowlin, and she obviously respected me, as she eventually made me and another friend, her main assistant helpers during the summer Day Camp. Being a part of Camp Fire was definitely important during my formative years.

My Study Place

We moved from Texas Street to our home at 4105 Bismark Street in 1962. It was a 3-bedroom home so that meant Paula and I shared a room. And you know how that goes! She was 6 years older than me and pretty much took precedence over the bedroom. I had started school, and Mother wanted me to have my own space to study, do homework and color or whatever else I needed. She set me up a corner in the den. I loved to color. Here I am busy at work :)

I still have the Dr. Seuss books and the dog bookends. The square claw foot table is a family heirloom. It belonged to my great grandparents, Mama and Papa McNair. (Ella Vermell King McNair, Charles Franklin McNair)

First Day of School for Bryan Quillin -1954

 It has been the same throughout the ages. The first-time mother having her first born child leave the nest and go to school for the first time. I had a loving family, and Mother and Daddy cared so very much for me, my brother and my sister. In 1954, Mother sent Brayn to school for the first time, and she found this news article that fit so perfectly for sending him out into the world. I had the BEST mother in the whole world. There was SUCH quality in all that she taught her children. This is indicative of her love and compassion.

Bryan's First Day of School

Paula is leaning on the wall to the left side of picture. 

This must have been a day of pride for Mother and Daddy yet also filled with anticipation of what was to come. I think all young parents experience this as they send their first child to school.

My Birthday Party - 31 Aug 1964

 I was born on 31 Aug 1956, just a day shy of September. Back then, school always started after September 1 and Labor Day. Mother didn't want me to be the oldest kid in the classroom, so she took castor oil...and sure enough I arrived at 8:00 pm on Aug 31. Here, I had just turned 8 and entering 3rd grade. 

For several years, I was allowed to have a birthday party and invite 10-15 friends. Paula and one of her friends, and sometimes my cousin Patricia Emmons, would conduct the birthday party, with games, blowing out the candle, and opening gifts. On this birthday, I received a Chatty Cathy doll. That doll, to this day, is in my attic. I especially love the group picture with the little girl (I don't remember her) has peering down at the doll.

The girl gazing at the doll :) bottom row far left, me with Chatty Cathy, Janie Dickey, Pam Collins
back row: Kim McLaughlin, Lisa Jones, Mary Jane Brantley, Marilyn Michie, Karen Naylor, Connie Osborn, Kim Lane, Jane Hendricks

Growing Up In Small Town America Part 15

 EDUCATION

Education had become the focus with one out of every 3 high school graduates going to college.  To be honest, I never thought college was an option.  The next step after high school was to enter college. I was lucky to be blessed with that opportunity and to have parents that financed everything as I was never in debt to begin my adult life. Standardized testing was done once a year or maybe every other year. They would pull the whole school for two days and we were walked across the street to the auditorium where long rows of tables were set up in the very large side room for the testing. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (a standardized test implemented during that era) was a timed test for each segment. Teachers walked around as monitors, and there was complete silence. I remember enjoying these test days and the seemingly free time out of the classroom. It was never stressful, just something we did every year. In two days we had completed a standardized test that indicated our progress. There was certainly NEVER any prep work before these tests. The only other big test that I remember taking was the SAT and the ACT in order to get a ranking score. Larger universities had a cut-off point and I was able to do well enough on those tests to gain admission.