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Rural Schooling in the 1920s
My father was the oldest of four boys, and they grew up on a farm in the
community of Willow Creek in Robertson County, Texas. Daddy was born in
August 1915 and named John Aubyn, after his mother's brother John and
his father's brother Aub. Sixteen months later he was joined by his
brother George Wayne, whose initials and first name matched those of
their paternal grandfather George W. Lincecum. Grandpa George's middle
name had been Washington, since he was born on the birthday of his
namesake, but Mama Lincecum preferred Wayne. That was the name Uncle
Wayne became known by, whereas Daddy never answered to anything except
Jack.
Jack and Wayne started school at the one-room Willow Creek
school, where their first teacher was a cousin of their mama. She even
boarded with the family for a time, which meant Jack and Wayne had the
privilege of riding to school in her Model T. She had a male friend to
serve as her substitute for several days, and he rode a motorcycle to
school. After school one day he tried unsuccessfully to get Wayne and
Jack to ride the bike with him as he delivered a message to their
mother. Wayne recalled, "I had a pretty good idea what Mama would do to
us if we showed up on that machine."
After Jack and Wayne
moved to a bigger school at Bald Prairie, they both got a whipping the
same day. As the bell rang to end recess, Jack saw Wayne under attack
from a bully. He bolted outside and went charging over to defend his
brother. The next thing they knew, a male teacher was paddling all three
boys. That was the way school discipline was usually dispensed in those
days.
There would be more to deal with when they got home. Papa
Lincecum was on the school board, and he always backed up the teachers
when discipline was administered. Their mother's cousin now taught at
this school, and she was in the habit of talking with Mama Lincecum by
phone each evening. Inevitably, the question of what happened at school
that day would be mentioned.
Jack had a brilliant idea. Since the
primitive phone line was stretched from tree to tree, climbing up and
breaking the line was not much of a challenge. They hid the damage so
cleverly that it was weeks before service was restored. Their
misbehavior at school had been long forgotten by then.
The
Lincecum boys had a dog called Ross (the namesake of a governor of
Texas) who liked to follow them to school. Perhaps it was poetic justice
that the teacher who whipped Wayne and Jack spent a lot of time throwing
rocks to chase Ross away from the school in a fruitless effort to send
him home.
Jerry Lincecum
Sherman, Texas
Published:
November 14,
2005
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