Mrs. Dix's kindergarten was just a part of the neighborhood. You went down the street, past the Hoffman's driveway that led to their lawnmower repair shop, past the Hoffman's yellow house, past Mrs. Dudley's peaberry bush (you had to reach up and grab a peaberry every time you passed), past Mrs. Dudley's house, then the house that had apartments in it. My Aunt Florence lived there ("She's not your aunt, Janie, she's my cousin," said my mother. "Freddy calls her Aunt Florence, " I said. "She's not his aunt either."). Following the sidewalk around the peculiar way the street curved and then to the brick building with the big TAXIDERMY sign.
Walking on rainy mornings with the boy next door, David Bradley, wearing our raincoats with buckles and the hoods with the built-in visor, we splashed through the big puddle that formed on the sidewalk every time it rained. The same big puddle we jumped on in winter to splinter the ice.
Mrs. Dix welcomed a new class every fall to the high-ceilinged classroom with its big window facing the street. When you turned left, there was the kindergarten and straight back, another door led to In the Mr. Dix's taxidermy, a dusty mysterious place.
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| Update: Feb. 24, 2025 Imagine how delighted I was to unearth this photo of Happy Hours on an old computer file! It shows the big front window and the venetian blinds I had forgotten. From 1957, we see Roberta Hendryx (now Tucker), Fred Fish and Susan Frederick. |
Everett and Twila were their names, though calling adults by their first names was out of the question. In addition to the kindergarten and the taxidermy, they also had antiques - Mrs. Dix collecting china dolls with dusty hair and vacant eyes and Mr. Dix, those tall three-wheeled cycles, that he sometimes rode in parades.
This was a private kindergarten, established to get the community's five-year-olds ready for first grade at a time when there was no kindergarten in the Coudersport School Jointure. My grandparents paid my tuition - or dues as she called it - $10 a month.
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| perhaps I was practicing my penmanship on the invitation to graduation. |
Mrs. Dix was grandmotherly, though she and Mr. Dix had no children or grandchildren. She twinkled in that way of grandmothers in the little golden books, a cloud of rosewater, lipstick that collected in the wrinkles around her lips and the kind of shirtwaist dresses with matching belts that all the old ladies wore. She would sit at her desk twiddling her fingers, her reading glasses on a chain around her neck, while we were working at our desks, seated in the squeaky chairs, both feet on the floor.
She favored very elaborate and exciting 'programs' to celebrate the seasons, culminating in the graduation program in the spring. It was expected that parents would dress their girls in white dresses with crinolines, patent leather Mary Janes and ankle socks with ruffles and the boys in little boy suits or at least shirts with ties, their shoes freshly polished.
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| Susan Frederick shared this 1957 photo with me as we gathered for our high school class reunion last summer. She's in the front and her mother the lady watching in the grown-up chairs. Susan still has her diploma - celebrating her as a master of rhymes I believe. |
