Caldwell County MO Archives History .....GETTING A TEACHING CERTIFICATE IN THE LATE SIXTIES  
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mo/mofiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:35 pm

GETTING A TEACHING CERTIFICATE IN THE LATE SIXTIES IN CALDWELL COUNTY
	Narrator:  Mrs. Williard Blair, 83

     Mrs. Blair is the daughter of old Asel Waldo who came into Fairview 
township 1868.  She is the widow of Willard F. Blair who came into the county 
1869.  The Waldo family came from Wisconsin and the young Blair from Michigan, 
both joining the procession bound for Missouri farms in 1867-9.  Mrs. Blair 
herself was a teacher, being one of the teachers in the first Breckenridge 
school system, when Professor Hamilton graded the schools in 1874 and 
established the first high school there.  Breckenridge H.S. being the second 
in Caldwell county.  She took her examination of Steve Rogers for her 
certificate.
     Her husband also was a teacher somewhat earlier in the late 60s.  He came 
here without enough money to buy a farm and having a fair education planned to 
teach school, there being a good opening in that field.  Well educated farmers 
those days often combined the two occupations.
     One day while in a drug store in Breckenridge, he happened to see 
Hamilton McAfee, the then county commissioner of schools.  At once, he told 
him he wished to arrange about an examination for a license to teach.  Mr. 
McAfee (grandfather of Floyd McAfee of Hamilton) asked if he wished to take it 
right then.  In surprise, Mr. Blair agreed.  So they went behind the tall 
prescription case in the drug store and Mr. McAfee gave him one example in 
cube root in arithmetic which the youth solved readily.  McAfee gave him his 
certificate right there on the spot without further questioning.
     Blair taught three terms of school at Wolf Grove, Turkey Creek, and Brown 
Jug.  These old district school names for school are still kept, reflecting 
some incidents in early pioneer life.  They all exist today with practically 
the same limits as in the early 70s.  Following the example of their parents 
three of the Blair daughters have been teachers in the schools of Caldwell 
county.  Mr. Blair afterwards became a substantial farmer in the Breckenridge 
country.  He was well known as a Republican politician.
     Interview  1934.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mo/caldwell/history/other/gettinga208gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mofiles/

File size: 2.7 Kb