Story About Montgomery School
By Estelle Barger

Doors opened for the first time in 1939.  My dad, Lasco Jones, helped build the school.  I was prepared to enter school at old Pine Bluff School, but the school was closed and buses began carrying students to Montgomery.

I wish that someone had a picture of the old buses! They had four long seats - two on the outside and two down the middle.  We little ones had to sit on the middle seats.   You would almost suffocate on hot, rainy days when the rolled up "oil cloth(?)" curtains(?) had to be let down.  Many times, when the bus was very crowded I would sit in my aunt Erie Jones' lap. 

In the afternoons, my lunch pail would be passed around to check on what I had left - ham biscuit, sweet potato, butter and sugar biscuit. Sometimes, I would swap a biscuit with Dinky Harless who had crackers and cheese.  Her mom made the best chocolate fried pies you ever sank your teeth into!  (They were made like Louise Watson's famous fried apple pies!)

Who remembers during the war years when our principal, Mrs. Ruby Smith, closed in the front hall and declared that area the place where we would  have our finds weighed and deposited.  This metal would be used in the war effort.  If we thought our buses were crowded before, now we had to make room for plows, chains, buckets, etc. I don't see how our dads managed to make a crop after we dragged off all their machinery and tools!  Oh, and don't forget the War Savings Coupons (
Webmaster: You can see these at the Tidbit site from the main index or click HERE). Some of my classmates could afford these, but I can't remember ever having bought one.

Later, the school store was in Mrs. J.C. Maske's ninth grade classroom.  That's where we bought those wonderful #2 pencils, those boxes with six new-smelling crayons
and those blue backed tablets with the Nifty trademarks that could be saved for fantastic prizes.

Oh, well, I digress when someone mentions the most wonderful times of my life! 

Enjoy the site SO much!!!  I keep looking for a picture of my brother, J.C. Jones, to show up!