This photo of my mom, Catherine Lyons Carrico, was taken in 1946 while she was waiting for the school bus.  Mom was a freshman that year.  She was quite the chick with her naturally curly hair!  I love the seer-sucker type dress, which I am sure her mother made.  And she has a beret in her hand – perhaps that is where my daughter gets her love of them!  The sun must have been in her eyes, according to the shadows – and it does look like she’s trying to tell the photographer something!  Mom was off to the big school at Fredericksburg – in Washington County, Kentucky!  After walking a mile she road the bus for 18 miles before arriving at school.  Although she hated the bus ride, she loved school!  And she was first in her family (6th out of 7 children) to graduate from high school.

Mom had graduated from the 8th grade at Badgett’s School, a local school that was about two miles from her home.  She and her brothers and sisters walked to school every day – rain or shine!  This photo was taken in 1993 – very run down, as you can tell.  But on that day everything was alive in my mother’s memory!  She and Rose Mattingly were the only two first graders!  The next year there were four in second grade, but there were never many students – perhaps 25 in grades 1 through 8.

There was a well where they drew water.  A wood stove kept them warm in winter.  Recess was spent playing ball or other games.  Grandmother sent her homemade cottage cheese and crackers for lunch – I think that sounds spectacular!  But mom said they usually traded their lunch with their friends!  I guess things really haven’t changed that much!