Now and Then – Reminiscence
By Rev. B.F. Lawler
Page 8
Reminiscense
About 1840 a Mr. Beach taught the first school on Coon Creek in a very frail
little house a little below and near where Ben Nance now lives. This was too
soon for me, but reports my sisters gave led me to think a good deal about
school. My opinion now is from the mental photograph I received then that Mr.
Beach was ahead of his time then and that the step between him and his school
was rather long for “mental connections” with the small train that should
follow. The advancement of the pupils was slow if not doubtful and at the end of
a short term Mr. Beach went his way.
The interesting young people had much sport at what they supposed to be Mr.
Beach’s expense, but to my mind it was themselves who suffered in comparison.
One of the ditties I heard them sing was:
“A.B.C. crack a louse and kill a flea, over the sea on Beach’s knee.” This and
other similar things I wish I did not know.
Two years later I was in school but in a new log house half mile above where Mr.
Nance now lives, but there were no funny words for me about the teacher.
When I was called to recite with my blue back spelling book on the teachers knee
I trembled so I could scarcely recite from fear. I knew that teacher till I was
a teacher myself but I never lost profound respect for him, his name was James
Wade Beck, County Clerk of St. Clair County, many years before the war.
I think now that my writing lessons began quite early and my pen was not an
“iron quill” but a genuine goose quill. I had learned to make my pens from these
quills and took a delight in making heavy shades and hair marks in forming
capital letters, before the steel pen came.
My recollection of Mr. Beach is quite dim as I saw him, perhaps, once, but what
some of his pupils said about him is altogether too well remembered.
It was 1841 when the first court was convened on that same Coon Creek in the
home of Judge William Gash on the farm now owned by Mr. Smith. South of the
present residence in a field or meadow, there is a small tree near where the old
residence stood.
These beginnings in St. Clair County close where my father selected his home may
have little interest for many people, but some will care. My father did business
with the courts from that time and was a supporter of schools – was in the
organization of, it seems to me now, the first church in the county.
When the smoke of the war hung heavy and low, with feeble step he left his home
to see it no more and without a murmur he lingered in the homes of his children
a few years with mother, now they sleep in Tebo cemetery in Henry county – Peace
to them. B.F. Lawler
Reminiscense
Last week I had something to say about the loss sustained by any one who did not
have a happy childhood. We are told that some people never were young in a very
important degree and the effect is noticeable in all the life time following.
As I saw the children as they were seventy years ago, and as I see them now,
only a few of them, I can see that the life then, shows itself in mature age.
Every man like a tree is rooted in the young life he began with and it shows on
him in his older life; and every dependable man had the fiber woven into his
nature while young. I wish I could trace more of the children I knew then to
this present time. I think I could recognize many of the old traits of character
I knew in them then.
I was acquainted with all the grades of society as I saw them in school and I
think I could recognize the trend given them in there respective homes. The few
I know now bear me out in this and I am happy to say that many of them honor the
training they received in childhood. Some of them were rigidly trained to hard
work and honest conduct.
Some of them have added social culture to their youthful training; but the
literary vein is not greatly enlarged in many, though some teachers have come
from some families not then given to books or even to newspapers; but it is a
pleasure to see the effect of precept and example expended full seventy years
ago.
I know one man who is as gentle and tender as was his mother while he yet held
her apron strings; the same habits, the same gentle words and tenderness toward
other people. Some of you would know him if he were named.
This man did not bring with him any of the literary or other traits of his
father, but as the blossom can be seen in the apple, so the beautiful character
of his mother can be seen in this man’s life.
How little she knew about it, how little did any one think about it! and how
little do people think about it now?
Many a time I saw the hero carrying a great bundle of stove wood, artfully
girded to his back.
A few become inoculated, as it were with new ideas, but how much better for them
if it could have been in their blood in childhood.
Many farmers in an early day, came from old farms in the older states – many of
them worn out and when they opened farms in this rich new country, it did not
occur to them that anything was needed but the plow and hoe and many new farms
saw but little of that for many years, except the breaking and the planting, no
weeds nor grass to trouble it, and “sod corn” often did well without
cultivation.
But the staying qualities were well placed; in school many hours a day, and on
poor seats. In church to hear long sermons and on Fourth of July to hear several
long speeches. Many times plowing and planting began at seven o’clock and
continued till sunset except one hour for dinner, making a long, long day
especially for some boys. Some broke from the old ways of staying with a job or
with a book, but many became bone and sinew for the county. B.F. Lawler
Submitted by Stacy Kelly