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Rochester
Teacher
by Mike
Cox |
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School
teaching has never been the best paying avocation, but the terms of
employment have definitely improved over the last century.
When the Haskell County community of Marcy made the decision in 1906
to relocate three miles to be on the right of way of the new Kansas
City, Mexico and Orient Railroad, A.B. Carothers donated the land
for the new tracks and 160 acres for the town site.
In appreciation, the railroad gave him first choice on what the new
town should be called. He thought Carothers, Texas had a nice ring
to it, but a check with postal authorities determined that name had
already been taken in Texas. Not being able to honor the Haskell County
land owner, the railroad opted to call the new town Rochester, after
Rochester, N.Y.
His altruistic spirit not dampened, Carothers paid for construction
of a one-room school house. Classes began in the fall with nine grades
and one teacher.
According
to Marguerite Gauntt and Modelle Ballard's 1976 history of Rochester,
"When the Rails Were Laid," these were the teacher's conditions of
employment: |
- You will
not marry during the term of your contract.
- You are
not to keep company with men.
- You must
be home between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless attending
a school function.
- You may
not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.
- You may
not travel beyond the city limits, unless you have permission
of the chairman of the [school] board.
- You may
not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man, unless he is
your father or brother.
- You may
not smoke cigarettes.
- You may
not dress in bright colors.
- You may
under no circumstances dye your hair.
- You must
wear at least two petticoats.
- Your dresses
must not be any shorter than two inches above the ankle.
- To keep
the school room neat and clean, you must: sweep the floor once
a day; scrub the floor once a week with hot soapy water; clean
the blackboards once a day; start the fire at 7 a.m. so the room
will be warm by 8 a.m.
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Rochester's
first teacher managed to abide by the school board's strict rules,
but something else would seriously impact her enthusiasm for teaching
on the South Plains.
In the predawn hours of July 2, 1907, Kate Slotton Finley, the town's
young school teacher, lay sound asleep, readily abiding by her school
board-imposed curfew, when her landlady woke her up. A bad storm
was coming, she said. They needed to head for the storm cellar.
Either too sleepy or too confidant, the teacher opted to stay in
bed. Just about the time she got comfortably back to sleep, oblivious
to the lightning flashes and the wildly turning public windmill
in the middle of the town's main street, a tornado struck, tearing
the roof off the boarding house. The rotating wind pulled Finley
out of her bed, along with the heavy trunk containing most of her
wardrobe.
If she thought for a second that she was having a dream about flying,
she soon realized she was moving through the night sky for real,
her screams drowned in the roar of the wind.
Accounts of the storm do not reveal whether Finley consulted with
her higher power while swirling in the air, but the winds set her
down on Rochester's muddy street. Regaining consciousness, she began
to crawl for help, blood rushing from a cut on her forehead.
A local woman saw her and helped her to safety, finding her only
injuries to be the cut and a dislocated thumb.
"I could see
the church [across the street from her boarding house] swaying to
and fro," the teacher later recalled in describing her brief ride
on the wind. "I saw my trunk up in the air. I hit the ground flat,
my bed sheet wrapped around me, and wringing wet."
The violent summer storm marked the end of Finley's teaching career
in Rochester. The tornado had demolished her school and destroyed
or damaged 13 other structures in town, including the Methodist
Church. Besides, as the authors of the community history reported,
Finley's close call left her "too nervous to teach."
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Rochester
today
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2005 |
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