Starting with 4th grade, I seem to have more memories. I had Mrs. Fortier for 4th grade. She was strict, but I still enjoyed school. Once near the end of the year a parent of one of the kids helped us buy her a present. The parent had the principal call Mrs. Fortier out of the class so we could talk about the present with her out of the room. Mrs. Fortier always gave us a big lecture about how she needed to be able to trust us to behave ourselves and be quiet even if she left the room. When she came back from the principal’s office that time she told us how disappointed she was in us because we had been talking. Then when we gave her the present some days later, she realized that was why we’d been talking. We got her a necklace that had a pendant with a tiny gold flake in it.
Speaking of necklaces in Alaska, I remember we had a neighbor who wore a necklace and matching earrings of moose turds (covered or glazed somehow, of course). We couldn’t believe anyone would wear that! We’d see these piles of moose turds in the woods when we played there. Imagine wearing a moose poop necklace!
In 4th grade we studied our state. We had to do a group project and make a group report about different topics about the state. I remember Mrs. Fortier listed different topics and then groups were assigned what they had to do a report on. My group had to do agriculture. When we got assigned that, I didn’t know what the word meant.
Studying Alaska was really interesting. It’s got such an interesting history of being “Seward’s Folly” when we bought it from Russia at something like 2 cents an acre. Then the gold rush. We used to sing the Alaska state song every morning after we sang the Star Spangled Banner and said the pledge of allegiance. I can’t remember the whole song, unfortunately, but I remember, “Eight stars of gold on a field of blue/Alaska’s flag may it mean to you/The blue of……/The gold of the miner’s……” If I remember right, the flag was designed by a student or something, in a contest.
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