By
Stanley H. Benham, Sr.
Stanley H. Benham, Sr. (1902 – 1991) attended the Tower Hill one-room school which was a combination district for Amenia and the Town of Washington. Maude Smith Rundall was his teacher in those years.
Benham writes, “Our farming district was lightly populated and had no village or other activities to attract people. The schoolhouse, I believe, would measure up quite well with the average one-room school in the state….I don’t know when the schoolhouse was built, but I do know that my father went there, and I remember hearing my grandfather speak of the ‘old school house’.”
“The Tower Hill School used wax candles on its Christmas trees.
It was Stanley’s job to stand by with a tin cup and a pail of water in case of fire.”
“About a week before Christmas the teacher and students went to a near-by woods and cut down a Christmas tree. It was taken in and set up in the corner of the classroom.
There were a few strings of tinsel in the cupboard and in the other corner, a half-dozen bright balls. There were also ten or twelve candleholders that would clip on the tree branches. The students were then asked to pop some corn at home, string some on a thread and bring it to school to hang on the tree.
There was a party in the afternoon of the last day before Christmas vacation. The mothers and any younger children came. Each student read or recited a Christmas poem. The teacher had put a small present under the tree for each student and the mothers brought cookies and candy.
The blinds, which were solid wood shutters, were closed and with a small torch on the end of a short pole, the teacher lit all the candles on the tree. The candles were watched while they were burning. We ate part of the goodies and then the shutters were opened and the candles were snuffed out. The coats, hats, boots and mittens were pulled on and all went home to enjoy the two-week vacation. As I think of it now, I have to wonder why we never burned the place down with all those candles among the flammable pine needles. The pail of (drinking) water averaged half-full and there was only a tin cup to dip and throw water.
…The children didn’t have a chance to tell a department store Santa Claus what to bring but anticipated his gifts. In the average family the stocking hung on the mantle probably held an orange or two, very likely the only ones of the year. There might be a small bag of homemade fudge and maybe some ribbon candy and a rubber ball. Under our tree there were small toys, occasionally a sled and always mittens and some other articles of clothing. I do not remember seeing adults exchange gifts at Christmas or birthdays.
…The decorations (for our tree at home) were carefully made for this special time.”
from Rural Life in the Hudson River Valley 1880-1920
Observations of Stanley H. Benham and photographs of Sidney S. Benham*
edited by Virginia Benham Augerson and Stanley H. Benham, Jr., Hudson Books, 2006
The book, a special Christmas gift, is available at Merritt Books in Millbrook and Oblong Books & Records in Millerton.
*note: The Benhams of Amenia are second cousins to the Tower Hill Benhams.
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