Walking to school in January
By Trudy Madetzke
Bob Madetzke grew up on a farm in Moody County, South Dakota, near Jasper, Minnesota.
After serving in the Army as a Military Police Officer at Fort Wainwright, in Alaska, he joined the Marshall Police Department on April 1, 1970, serving until health problems interfered in 1988.
During his retirement years, he filled many tablets with memories centering on his eighth-grade year. He attended Quissel school, a one-room school, two miles from the Madetzke farm.
Country schools were built two miles apart, often on donated land, so no pupil had further to walk. Some students came on horseback. When Bob’s oldest sisters started school, his father took them in a carriage pulled by a team of horses.
I thought Independent readers might enjoy this January memory.
By Robert (Bob) Madetzke
“I got out from behind the grove and looked out on the countryside. Oh, what a perfectly ugly day, I thought. The sky was covered by dark, dreary clouds. This was your standard January day for going to school.
It was very, very cold. I now wished I had asked for a ride. The snow banks were frozen solid so there was no need for my snowshoes. I walked out on the ice at the stock pond. It looked to be at least a foot thick. I bet it will still be frozen in July. There is no way it could ever thaw to be just water. Come spring, the returning ducks will set up for a smooth water landing, and then, wham! They’ll shatter their little teeth!
It was walk up one snow drift and down and then up. The whole lane going to the pasture was a series of drifts. One was as hard and smooth as the next. While walking to the bridge and becoming more and more aware of the cold, I deducted that it would be impossible for farm boys, walking to school in the cold, to learn anything because it would take the entire morning for their brains to thaw out.”
— Trudy Madetzke is a Marshall
resident