HomeMy WebLinkAboutDistrict 8 Purdy School (27)The Ithaca Journal
Saturday, July 19,
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T
Rmeem e s
By CAROL KAMMENchwl
past
I pia! to The Join
RUTH Eddy Ga dosh Roger
Eddy have sent me some and
of The Purdy School, District No. 8,
formerly on Bostwick Road in Ithaca.
The school, which served the T
by (Ithaca city distriown of Dan-
ct schools were incorpo-
rated after World War II), had twenty-one stu-
dents in 1910. In those days,
Bostwick Road
ran along the south side of the school. Today
the road is to the north.
The origin of the school's name is not clear,
but schools were often named after a town
road or for the person who gave the land to the
district. Sometimes a farmer would donate a
piece of his property so his children would have
a school nearby.
The Purdy School's teacher in 1910 was Ly-
mette W. Curry, and the officers of the school
were Fred T. Jackson, trustee, Amasa John-
son, clerk, and Fred Eddy, collector of taxes
for the district. The students were of various
ages; the youngest appear to be eight or nine,
the eldest in their teens. The twenty-one stu-
dents came from nine different area families.
Among the recollections about the school
are these:
The school was heated by coal. During re-
cess, and before and after school, students
played a variety of games. "Annie over," was
one, "duck on a rock," another. "Fox and
geese" was played in the winter, and students
also slid down a nearby hillside in the snow.
There were swings, and baseball was also
played at the time.
Usually, the students had a new teacher ev-
ery year.
Lunch sandwiches, brought from home, in-
cluded honey, jelly, and plum catsup (a form
of jam). Rarely did children have meat at lunch
time. It was recalled that Harold Jackson ate
bean sandwiches. Eunice Harris had a lunch
box with a thermos bottle — unusual in those
days. Most lunch boxes were enamel buckets or
lard pails.
Water for the school was brought up the hill
from Edgar Eddy's farm. He was the father of
two of the students at the school —Clayton
Eddy and Roger Eddy. Everyone drank from
the same dipper.
Major holidays were Decoration Day, now
called Memorial Day, on which students plan-
ted corn and sometimes pumpkin seeds, and
Election Day, in November, called "potato -
digging day."
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7 r ��
SCHOOL DAYS: Students from the Purdy School shown in this 1910 picture are 't
Howard Hornbrook, Voget Quick, May Hombrook, Harold Jackson, Anna
Brown, Lewis Hornbrook, Lydia Brown, Elmer Jackson, Roger Eddy, Clayton
Eddy, Roger Quick, Eunice Harris, Arthur Beardsley, Lillian Quick, Herman
Brown, Jessie Bossard, Violet Hornbrook, Edward Kane.Missing from the pic-
ture were Helen Jackson and Pansy Quick.
Roger Eddy included some family informa-
tion about the Eddys, who came to Tompkins
County in the mid nineteenth century and
whose descendants live here still.
Edgar Eddy was born in 1838 in the town of
Dix, in Schuyler County. His parents had
moved there from New Jersey and purchased
land for one shilling (from 6 to 12 cents) per
acre; they had 100 acres. They built a log cab-
in, in which their son Edgar was born. At the
age of 25, Edgar "struck out" with a horse and
wagon and came to the Inlet Valley area where
he met and married Mary Jane Hardenburg.
They had four children. Edgar Eddy voted for
Lincoln and never failed to vote thereafter.
Fred Eddy, Edgar's son, had two sons of his
own: Roger and Clayton. The two boys were in
the Purdy School in 1910. Clayton is no longer
living, but his three children still live in the
Bostwick Road area. Roger had two daughters,
both of whom are living in California.
Roger Eddy also said he recalled seeing Hal- �■
ley's Comet in 1910, and also pictures of the
San Francisco earthquake and fire. He also re-
members the following:
• the Finger Lakes Ford garage, located
where the State theater is today — its entrance
was on Cayuga Street;
• that Eddy Kane, also a student at the Pur-
dy School, had a 1914 Indian motorcycle;
e that in the 1920's, Lewis Hornbrook and
Clayton Eddy drove race cars at Waterloo.
Clayton's car was called Old Green Number 8.
. . .
Roger Eddy would be interested in hearing from old
acquaintances in the area. His address is 3212 Mont-
claire Street, Sacramento, Calif. 95821.
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