The Mother's Club

The Importance of Parent Participation

There's been a lot of chatter in the news lately about who is responsible for a child's success in the classroom. There is a movement gaining momentum across the country that places the blame of failing students squarely on the shoulders of classroom teachers.

Part of the success story of Cherry Road School was parent and community involvement. Marion Parsons formed The Mother's Club in 1929. These women played a key role in letting kids know that their family was part of the school and the school was part of the community. They helped raise money every year for the annual 8th grade trip by serving covered dish lunches in the new school cafeteria. The mothers were an important cog in the wheel that made the school go 'round.

My Aunt Wilma Cole recently sent me an article dated February 2, 1935 from the Syracuse Post Standard. The headline reads: Pupils Honor Mothers at Hobby Show. You can tell that the article held a prominent position in the paper, with a multiple column picture featuring my Aunt Helen Cole and Jacqueline Gallagher.

Calling the event one of the school's gala events of the year, it is described in the article as a combination pet show, hobby show, doll show, and exhibit of cooking and sewing, toys, art, and foreign articles. In the picture, my aunt is holding a cake she has made and for which she won a prize. Jacqueline holds a prize-winning doll entered by Jean Stone. Other prizes in the the doll section went to Pollyann Schwartz; Donald Cole and Donald Beagle won prizes in the toy category. Prizes for drawing were awarded to Billy Dwyer and Donald Crawford. (My Aunt Helen is 14 years-old in the picture. She died this year in her late 80s, as did Donald Cole.)

The hobby show was held in the gym/auditorium and was meant to help raise money for the Mother's Club and to honor their participation in the school. One can tell how sincerely the kids were engaged in the event by the long list of students on the organizing committee, boys and girls alike.

If a student was failing or in trouble, it was an issue for everyone and blame for no one in particular. Mostly the children of Cherry Road School worked hard to do well and honor adults who were part of the larger community. They had a sense that these were people who cared. So they honored The Mother's Club every year and did their best in school. (Not that they didn't have fun and try to get away with things once in a while....they did, and those are some of the most heartwarming stories of all.)

This picture of Miss Parsons and some of the early CRS teachers would have been taken around the time of the newspaper article.

The picture you see here is the home of Jim and Susan Jerome, once the home of Edwin and Julia Parsons, our great great grandparents and the grandparents of Miss Marion Parsons. This picture was taken many years ago and they have done lots of work to restore the home and to make it the lovely place it is today and a nature-friendly greenspot. Wouldn't Edwin and Julia be proud and amazed?

When Marion and her sisters, Grace and Martha, and her many cousins (too many to list here) attended school, it was at the Geddes District One School on Terry Road. They called it the Terry Road School. Education was a top priority to these and other farm families in the area and when the day came, in the early 1900s, that the little building could no longer serve the education needs of the children of the Westvale community, some families opened their living rooms for classes. There was a group of younger children that met in the parlor of Willis Parsons, Marion's father, and they were called the Tiny Tots. The Willis Parsons home was just up the road from the house pictured here, on the other side of Genesee Street. (See earlier posts.)

It's likely that classes where also held at the home pictured above. Jim Jerome, the current owner and my cousin, has told me about a group of older kids who would meet to study what we would now call "industrial arts," though it was called something else then.

I'm wondering if any of you know anything about these classes and would be willing to share? I can be reached at 503.344.4434, and am keen to find out more about how community members supported school for kids in the community until the new school was built circa 1926.

You input for the book, The Brass Bell, is much appreciated.

Warm regards,
Nancy "Camille" Cole

The house where Miss Parsons grew up

This is a picture of the farmhouse where Marion Parsons grew up. It stands today, rebuilt after a fire in the late 1880's, on the corner of W. Genesee Street and Parsons Drive. Marion is in the picture, the 3rd person from the left. Isn't it amazing to see her as a little girl in the long skirt? Little did she know then that she would affect the lives of so many other little girls (and boys) of that age. Little did she know that would be her legacy.

If anyone has any pictures from this time in this area and you'd like to share them, please contact the Geddes Historical Society, as they are always on the look-out to add pictures to their collection.