Into the wayback machine

We’ve got just one month to go in a summer that never really got going. We didn’t know that back in early June when my wife and son and I took a one-day trip to Rhinelander to have a little fun.

That was before the short trip to Canada and before the Fourth of July trip. On this one, the featured stop (aside from exercising our shopping muscles) was a visit to a city-operated historic museum named Pioneer Park.

It’s not pretentious at all, but there was a lot to see and study. It’s a quick jump into the time machine and back a few generations. Back when trains carried goods and supplies and raw materials all over. When lumberjacks chopped down trees with pure muscle power. When children went to schools that had all the grades in the same room.

An old train and a semaphore marked the outside of the depot and the Rhinelander Railroad Museum …

Nearby, a crossing sign showed the little reflectors that were used on signs in the days before reflectorized paint was invented. I turned on the flash to get the reflections …

Then inside the depot, to the ticket counter, which stood under some old station signs …

A little further, a display showed what life in the old train depot was like–manual typewriters, glass insulators, hand-written account books and a hand-wound clock in the corner …

Downstairs, they had a model train layout that showed what Rhinelander was like back in the old days–minus the pillars, of course. At the bottom right, there are some coin slots that were supposed to make the trains run. David and I both deposited quarters … and shrugged our shoulders as the trains remained stationary …

We went back outside to look over a big log sledge that once carried logs out of the wood in winter, pulled by horses on ice trails …

What kind of loads did those horses pull? We went to the Rhinelander Logging Museum to find out. This photo from 1897 ought to answer that question. Several other pictures in the museum showed huge loads …

The museum included a cook shack and the loggers’ barracks. Here is the room where the loggers ate0–the kitchen is in back, beyond where David and my wife are standing …

We didn’t get to the barracks in time, but this is what they were like back in the day …

Then we went to another building and went down a short entry hall …

… into a one-room school building, the Rhinelander School Museum …

Very nostalgic place. How many of you learned how to make letters (printed and cursive) by following these guides lined up above the blackboard? …

And how many of you first read from books like these? …

How did the one-room schools teach eight different grades in one room at the same time? By intricate planning, as this schedule shows …

The old classroom had a working stereoptican with cards, and my wife enjoyed trying that out. Outside of the wall maps and blackboard and books and globe, that was the extent of multimedia. Most of the stereoptican cards were over a hundred years old …

Such teaching demanded a lot from a teacher, and so did the rules that they were expected to follow faithfully. I got several different sets of rules set for teachers, and here they are:

• You will not marry during the term of your contract.
• You are not to keep company with men.
• You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function.
• You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.
• You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you have the permission of the chairman of the board.
• You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.
• You may not smoke cigarettes or play at cards.
• You may not dress in bright colors.
• You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
• You must wear at least two petticoats.
• Your dresses must not be shorter than two inches above the ankle.
• It is understood the teacher will attend church each Sunday and either teach a class in Sunday school or sing in the choir.
• To keep the schoolroom near and clean, you must:

1. Sweep the floor at least once daily.
2. Scrub the floor at least once a week with hot soapy water.
3. Clean the blackboards at least once a day.
4. Start the fire by 7 a.m. so the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

Here are some teachers’ rules from 1872:

• Teachers every day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
• Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coat for the day’s session.
• Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
• Men teacher may take one evening each week for courting purposes or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
• After 10 hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
• Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
• Every teacher should lay aside from each payday a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
• Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
• The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents per week in his pay, providing the board of education approves.

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I’ve got many more things to write about. The trick is finding the time, especially since my wife and I will be making a mini-vacation trip to central Wisconsin this week. Three days and two nights, starting Tuesday morning.

Coming attractions include some photos from the recent U.P. firefighters tournament and the rodeo held here last weekend. Believe me, I’ve got some really spectacular rodeo action shots–stuff good enough to submit to the state newspaper contest, I think.

The firemen’s pix combine action with humor–at times humor too suggestive for a family newspaper. But you aren’t offended by stuff like that, are you?

I didn’t think so.