by Barbara J. Wood
CAMP RANCH
The Green School Thanksgiving Play
The Green School Thanksgiving Play .... would be considered insensitive nowaday. The date is not given for the photograph yet in those days it was natural for a Cowboy & Indian portrayal.
Green School was a one room schoolhouse that was located on Farm Road 1344, which is west of Floresville in the Camp Ranch community. It started out as a one-room schoolhouse. Martha Bartek was one of the first teachers. Theo Boenning told me more about the school than anyone else when I talked to him one time. They first built it on a sandy hill, but when the wind blew it was so much sand, the kids could not go out for recess. So they moved down the hill close to road.
When it was time for "books", the teacher would always come out and ring and bell and they knew it was time for "books". Recess was over! He loved recess, but he really loved learning too.
His fondest memories of the school were the plays they used to have there. He called them "talent plays", and they would give them the booklets and give them parts and characters to play, and they would have to memorize the parts.
Then the teachers would advertise about the play and when they put the play on, the school house would be packed full of people. It would be on a night, and they would light the schoolhouse with gasoline lamps, something called an Aladdin Lamp. It had two little wicks to light and put out a pretty good light. You had to pump a little air in them once in awhile for it to work. He said they always enjoyed the practicing as much as going on the night they put the play on! The name of one play was "The Absent Minded Professor." Theo had a part in that play and he said he still remembered some of his lines.
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COURTESY/ Lois Wauson