Some interesting data

April 4, 1932 - Lovely day.  Birds seem to be all here, they're singing all the time anyway.  Got the geography workbook tonite.  Went to schoolhouse for practice this evening.  Went thru first act and half of 2nd act.  Ironed my dresses after school tonite.  Mrs. T.J. Pryor's birthday.
April 5, 1932 - Nice today, but terribly windy.  Ray isn't at Scheurich's anymore.  I just found out this evening.  I wonder why?  Went to League at Wittler's.  We had a good time but not as good as some other times.  Everyone was sleepy.
April 6, 1932 - I was quite tired in school today.  Mrs. Walker, Evie, Mike and Mote went to Prayer Meeting this evening.  The rest of us went to bed early.  Mom called up this evening to see whether or not I wanted to come home Friday nite.

Speaking of the schoolhouse, I talked to Mom and she thinks Grandma was teaching at District 86 in 1932.  This is what the History of Wayne County (1938) book says about that school:

"Prior to 1915 pupils in district 86 attended school in district 78 or Hoskins.  As this seemed too far for pupils to travel, the district decided to build a school.  Among those who were in the district when the building was put up and still reside there are Carl Jochens, Wm. Maas, Andrew Johnson, Louis Nurnberg and Frank Maas.  Andrew Johnson is one of the earliest in the district.  Officers of the first term were Carl Jochens, Andrew Johnson and John Werner.  Anna Miller taught 24 pupils the first term.  The school had 36 students when Verl Wilson taught.  A cave was dug on the grounds in 1934."  The history was provided by Martha Utecht.

The book also lists the teachers for the 1937-38 school year, for the time the book was written.  The names I recognize most are Helen Iversen at District 28S and Dorothea Rew at District 40.  I didn't find Grandma's name so I am guessing that was the first year she didn't teach as she was starting her family about then.

This next bit of information has nothing to do with schools or teachers, and I should probably save it for a future post but I am inpatient.  Plus, I may forget.  From the 1930 census, of the 10,566 people living in Wayne County, 1,132 were foreign-born.  The greatest number of those, 592, were natives of Germany, while 174 were born in Sweden, 133 in Denmark, 64 in Wales and 38 in England.

The German, Swedish and Danish numbers don't surprise me, but Wales?  I wonder if there was a particular town most of them lived in.  And subtracting those figures from the whole leaves 131 from "several other countries".  Several?  I wonder what some of those were.

And get this -- in 1930 Wayne County had 6 miles of concrete, brick or asphalt roads and 73 miles of gravel roads.  Improved dirt roads numbered 774 miles, unimproved dirt roads 577 miles, and "other roads" totaled 74 miles.  No wonder rain kept Grandma from going places and different occasions.