It’s time to enter to win a copy of the book
Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.
Throughout history teachers have been at the forefront of all civilizations, educating and inspiring the next generation and keeping societies moving forward. Frontier Teachers captures that pioneering, resilient, and enduring spirit of teachers that lives on today.
A precious, wide-eyed seven-year-old boy studied a sample of the alphabet in front of him and tried to copy the material onto a small slate with a broken piece of chalk. His teacher, Mrs. Eliza Mott, stood over his shoulder, kindly guiding him through the work and praising him for his effort. A handful of other youngsters reviewed the letters and practiced writing them out with pencil stubs on scraps of paper. Eliza’s kitchen served as a classroom, and students sat on bare logs around a crude, wooden table – some enjoying the learning process; others cursing the day school was created.
The Carson Valley area where Eliza and her husband, Israel settled in 1851 needed a place where children could learn the three R’s. In early 1852, the Motts offered their home as a temporary school; and, armed with a pair of McGuffey Readers, Eliza began teaching. Monday through Friday she welcomed boys and girls dressed in plaid, gingham dresses, home-knit stockings, tan trousers and over-shirts, who were either barefoot or wearing rough shoes with hard leather soles. The class ranged in age from five to eleven years. It toiled over a variety of subjects, sharing the limited books on spelling and arithmetic. On a few occasions, Eliza escorted the children to the small cemetery to read the epitaphs on the tombstones. It served not only to aid the students in learning to read but instilled a sense of reverence for those who had passed away helping to tame the wild territory.
To learn more about Eliza Mott and the school she founded in 1863, and about the other brave educators in an untamed new country read
Frontier Teachers: Stories of Heroic Women of the Old West.
