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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.
Twenty-one-year-old Anna Webber rubbed her eyes and leaned against the rough wall of the sod schoolhouse where she taught. The view from the window of the small building framed the tall grass and wheat field around Blue Hill, Kansas, perfectly. A slight breeze in the middle distance brushed across the tops of cottonwood trees lining the banks of the Solomon Rivers, richly adding to the peaceful scene.
Anna squinted into the sunlight filtering into the tiny classroom and stretched her arms over her head. The one-room schoolhouse was empty of students, and the young teacher was sitting on the floor grading papers. The room was only big enough for a half dozen pupils but served more than sixteen children on most days.
Inside the roughly constructed building, made from strips cut from the prairie earth found in abundance around the small settlement, the furnishings consisted of a chair for the teacher and several boards balanced on rocks for the students to sit. There was no blackboard and no writing desks. The primitive conditions made Anna’s job more difficult than she had anticipated and robbed her of the job she initially felt when she entered the profession.
To learn more about Anna Webber 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.
