Crescent School

Click to Enlarge

I love the motley assortment of kids in these old one room schoolhouse photos. For a long time I thought we might have to enjoy them without knowing if any of these kids were our ancestors, but thanks to an assist from facial recognition software I think I have some answers.

This first one is helpfully stamped with the photography studio's location in Arpin, Wisconsin. Crescent School was located between Arpin and Vesper in Wood County, on what would become the Dykstra farm and right next to TerMaat property. Great grandfather Jan Hendrick Ter Maat moved to Arpin in 1912. Our grandfather Henry was already 17 and too old to be in school, but his younger siblings weren't. This picture was probably taken between 1912 -14. Ter Maat sisters Jennie, Lizzie and Anna are in the dark dresses near the teacher.

Click to Enlarge

This picture appears to be a few years later and Jennie and Lizzie are standing in front of the teacher, both with big bows in their hair (They must have known it was picture day and really dressed up. Lizzie stands out with a bowtie!). Young Anna is probably front row, first girl from the left.

The Dykstra family arrived in Wood County about 1913 so Grandma's sisters Winnie and Kate who were close in age to Lizzie and Anna might be in these photos too, but face recognition isn't telling tales in this case. In addition the tallest boys in these photos could be Ralph Dykstra and George Ter Maat, who were the same age, but that's just speculation. In 1913 they would have been 14 years old and coming to the end of school years.

Click to Enlarge

Finally, here is a Crescent School photo from the 1920s featuring the next generation of Ter Maats and Dykstras. Great Aunt Tena Dykstra is the tall blonde in the third row.  Hattie TerMaat is in the second row, third from the right. It's possible that the girl on the far left next to the teacher is Margaret, but I'm less sure of that. At least one of the urchins in the front row is likely the oldest Dykstra cousin, Cornelius, but I couldn't say which. Henry Dykstra, in his memoir Two Longs and Ten Shorts wrote about attending Crescent School,

I actually spent one and a half years in the first grade. My parents enrolled me when I was just five years old. This may not sound unusual in this day and age, but at that time when a teacher had thirty to thirty-five students in her care with an age range of six to sixteen, she had very little time for the very young student. A visit by the county supervising teacher nipped my early education in the bud, as she removed me from school at mid-term.

So depending on the year this was taken he might be in this picture too!

Location of Crescent School:

View Larger Map

The Farm

I've been familiar with this photo of great uncle Ralph Dykstra with Grandma and Grandpa TerMaat on the farm in central Wisconsin for a long time, in fact a copy is sitting on a bookshelf in my living room, but I noticed that the photo below contains the same three tiny figures... with cows and horses! (If you squint, you'll notice the horses are visible in the far left background of the first picture as well). I'm going to assume that these photos were taken prior to 1916, else they would have included little Hattie. Remember you can click on the photo to see a larger version.

And here is Grandpa TerMaat with the two horses. I find myself wondering what their names were...

Hattie and Kitten

I spent a good deal of my time back east scanning old family photos which will appear here in due time. This picture of Hattie with kitten is my favorite so far. Hattie was born in 1916, so that gives you some idea of the age of the photo. Most of the photos in the family collection of this vintage are either formal studio portraits or families posed in front of their new barns and such (we'll get to those later), so these are really the first candids, the first photos taken by a family member or friend experimenting with a new toy and not by a professional. Judging by the format (and rate of deterioration) the murky photo of Grandma and Grandpa TerMaat was taken at the same time. Very Walker Evans, no?

This little exercise in photographic excavation is reminding me of a novel I read recently (twice, in fact), W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz. The book concerns a man trying to unearth the fragments of an identity lost when he became a part of the Kindertransport, often using fuzzy images which are reproduced in the book. Not a book for everyone (Sebald's one of those European writers who disdains paragraphs), but for you more literary types, I recommend it.