A Day In A Hundred

Pupils In Three 1st-grade Classes At Madison Elementary School In Hinsdale Celebrate Their First 100 Days Of Class With A 100-year-old Guest

February 11, 1997|By Casey Banas, Tribune Education Writer.

Fillipa Carpenter, 100 years and one month old on Monday, still can vividly remember her first day in 1st grade back in 1903 in Gardiner, Maine.

It was the day she decided to call herself by her middle name, Fillipa, instead of her first name, Myrtle.

Next door to her house was a barn that housed a cow named Myrtle. On the first day of school, boys teased her mercilessly because she had the same name as the bovine. "I'm going to be Fillipa because Myrtle is a cow's name," she said, only to find out later that day that her teacher's first name also was Myrtle.

That was one of many remembrances Carpenter shared with children from three 1st-grade classes at Madison Elementary School in Hinsdale on Monday, the 100th day of the school year.

Teachers wanted to use the 100th day as a learning experience about the number. The capstone event for the day was to invite a 100-year-old person to speak to the children.

Kids wrote letters to area nursing and retirement homes, and Carpenter, a resident of Washington Square Retirement Home in Hinsdale, responded. The pupils said she didn't look a day over 70 as she reached back in her memory to tell what life was like in the early 1900s.

Young children often bring something unusual for "show and tell" time in class. Carpenter stunned the youngsters with her "show and tell" object, a 200-year-old doll her grandmother had played with.

Grover Cleveland was president when Carpenter was in 1st grade. Bread cost a nickel a loaf, eggs were 12 cents a dozen and a postage stamp was 2 cents "to mail a letter anywhere in the world."

Many of the Madison kids prepared written questions.

One girl wanted to know if Carpenter had a computer back in 1st grade. "We didn't even have an adding machine," the visitor responded. "We didn't have a telephone. We didn't have electric lights." When a pupil asked her reaction at seeing television for the first time, Carpenter talked about the first time a gas light was installed in her house. She and her sisters had to be careful playing Ping-Pong so the ball did not bounce into the flame and catch fire.

The children were curious about what she and her family did in the evening since there was no television to watch. Carpenter said they played games such as Old Maid, sang songs and put on plays dressed in adult clothes. She had a library card and every week checked out a book.

"How did you keep food cold?" another 1st grader asked.

At first, Carpenter said, a hole was dug in the ground and food placed there. She considered it a major advance when the family bought its first icebox, but she had to be vigilant to empty the drip pan at the bottom so the floor would not flood.

When Carpenter was in 1st grade, travel was by horse and buggy since cars were not on the scene yet.

Dee Borkevec, a 1st-grade teacher, said Carpenter's visit was among a number of "100" learning activities for the day. Children brought collections of 100 items, such as pieces of candy, bottlecaps and stamps. Problems with the number 100 as the answer were the focus in math class. Stories with themes of 100 were read and teachers gathered 100 pupils in a room.

But Carpenter was the star of the day.