Monday, March 31, 2008

Mother's Teaching Contracts for Valley & Bryon, Wyoming





Notice the salary on these teaching contracts. Mother spent one year, 1955-56, at Valley. She was snowed in many weekends and could not make it home. The isolation was hard. Did it remind her of earlier days when Dad was the one separated from the family home? I never heard her complain. The money was needed to make the farm survive.


Her contract with Byron was very strict. Note the dock of pay for taking a sick day. One day she was so ill, she had me skip school and drive her to Byron, stay the day and then bring her home. We arrived home none too soon. She would not give up that money.

4 comments:

Dwight said...

jerks

Elizabeth said...

She also took many hours of correspondence during the year she was at Valley. I would get letters from her, where she talked about how tired she was. I think it was very difficult to keep her spirits up, and I didn't help matters any - that was my first year in Riverton; I married Robert in June of 1956. She was very depressed about that.

Ann said...

Mother'c contract with Valley is dated June 1956, so didn't she teach at Valley 1956-57 and then switched to Byron for 1957-58? The year she taught at Valley we all gritted our teeth to just get through those months. Judy was chief cook, I was chief milker washer, and Steve was Dad's right hand in the barn. We had to work together, but that winter really felt long. Friday evenings were the best, because she would normally drive home after school (unless there was a storm), and then she would leave Sunday afternoon to go back. She would pack the car with enough bottles of peaches and other food to keep her going through the week, and off she would go.

It was wonderful and exciting when Mother got the job in Byron, even though Byron wasn't perfect, it felt like it, because she was home.

Elizabeth said...

To clarify the dates involved - Mother signed her first contract at Valley in the late summer of 1955. She taught there one year, 1955-56. That was the first year I taught in Riverton. She was offered a contract there for the following year, but did not take the job because she was able to get a contract for Byron, where she taught for two years. The Byron contract is for the second year. My letters corroborate these facts, so hope this clears those dates up.