1956 was the year we started square dancing. Most of our friends were enthused about it. We over did it. We danced three nights a week: one night in the Archer church with Verge Young as the teacher, then another night at the Rigby Armory building, then occasionally on Saturday nights go to a regular dance. It was too hard on Jess. He was a good sport about it but he could hardly breathe after a fast dance. We never danced much after that but our friends did.
Garth was now old enough to start kindergarten. Archer school didn’t have
a kindergarten but the Rexburg schools did and I thought we should also. Garth’s group especially needed help. They were a large group and mostly boys. It would be a handful for any teacher. Veola Grover and I went to Bessie Wilcox and ask her if she would teach a session of kindergarten. Bessie had taught first grade for many years and missed teaching but didn’t want to teach full time. We agreed on her salary.
We weren’t allowed to use the church, so our first classes were held in the basement of Stanley Erickson’s house, across the street from the church. I furnished the rug for the basement room. The next year we went to the superintendent of the Madison schools and he thought it was a good idea and allowed us to use an empty room, at the Archer school but we had to pay Bessie. He did let us have paper and supplies at cost and a duplicating machine. It was successful from the start. Bessie Wilcox taught the kindergarten in Archer for the next seventeen years.
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