During the 1950s, I grew up next door to my grade school in Mundelein, Illinois. Lincoln Elementary School was the first public school to open in the area in 1894. Originally, it contained only two classrooms. Over the years the building had a few additions, but the original stone-front building is still there. A little background, but that isn’t what my story is about.
Late 1890s - my white house in middle and school to the right.
Lincoln School with the bell tower - 1905.
There was a wonderful old janitor who seemed to love us kids. He seemed to always have a good day and was always joking around with us. We never saw him angry…well, maybe a few times. I think his name was Mr. Dietz, but it has been so long ago, I might not have that right. Anyway, he was a large man who had a hook hand and often we would ask him if he had a wooden leg because we had all been told about Treasure Island’s Captain Flint. He never exposed either leg, so we never knew for sure. I thought he lived in the basement under the old school. As a little girl with a wild imagination, I figured it was the only place he could have lived. I never saw him come to school in the morning or go home at night. There was only one conclusion…he lived in the basement of the school in the dungeon!
Well, in the dungeon of the original two-room school was the janitor’s office. That part of the basement was dark, damp, and dingy. The walls were made from big old gray stones and mortar which were covered with coal dust from years of using an old coal furnace. There was a dimly lit, narrow stairway leading from the side of the school’s front door. It led down to what I thought could only be the “dungeon.” That stairway was a shortcut to the lunch room. We had to pass through the dungeon, past Captain Flint, to get our lunch. Usually at lunchtime Mr. Dietz would be having his lunch at his desk; in back of him was a darker area used to store coal. When I took the shortcut to the lunchroom, I would hurry pass the old man behind the desk, he would look up, reach out over the front of his desk and snap his hook all the while having a devious smile…just to give me a fright. I would squeal and dash as fast as I could to the door leading to the safety of the brightly lit lunchroom. I could hear him chuckling.
What first grader didn’t fiddle with a loose tooth? One school day I fiddled with mine. I don’t know about you all, but I do know that nowadays this wouldn’t ever be tolerated…. that could be distracting to the class and especially the teacher. It was that day. Did she send me home with my troubles — and hers? No. She sent me down to Captain Flint – to extract the tooth! Did he use a pliers like my dad would have done? No. Did he tie one end of a string to the tooth and the other to a door knob? No! He came over to me and said, “Open up and show me your loose tooth.” Shaking, I tilted my head back and opened wide. Before I knew it, he stuck his HOOK into my mouth and yanked the tooth out!
Old Lincoln School as we know it today. No tower.
The original school: front three side windows.
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