Kjettestorp School

This is a photo of a Karl Lindvall from 1919
that I found on kindabild.se. He's identified
as a school teacher from Kjettestorp School!

"My dad went to Kjettestorp School. In those days, it was just a one-room schoolhouse and one teacher. His name was Lindvall. I think it must have been around 1926 that the new school was built and classes started. They were going to try a new form of schooling. They added to another part onto the old school and that became the apartments for the teachers. On one end lived the teacher for the three first grades. That was a woman named Fröken Stenmark. All teachers were called Fröken then. That’s really a name for unmarried women like “Miss,” but all teachers were called that even married ones. All male teachers were called Magister. So on the other end of that building Magistern had his living quarters. The new school had two rooms on the ground level. It was built on a hill so the ground level up there was like the upper story. There was another level below then where the teachers had a washroom and where there was a room for the girls to learn cooking and baking and such and there was a woodshop for the boys.

Karin and Mom

Kids didn’t start school until they were 7 years old, and the two first grades went every other day. The third grade went every day. They went to school on Saturday too. Some kids had so far to walk, miles; there was no school bus or cars to take them to school. That’s why the littlest ones only went every other day. They started up that school system out in these little country schools. Well, Henning i Blåsten had decided that Karin would start when she was six years old and I begged and begged to start then too. Karin was born in March so she was a little older than me, but Dad finally gave in and let me start when I was six. The three first grades went in one room with Fröken Stenmark. In the other room, there first were four other grades and later five. There they had one teacher.

A real big change came about when a teacher came who was named Erik Johansson. He was young and had new ideas about teaching. One of his new ideas was that we should have a play every year. The one I remember the most I think was the first play because it was so completely different from anything we had done before. This play was called “The Princess Who Didn’t Want to Eat the Oatmeal Soup.”

The play was going to be performed out on the playground. The playground was a flat space that they had dug out from the hill; they had leveled it off. That was west of the teachers’ house. Right by the house there was a rather wide ledge and that was going to be the stage. Down on the playground then they set up benches for the audience. They put up canvas around the stage and a set of pulleys so they could pull back the curtain for the different scenes. We got dressed up in our different costumes inside the teacher’s house. His wife was really involved in everything at the school and some parents were in there too helping with the costumes. They put up some steps next to one window and that’s where we could go out when it was our turn to get on stage. We came in on the stage from the side.

Queen Sara and King Gunnar

Sara was going to be the Queen, the mother, and Gunnar Kranz was going to be King, the father. So then we needed to know who was going to be the Princess? Almost every kid said, “Greta! Greta!” “No,” the teacher said, “Greta is too nice, too kind.” Greta was quiet blond girl with a natural wave in her hair and blue eyes. She was a really pretty little girl, but she was too nice and good. The teacher said, “I think we should have Karin for the Princess.” This was Karin i Blåsten, so she was the Princess. Then of course there were all kinds of other characters, butlers and kitchen maids and such, but Greta i Herrefall was going to be a cat and I was going to be a rabbit. I think they had one more animal but I don’t remember who that was.

Tant Tora i Vimantorp and Mama brought their sewing machines down to school and they sat there sewing and making costumes for all these people in the play. They made me a rabbit costume. It had a hood on with big ears so only my face showed, and I had to learn to hop like a rabbit. Greta’s cat costume the same shape as mine, but she was black and white and had cat ears. Even our hands were inside these costumes. Greta had to learn to meow in the right way.

So one scene was out in the forest and that was my scene. The Princess cried and ran out there in the forest and told the rabbit that she didn’t want to eat this soup. This play was so much fun, and people came from everywhere! The whole playground was full of people watching this play."