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(Editor's Note; Our information on one-room schools was gathered from interviews with those who attended and taught in them. Rather than a chronological listing, we were seeking information on what education was like in the small rural schools in this county. For a complete listing and description of county schools, see Elisabeth and C.E. Johnson's excellent summary in Rappahannock County Virginia History.)
Requirements for teachers in the early part of the century were flexible. Many of our best county teachers were high-school graduates who spent a good part of their teaching careers trying to keep pace with changing requirements in order to keep their certificates. This required summer school, correspondence courses and constant schoolwork of their own while keeping up with the rigorous demands of teaching in the country.
Mrs. Anne Keyser, then Anne Slaughter, began her teaching career at Battle Run School in Tiger Valley. She was a graduate of the Washington Academy and the newer Washington School that included high school. She was sixteen when the school board asked her to take this position.
Why did they choose her? Mrs. Keyser believes it was because she had ridden horseback into town from her parents’ farm and the board believed that she could manage to get to school no matter what the weather. “I knew nothing about teaching,” Mrs. Keyser said.
It was an honor for her family, and for her. to have this vote of confidence. Battle Run was one of the poorer schools, serving “year tenants” who worked on the larger farms in her hollow.
“For their work, they would get a small amount of money and findin’s,” Mrs. Keyser said. Findin’s were two hogs, milk from one cow, a few barrells of flour and cornmeal, and food for their stock.
Children came to school barefoot except in the worst weather. The boys wore overalls and sweaters; the girls gingham and red flannel petticoats. All of them walked, being too poor to have riding horses.
The children didn't have slates that they did have penny pencils, The blackboard was wood painted black—“Hard to write on,” said Mrs. Keyser.
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