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Emery Rhodes. Click to view larger image
"I, Emery E Rhodes, was the teacher of the upper grades(five, six, seven, and eight) in the Coralville School for nine years (1933-1942). Marie Leeney taught the lower grades (one, two, three, and four). We each had 30 to 35 pupils which was all the grade school pupils in Coralville at that time. W.N. Leeper was the county superintend who was superintendent over the hundred and sixty one and two room schools in in the county. He would visit each school several times during the school year. In the fall of 1932 he called me to go with him to visit a school. The school we visited was the upper grades in the Coralville School. Here they had a serious discipline problem. The teacher had lost control and the pupils did as they pleased. The school work was left undone. I was asked to teach this school the next fall. This I did for the next nine years. They paid me $80.00 per month. Later received $100.00 per month. This was a good salary at that time. You see you could buy a new Chevy for $650.00. My apartment was only $18.00 per month and you could get a good meal for 30 cents. The pupils at Coralville were eager to learn and we got along fine. The games we played were baseball and basketball. We also played zippie and old sow. Sometimes we played other schools in baseball or basketball for transportation we used my car. All ten players rose with me in my car. No law against that at that time. Some of the pupils rode bikes to school. One day three hitch-hikers came by the school and stole three of the bikes while we were in school. A passer-by came into our room and told us about it. Three boys got into the car with me and we ran them down. We got the bikes back. The road by the school was highway number six. The winter of 1936 was very cold, like 20 below zero. Some mornings when I got to school the janitor would tell me he couldn't get the building warm enough to have school. The pupils that came were sent home. The furnace had no blower. This was later corrected." Emery Rhodes
All text and photos courtesy of the Johnson Country Historical Society