STILLWATER, Okla. — A 96-year-old Stillwater native recalls her time at a historic school house as a “bonding” experience.

Ruth Martin attended Pleasant Valley School in Stillwater when she was at least 6 years old.

“Well, I started in first grade,” Martin said. “It must have been 1922. I attended just one year because we had lived in the neighborhood before that, but we moved at the end of the year.”

Martin’s family moved to Perry and then other towns before she made her way back to Stillwater in 1932. She attended school, married and moved to Bethany where she taught for 24 years. It wasn’t until 1995 that she made her final return to Stillwater and has lived here since. However, she still remembers her one year spent at Pleasant Valley.

“All the parties and church services and anything like that was held in the schoolhouse back in those (days) and I can remember the pot belly stove in ... the school,” she said. “And the lights were not electrical lights. I can’t even remember if they were Coleman lights.”

What she remembers most about non-academic events at the schoolhouse is the Christmas tree that decorated the room every December.

“It might not have been as big as my memory thinks it is, but it seemed like it almost touched the ceiling,” she said. “And I thought that was so great to have a great big Christmas tree like that because we made chains to put on it.”

However, a normal day at school always started out with a walk.

“We had to be there at nine, and I lived a mile and a half (away), and I would usually go up the road and see if two other children there had gone to school,” she said. “If they hadn’t, then we’d cut through the pasture so that I didn’t have to walk a mile and a half. But if they had gone, I wouldn’t walk through the pasture because there was a bull out there in that pasture, and I didn’t exactly trust him.”

The journey to school was led by a narrow road and surrounding tall weeds. Martin said the walk could be scary sometimes.

After arriving, the bell was rung by one of the older, bigger boys. The children would line up and hang up their coats, if necessary. After taking their seats, the class would sing America (My Country Tis’ of Thee) and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

“There was a platform in the school,” she said. “The teacher’s desk was on the platform. It probably just sat up a foot higher than the rest of (the students).”

Along the side of the building, one long bench sat all the children when it was their time for recitations, readings and lessons. Martin said she didn’t believe there were more than four or five students in her grade. While other grades were being taught, Martin and her classmates would have seek work to complete.

“I learned a good many things just by listening, so you didn’t normally get an education for your own class,” she said. “You listened and got some other things, too.”

After a while, recess began. Outside, a bucket of water was set up to quench students’ thirst.

“Our drinking water was in a bucket, and we all drank out of the same (dipper),” she said.

Later, lunch time allowed the children an hour to play various games.

Martin’s grandmother’s house was a block or two west of the schoolhouse.

For her, memories of the schoolhouse stick out because of the proximity of family.

“I think part of it was because it was right close to my grandparents,” she said. “And one of my great grandfathers was living with my grandparents and he would always sit at the window and watch for me to come at lunch time.”

As for the “bonding” experience, Martin said she felt that way due to her family’s history of attending the school.

The Pleasant Valley School is now attended by fourth graders throughout Oklahoma who attend a day long class as they would have experienced it in territorial days.

Whether it’s memories of the blackboards and six crayons she had to use, the games such as Annie Annie Over or driving with her family in their Dort to an oyster or pie supper at the schoolhouse, Martin said seeing the schoolhouse all these years later still makes her feel like a little girl.

“It makes you realize the difference through the years that have taken place,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to explain. You feel like, when you’re there at the school, you have gone back in time. And then when you come out, all these other things have taken place. It’s just a little island there to go back.”