Pen And Ink 1944

I was so happy to leave the Red Brick School and it's really scary principal Mrs. Hollett.I was in her class for a year in grade three and it was one of my bad experiences in my education. Advancing to grade four in the Gray School and having Mrs. Robinson was like winning the lottery. She was one of the most wonderful teachers I ever had. She was tall and had a very distinct hair style. She like my grade one teacher wore suits and always had a handkerchief in the upper pocket.

Mrs Robinson also smelled great and when she called you up to correct your work you enjoyed the time shared with her. I knew she liked me as I always stood by her for pictures and when we went anywhere she always held my hand and kept me close to her. She was an artist and gave us time to draw good pictures and study paintings.

One of the real reasons I wanted to go to grade four was that we could use pen and ink and write on smooth paper. Up to this year we always used rough paper and wrote with a pencil. If you had to erase something often you would rub right through the next page.

During the first week we were told to bring our pen holder and three nibs to start our cursive writing using pen and ink. There were no ball point pens at this time.Our desks had a ink well on the right side of our desk and it was filled when needed by ink made from water and ink material.You could also bring ink bought from the co-op with names like Carters or Quink. Your pen holder was a long wooden object with a metal end designed to hold nibs. Nibs were sold at some stores and cost three for five cents. They were tiny steel objects split in the middle to transfer ink from bottle to paper.

Since the ink was wet we were given ink blotters donated by the Bank of Nova Scotia to dry the excess. As a child this skill was not easy and accidents happened. Girls were endangered if they wore braids as some boys would drip the ends of their braids in the ink well. I had one accident at the beginning of the class when Mrs Robinson assigned me to fill the ink wells for the class. When pouring the ink I overextended the rather large bottle of ink and spilled it all over the desk of a girl and it drained down to her dress. I was embarrassed but continued my task

Our writing lessons were carried out in double lined writing  scribblers and we had to complete exercises  within the lines. I always felt this was a ridiculous exercise because I could do a few circles OK but as I crossed the page they became worse and worse. The learning exercise was continued throughout the year and we mostly mastered writing with pen and nib.