Cotton-Patch Schoolhouse is a memoir of the author’s year as a young and inexperienced teacher in rural Marengo County, several miles from Linden, Alabama, in 1926. Seeking to earn money to continue college after her freshman year at Alabama College in Montevallo, the author welcomed the opportunity to teach eight children at five different grade levels in a one-room schoolhouse in the middle of a cotton field. Youthful enthusiasm, native wit, and a sense of adventure helped her transform the simple schoolhouse into a place of learning and excitement.
AcknowledgmentsA Familiar Road Brings Back MemoriesMy First HorseMy First Love AffairI Go to CollegeI Meet the Children and Reverend MilfordA Glimpse of HomeMy First Full Day of Teaching and Miss BunkerWe Have a PetOur Nature WalkMinnie's Love AffairA Day on EgyptMinnie Runs AwayThe Thanksgiving PartyHome for the HolidaysThe Christmas PartyChristmas at HomeThe RunawayOut of Fuel in a SnowstormWe Learn about Birds and Other WildlifeThe Magic of SpringMiss Bunker Cheers Me upWe Go to Camp MeetingPlanning the Last Two Weeks of SchoolThe State Supervisor Visits My SchoolThe School TurnoutEpilogue
Susie Powers Tompkins, writer and award-winning artist, received her bachelor's degree from Alabama College, Montevallo, in 1928. Later she and her husband moved to Tuscaloosa where she owned a private school for speech and art for a number of years until World War II. During the war and the resulting teacher shortage, she began teaching at Verner School. She taught there for more than fifteen year while raising her two children.