Sentimental Sunday: School in Oaklawn Part 1

Sign on Railroad Trestle, Oaklawn, Cranston, RI, author's collection, Summer, 2014

This lovely sign was not put up until long after I was grown up. I first noticed it when we took my widowed mother's laundry to the laundromat to be done and one of her neighbors drove over to pick it up during the next week. I couldn't get close enough to it to see that it was a picture of the train depot. I see the train ran from Providence to Oaklawn and I didn't know that.

My first pre-school was in a teacher's home in Oaklawn. I barely remember it. I do remember that the teacher or a teacher's aide, came to my house to pick me up and bring me home again. They put a blue flower over the space where the rear view mirror met the roof of the car. It was a big old black car with plenty of room to pick up kids. I think they picked up several children in a trip. 

When we got to "school", we had to draw the blue flower and write our first name on a lined paper. I am amazed I remember that. With so few children living in "The Plat", I may have been the only child to be sent to Oaklawn  for school. I was four.

Oaklawn is a cute little village and even today, when you drive under this trestle, it seems peaceful and quiet on the other side. Soon, I will blog about my first few years in Oaklawn School.