{"id":6980,"date":"2018-10-07T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/martinroe.com\/blog\/?p=6980"},"modified":"2018-10-09T10:51:43","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T09:51:43","slug":"52-ancestors-back-to-school-oscars-new-boots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinroe.com\/blog\/52-ancestors-back-to-school-oscars-new-boots\/","title":{"rendered":"52 Ancestors: Back to School \u2013 Oscar\u2019s New Boots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is another post in the 52 ancestors in 52 weeks challenge<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Kendall Gibson, Wellington New Zealand
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\nLinton School is near Palmerston North in New Zealand. Five of our Larsen\u00a0ancestors were recorded as being among the 20 first day pupils when the school\u00a0opened on 18 March 1889.<\/p>\n

Their parents Hanna and Nicolai Larsen, had emigrated from Norway in 1873. In\u00a01888 Hanna was widowed. She was left to run their farm and raise a family of 10 children, with the youngest being only two. The older Larsen boys helped build\u00a0Linton School that their younger siblings attended. Unfortunately, we\u2019re not sure about identifying some of the family faces in this early photo. Thanks to a couple\u00a0of family stories we have certainty on a few of them.<\/p>\n

Oscar, born 1883: Clearly his mother Hanna was concerned that her kids did the\u00a0family proud in their first ever school photo. Oscar got new boots for the occasion. The Larsens would have walked to school (a distance of about \u00bd mile\u00a0uphill). By the time Oscar got to school in the new boots the poor little guy had very sore feet. In later years he told his granddaughter Brenda, that we could pick\u00a0him out in the school photo as he was in the front row with his thumb down his boot, trying to relieve the pressure on his blistered feet!<\/p>\n

Sena, born 1881: I remember my grandmother showing me this photo and\u00a0pointing herself out. She also identified her older sister Cas. Interestingly she couldn\u2019t identify any of her brothers who were in the photo. Sena left Linton\u00a0school in Oct 1894 when her sister Martha was married. Sena went to live with Martha and Charlie Brown as a \u2018home help\u2019 at their farm in Tokomaru. where She\u00a0attended Shannon school until the end of 1894 when she left having reached the\u00a0school leaving age of 13.<\/p>\n

Caspara, born 1877: On her first day at Linton School in 1889 Cas would have\u00a0been 12 years old. The older Larsen\u2019s had attended Central School in Palmerston North until moving to the farm at Linton in 1885. At that time there was no\u00a0school to attend. So it seems that Cas at 12 years old, Gus at 14 and Harry at 11 all went to school for the first time when Linton School opened in 1889, which is\u00a0a bit late to begin formal education.<\/p>\n

The Larsen children who attended Linton school:
\n1889: Gus 14, Cas 12, Harry 11, Sena 8 and Oscar 6.
\n1891: Jim 6
\n1893: Fred 6<\/p>\n

Who else is in the photo?<\/p>\n

One of the challenges with identification in this photo is that the exact date it was\u00a0taken has not been recorded. Our family holds several original prints and the photo also appears in the school\u2019s centennial publication* with the caption\u00a0\u2018sometime before the end of 1893.\u2019 Judging by how old the children we can\u00a0identify look to be, my guess is the photo probably dates from around 1890 or\u00a01891.<\/p>\n

In attempting to identify the other Larsen children in the photo I have tried:<\/p>\n