An Ozark American (hillbilly) schoolteacher was the equivalent of an intercontinental TWA airline stewardess before deregulation, until quite modern times.
Let’s just say there were never any scandals about them falling in love with 14 year old boys, back then.
My mother was not quite 17 when she graduated in April 1943, and her boss lady at the local cafe told her there was an opening at the Royal School because the current teacher was marrying the banker (teachers at one room schools had to be single).
Mama said what shall I wear, and her boss said your glee club dress with your high heels, now go,go,go!
She drove her spotless Model A roadster home and made herself employable and drove to the home of the President of the School Board, who was plowing with a team by the gravel road.
She climbed over the barbed wire fence, and holding her high heels walked out to the speechless middle aged man, and stood in front of him and announced her name, who her parents were, and that she’d have a temporary certificate from Southwest Missouri State Teacher’s College by fall.
Mama said the man just stood there, so she threw her chest out and stood up tall and said
And I’m in perfect health.
The man cleared his throat and said Little Missy, I’ll have to call all the other school board members but go home and tell your mother you have the job (her mother was the most famous writer in the surrounding area that inspired The Beverley Hillbillies with her weekly columns in The Index. Daisy Mae is modeled after my mother, named Saydee in the series).
My mother was paid $150 a month.
Before the war field hands earned fifty cents a day.
When school started, the first 14 year old boy that ogled her, she beat him with her paddle and slammed him down in his chair to gain dominance over the classroom.
That boy preached her funeral, and told the story of how she got her first teaching position, and all the ones afterwards the Superintendents came to her house to ask her.
What’s wrong with our public school systems is young girls ought to be willing to climb fences and walk across plowed ground to get their first jobs.
But that would take tax payer money, always in short supply.
...jk