Teddy
Teddy - The Sequel
Memories of One-Room Schools
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Emails and Inquires may be sent to lzimney@nvc.net
About the Author
Lorraine Jorgensen-Zimney is a retired elementary schoolteacher who began her teaching career at the tender age of seventeen in a one-room, rural South Dakota schoolhouse with all eight grades. After marrying her high school sweetheart and helping her husband on the farm, she completed her education and continued to teach.
With the exception of a few years before and after the birth of her son, she taught for a total of thirty-eight years. The draft and "baby boom" during WWII and the Korean War resulted in a teacher shortage in one-room rural schools that prompted the South Dakota Legislature to enact a special program. As a result of this program, Lorraine Jorgensen-Zimney was able to begin her thirty-eight year teaching career as a seventeen year old high school graduate, in a school where her eighth grade boy was only three years younger than she was.
Among Lorraine's hobbies are reading, writing, painting, and playing the organ. She has a few stray outdoor cats that she regularly feeds, but they are never invited into the house. Feeding animals is no doubt a practice that stems from living on a farm for so many years.
Writing the two books about Teddy and life on the farm brought back so many good memories that the scenes seemed to "come-to-life" on the pages for Lorraine, even to the point of causing "misty eyes."
TEDDY
One day Uncle Walter brings a wooly, cuddly, teddy bear-like border collie puppy with him when he comes to visit his brother's family at their farm in South Dakota. Eleven-year-old Lorraine instantly wants to keep the puppy but must have her parents' approval. Because they have been looking for a good farm dog. Teddy has a new home.
His instinctive herding ability is demonstrated on the second day after the adoption when a roly-poly Teddy rolls and tumbles over field stubbles to chase after the cattle. But Lorraine also learns early on that Teddy has a strong-willed personality.
Starting with chapter four, Teddy is a full-grown dog. His intelligence and livestock "know-how" amazes the family. But Lorraine is not content to have Teddy just be a working dog; she wants to teach him to do some tricks. Teddy learns everything quickly, but when it comes to "sitting-up" he doesn't cooperate.
Although Teddy is written as fiction for middle-grade children, it is based on actual events and in the hope that readers of all ages will enjoy the story of a family, their exceptional dog and life on a small family farm in the early 1940s.
TEDDY - THE SEQUEL
This book is a sequel to TEDDY, published by the author in 2011. Teddy - The Sequel a story of a girl and her exceptional border collie's adventures on a small family farm in eastern South Dakota during the 1940s and early 1950s.
Some of their adventures include: pig butchering, lard rendering, making lye soap, barn cats, field bunnies, breaking a young horse, learning to drive, stacking hay and working in the harvest field.
It is based on actual events and written for readers of all ages. The old photos of Teddy show his self-confidence and his love of posing for the camera.
Memories of One-Room Schools
Hopefully Memories of One-Room Schools will be enjoyed by anyone that ever attended these schools, knows of anyone that did or is interested in history.
Some of the things included are a brief history of one-room schools and the special state program that was legislated to solve the teacher shortage. Some topics covered in the book are: the different languages spoken, sporadic attendance, clothes worn, "hickory stick" discipline, getting to and from school, sleigh/bob sled rides, horses ridden to and from school, where the teacher stayed, water for the school, building and banking fires, schoolhouse pests, outhouses, lard or syrup lunch pails, snowbound at the school house, subjects taught, spelling bees, YCL song, special days, school picnics, description of classroom and some of the recess and indoor games played by the students.
But the highlight of the book is the humorous interesting memories of former students, parents, and friends. Baked potatoes and the game Anti-I-Over appear to be favorite memories.