House of Fields: Memories of a Rural Education

174 Pages·2006·1.1 MB·English

by  Anne-Marie Oomen

house of fields
GREAT LAKES BOOKS
A complete listing of the books in this series
can be found online at http://wsupress.wayne.edu
Editors
Philip P. Mason
Wayne State University
Charles K. Hyde
Wayne State University
Advisory Editors
Jeffrey Abt Susan Higman Larsen
Wayne State University Detroit Institute of Arts
Sidney Bolkosky Norman McRae
University of Michigan–Dearborn Detroit, Michigan
Sandra Sageser Clark William H. Mulligan, Jr.
Michigan Historical Center Murray State University
John C. Dann Erik C. Nordberg
University of Michigan Michigan Technological University
De Witt Dykes Gordon L. Olson
Oakland University Grand Rapids, Michigan
Joe Grimm Michael D. Stafford
Detroit Free Press Milwaukee Public Museum
David Halkola John Van Hecke
Hancock, Michigan Wayne State University
Richard H. Harms Arthur M. Woodford
Calvin College Harsen’s Island, Michigan
Laurie Harris
Pleasant Ridge, Michigan
house of fields
memories of a rural education
ANNE-MARIE OOMEN
Wayne State University Press Detroit
© 2006 by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, Michigan 48201. All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced without formal permission.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
10 09 08 07 06 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oomen, Anne-Marie.
House of fields : memories of a rural education / Anne-Marie Oomen.
p. cm. — (Great Lakes books)
ISBN 0-8143-3285-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Oomen, Anne-Marie—Childhood and youth. 2. Oomen, Anne-Marie—Family.
3. Country life—Michigan—Oceana County—History—20th century. 4. Farm life—
Michigan—Oceana County—History—20th century. 5. Education, Rural—Michigan—Oceana
County—History—20th century. 6. Oceana County (Mich.)—Social life and customs—
20th century. 7. Oceana County (Mich.)—Biography. 8. Girls—Michigan—Oceana County—
Biography. 9. Farmers—Michigan—Oceana County—Biography. I. Title.
F572.O3O57 2006
977.4’59043092—dc22
[B]
2006021648
Except for the author’s immediate family and general references to families in the region,
the names of all individuals in this book have been changed.
∞
Designed and typeset by Maya Rhodes
Composed in Bembo
To my father and mother,
who believed so passionately in the value of education,
but particularly my mother, who, more than anyone else,
put up with the child who was always running heedlessly forward,
if not in body, in mind.
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I have been permanently shaped—and am still held fast—by
landscapes that exist in memory alone, though this makes
them no less real when they come to me in dreams, when
fragments are triggered by a random fact. . . .
It doesn’t take much—a look, a phrase—and suddenly
I’m a child once more, running hard and fast down a narrow
dirt road. . . . Yet there’s no sense, as I run, that I’m recreating
something, repainting this landscape as if by numbers, filling
in color and sound. I’m simply here, I’m home, and any return
to the present will be informed by what I’ve seen.
—A. Manette Ansay, Limbo: A Memoir
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Prologue: The House 1
Uncle John 9
Dynamite 13
House of School 19
Big Words, Little Words 24
Saved 33
Picnic 40
The Ledger 46
What I Know 53
Summer 55
First Scar 59
Picture Girl 61
Miracle 67
The Sacred 76
Pearls 80
The House of Memory 90
Snap, Snap 96
ix