Prairie City High School - Plainsman Yearbook (Prairie City, IA)

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They all tease me a lot around here on Brewer's farm but I always try to fight back. It always gives them a big laugh when I use a wrong word at the wrong time. You can imagine that I didn't just come to have fun over here, so the State Department decided to send me to Prairie City High School to make me study. That was a good idea! I can say the first week Ithought it was awful hard I couldn't understand a word the teachers said, and took home all my books every day to study. I felt terrible, and Erma Lea helped me a lot and gave me new courage each day. I struggled through that first week and now I think it is pretty easy. I found a lot of differences in the schools over there and here. First of all I want to make clear that we don't have schools which you can compare with the high schools here. I went to a school eight miles from my home after I had five years of elementary school. As I learned from Erma Lea through discussing thatsubject you can compare the school I attended with your junior college. We don't have the choice of selecting subjects we want to take. Every student has to take what the schools offers according to the class you are in. Last year in July, I was in the 6th grade in that school, and had to carry eighteen subjects including sports and music. Four of the subjects were foreign languages. Ther, we don't have study halls. All the assignments must be done at home. That means study at home for at least five hours and more a day. We stay in one classroom from 8 o'clock in the morning until Z o'clock in the afternoon. Between each new study class we have a break of 5 minutes to be prepared for the next teacher. Hot lunch at 12 o'clock is unknown, each student brings his sandwich along. As I said, we stay in one room, and the teachers have a room where they come together after a class, and from where each teacher goes toghis next class. The thing I don't want to forget to say is that our schools are much more formal than schools over here. Students have to arise when the teacher comes in, and we have to stand up to answer his question and answer it in a sentence. To come to school with painted lips and put up hair is impossible. I guess we all didn't like it too well, but I think it does not hurt. Sometimes I have the feeling that it would be better if the school over here would be a little more formal. To be hone st about it, I hope nobody gets mad at me now. As well as the schools are different, our customs are different too. I can not write all the differences, but lwill tell about a few, at least, which I noticed most. First of all I would say people over here go a lot more than people in Germany. The important factor here is the community while we work more with the family together and stay at home. Then we don't have all those modern conveniences you work with. We have to do it more the old-fashioned way . I guess that is the way you would put it if you could see us do some things. But we don't know any other way to do it so it doesn't cause much trouble. Well, l got a very good impression of what the people over here like, and I don't have to form my own opinion any more by movies or songs, which gives us more or less the wrong ideas. It did me a lot of good. Before I come to the end, I would like to say, Thank you to the teachers of Prairie City High School for their very fine co-operation in helping me with my studies. I also want to thank all the students for being such nice fellows. You all helped me with your smiles and your friendly talks to make me feel at home. Thanks a lot you guys and gals, I had a wonderful time with you here in your Prairie City High School, and I am sure I will remember you and your teachers all my life. In thankfulness your German exchange student Eleonore Wagenschwanz

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Eleonore Wagenschwanz Eleonore comes to Prairie City from Irmelshausen Germany on an exchange student program sponsored by the Church of the Brethren. Our associations with her throughout the year have been pleasant and gratifying. We have asked her to put down her views for us on a number of questions we have had in mind. Here they are reproduced for you: Views After I had been on the Atlantic for three weeks with a group of 123 students, I finally arrived at New York on the lst of September 1953, where Mr. Eberly, our sponsor from the Brethren Church met us. He made us understand that we had to go through customs at the harbor. That was fun! It took us six hours, and tired, and exhausted we got into our three buses which brought us from there to New Windsor, Maryland. We all hoped to get some rest there, but that just was a dream. Everybody who saw us, wanted to know how it happened that we came, so we tried to tell them in our broken and unfinished English. Because I know that all of you are interested in that question too, I will tell you about it in a few sentences. I came on the exchange program under the sponsorship of the church of the Brethren. In May, 1953, l read in the paper that boys and girls between 16 and 18 had the chance to go to the United States. I thought that would be fun, and applied as a participant in the program. I had to go to bigger towns, and there American officers gave us tests, and interviewed us, about seven times before they accepted me. They wrote to my school and asked the superintendent whether I would be capable of doing it or not. We do not get any credit for this school year over here. They wrote back and forth and I already had lost hope in my plans. One day in July I got a letter that told me that I was one of the 30 students out of 1200 who got through all the tests and interrogations. I was so happy to hear that good news, but when the time came to leave home, it didn't seem so wonderful to me any more, and I wished I had never heard anything of it. But anyway, that was what I wanted, and what I got so I left for America. Now I am not a bit sorry at all that I have come because Mr. Eberly and his exchange staff picked out such a nice family for me to stay with. I really felt at home. My foster parents for this year are Mr. and Mrs. Merlin Brewer. I am sure it is not only for this year that they were my parents. I will remember them and all the good they did for me all my life. Erma Lea, Marjforie and Donald are the ones who keep me busy out there on the farm. We really have lots of fun together.

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