What started off as a totally nice day as fizzled into a dreary, nearly sunless, snow-showery raw "good day to stay by the fire if you can" sort of day. Earlier this afternoon Fred told me to look out the window and the sun was shining brightly but there were snowflakes drifting down. Now the sun has completely disappeared behind big dark scudding clouds and every now and then there's a stray snow flake, but at 44 degrees, snow isn't going to be a big factor for now. This picture was early this morning - the sun was bright and everything was crisp and clear.

I moved my rain gauge to the front deck last week when we were expecting snow. You'll see the white snow board I use to measure new snow accumulation beside it. All summer I was able to slip out the back door and trip over to the gauge in the vegetable garden - only a short distance across the lawn so I didn't wear shoes to save getting them wet with rain or dew. That stopped abruptly with the snow, and now, while it is close by on the front deck, some mornings the deck has been icy, so I have to be careful when I go out there.

I measured .01 inch this morning. And no snow. I guess you heard that Mt. Mansfield got something like 18 inches of snow over the weekend. I heard some place south of us in Vermont had enough to snow board on, but lifts weren't running. Just a few eager beavers who want to rush the season.

I found some interesting school records today. When I was going to high school in Cabot Village, there was an elderly lady who lived not far from the Plains Cemetery by the name of A. Fanny Smith. Some mornings as I was speeding to school on my Elgin, she'd be out by her mailbox waving her walking stick in the air for me to stop. She would then give me a note to give to the local grocer in Cabot and I'd go on my way and then bring the groceries back to her when I came home from school in the afternoon.

I knew A. Fanny had taught school, but when I knew her she seemed a little "off", chanting poetry or telling me strange stories about her hens, all of whom had names, or about her parents or brother who had long since died - but my parents and grandparents assured me there was "no meanness" about her and that she had been, in her day, an excellent school teacher.

The records I found were what she'd kept about the schools where she'd taught from 1890 to about 1902, listing each of her students and their ages. It seems school terms were from eight to ten weeks and during those years school kept during the summer. I think it depended on whether a teacher was available. Miss Smith taught at Cabot Plain, East and South Cabot, the Whittier Hill, Burnap Hill and Kimball Hill and the village school in Cabot, a school in South Woodbury and one in Marshfield, and finally in Danville. These were all one-room schools, and sometimes she had as many as 32 students - all ages and grades. Her pay in the first records I found was in the area of $3.50 a week, with board; or at one school she got $5.00 a week but had to pay her own board, which she recorded as $1.25 a week. The last record, which I think was 1902, but there was no date on her notes that confirm that, she earned $8.00 per week and paid $3.00 a week for board.

I recognized many of the names of her students, and some of the school officials she mentions, calling them "directors." She never married - perhaps because she preferred to have a steady job teaching school and married ladies were not allowed to teach in those days.

I'm now hoping to find a picture of her among some of those "unknown" photos I've collected. We have several of school children with their teacher we've been unable to identify, but perhaps now, knowing the years she taught in certain schools, I can match up the information.