For this section of Mata’s life, I decided to break it up into two separate articles since there is a lot of information and details to sift through. This period in her diaries is the most descriptive and lengthy, so I will be quoting quite a bit from them. First will be the shorter of the two articles, and we will take a brief look at her new town, new job and her overall experience there.
When we last left off with Mata, she was despairing at home, unable to find a teaching job. But, in the winter of 1915, her problem was solved. She was accepted for a teaching position as a high school English and history teacher in a small town named Friendship, Wisconsin. This was how she described the place before actually going there: “a lone country, surrounded by marsh land; no rail roads; 18 miles nearest R. station.” She would board at a hotel, earning her stay by doing some extra work for an hour a week.
Her first day of teaching on February 1 went well, as she recognized in her diary entry for that day: “First day of teaching in Friendship High. I am not at all frightened about beginning. I feel at ease right thru. All went smoothly on the first day. Reports state that Freshmen mind me very well but wait—newness nears off.”
But for some reason, she still had “the blues.” Perhaps it was the prospect that her life would be a continuing series of teaching jobs scattered throughout random small locales across the country, with a slim chance for romance or settling down. Perhaps it was simply the strangeness of a new environment, no matter how smoothly her first day had gone. Whatever the reason, she seemed to recover rather quickly, becoming more enthusiastic about this new place with an oddly positive name.
But, as in any age, teaching is not always an easy profession and gives it fair share of stress. In Mata’s case, there were some annoying problems with a few students. Take, for example, her diary entry for March 8: “Another day of it. Oh! the meaness [sic.] + impudence of several Freshmen. They are impossible. That’s all!! They (those special ones) make life dreary for the teacher—that’s all.” On May 12, she really put her foot down: “In P.M. I threaten to expel certain ones in class unless conduct improves.” Mata certainly seemed to be a rather strict and conservative teacher and wanted to keep her relationship with her students strictly formal, as evidenced in this blurb in her diary: “F. Billings…suggested giving my first name to the students. I refused, and I guess she was ‘outs’ about it.”
The leisure activities for Friendship were much the same as in the other places Mata had taught so far. That is to say, nothing spectacular. And she wasn’t too keen on what many of the local women did for fun, as we can see in this entry from February 22: “Miss Eddy has phoned up to want me to call on at the dime club this afternoon. I don’t like to go, but I guess it is a bounden duty. Shall go with Mrs. E. Smith. Did go, but I must make this confession to my own soul. I despise gatherings like this—sit—sew—gossip. Why not get out + hike on a decent day, spend remaining day resting + sewing in your own room at home[?].” Indeed, Mata was not much of an indoor person at all, as she explains in another entry: “Why is it that I love outdoor life so much? It is because of my family environment, inherent love and my own ease of adaptation. Then too, the surroundings here call for outdoor life. There is the school house in [the] midst of the wild—and the call in my blood is too strong to ward it off.” Fortunately for her, there were interesting hiking opportunities in Friendship, namely the locally famous Friendship Mound, as well as the Roche-A-Cri Mound, where she made no less than four treks in the course of her year in the town.
After a few months in Friendship, while Mata seemed to have some acquaintances, her opinion of the townspeople was not exactly flattering: “My criticism, of course, as for Friendship, they are the most unenthusiastic people alive—Not that they don’t see the merits but that they can’t conceal jealousy.” And, upon reflection, she didn’t seem to be too satisfied with her overall experience in the town: “Wouldn’t my Friendship days pass without bad feeling if I had not met and made a partial ‘friendship[?]’
But there was more to the story than just the difficulties of teaching and adjusting to life in yet another town. As before, Mata would yet again fall head over heels in love, which will be covered in the next article.
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