For the first time, let’s take a closer look at Mata’s daughter, Barbara, who loved writing about as much as her mother did. I was able to save some of her essays from school which are autobiographical—very useful information to have when so there are so few other materials. In this essay, written when she was sixteen, Barbara recalls her time in kindergarten. She attended the Gale School in Chicago, and it seems that it’s still being used as a school today! Here is the essay in full:
with some friends
Kindergarten Days
The cold-faced superintendent of Gale School shook her gray head firmly. Her answer was “no”, and there was nothing we could do about it.
It really wasn’t fair though. You see, my mother was trying to enroll me in Gale School’s kindergarten. It wasn’t that they didn’t want me to attend their school. I just was too young. My birthday made me three days too young to go to school!
“It’s disgusting”, my mother told my dad that evening. I thought it was too. To start kindergarten at six years old was too much to bear.
A week later my mother packed our bags in a rush and whisked me away to our home in Two Rivers, for it was finally decided that I would begin my school career in Washington High.
The important day came. Little faces streaked with tears, a waling girl clinging to her mother, tiny tots fearfully eyeing their first teacher, bold boys playing tag on the freshly varnished floor, and little girls in new dresses and large hair bows were all a part of this first day.
In those days it seemed to be the custom of every mother to dress their poor girl in long white stockings that bagged and wrinkled hopelessly at the knees, and if we weren’t fortunate enough to have long, natural curls, we girls were also the victims of a very unbecoming hairstyle. I can see myself yet, perched on a stool at home while my “barber-shop” aunt clipped my hair short, right to the ears, and then carefully cut straight, stringy bangs across my forehead! Luckily, I didn’t know the difference at six years.
I remember seeing Patsy Winklemiller and Winifred Wentorf sitting together at a table that first day. They had bright yellow dresses on and huge, flopping hairbows in their hair. I thought they were twins. I met many more little girls and boys that day and many of them are still classmates of mine.
Kindergarten was fun. After the first trying day, we soon were friends and played happily in the sand box, fought over blocks, and learned to print our name in large, wobbly letters, besides drawing a pretty picture of nothing with our bright crayons.
It went along fine until one day our teacher announced that we must bring a rug to school. She explained to us in a very kindergarten teacher voice, that although we were old enough to go to school, we still should take a nap during the forenoon. This was blow to me. A nap—and in the middle of the forenoon! I was near tears. Of course, Mother thought it was a fine idea, (mothers always do) and hustled me off the next morning with a kiss and the detested rug tucked under my arm. My little heart rebelled inside of me. I had won the battle of naps at home and hadn’t taken a daily nap at home since I was three and now, here I was, a big lady of six, sleeping in the daytime. I hated to hear the teacher say very sweetly, “Now take out your rugs and go to sleep, children.” I never slept once. I rolled, and fretted and tossed on that miserable rug until the glad moment came when I could return to my play.
A half a year of my kindergarten life had passed when suddenly I found myself starting all over again. My mother packed our grips once more and whisked me away again. This time to our city home, Chicago.
The first day Mother walked to Gale School with me, but I had a mind of my own and insisted upon going alone, regardless of the dangerous traffic and the bigness of the city. I had to cross Sheridan Road, with all its rushing traffic. There were stop and go lights, but just the same, it was a bit risky for a six year old. One day the lights were out of order and I stood patiently on the curb waiting for the lights to change until my mother glanced out of the window and came to my rescue! I had been standing there over a half an hour waiting for the green light that never came! Once I got across Sheridan there were still empty lots to be crossed, and I had to make my way through dirty alleys lined with unsightly garbage cans and maybe a listless tramp or two.
Gale School itself was a dreary, gray-looking building and instead of the green lawns Washington had, the boys and girls of Gale School played on right cinders and gravel playgrounds and cement sidewalks.
The kindergarten was an immense room. It had to be, for there were a hundred pupils. Fifty came in the morning and fifty in the afternoon. And remember that this school represented only a small section of Chicago’s schools!
I still recall a few of my friends who I grew to like very much. There was Marilyn, a saucy blond with cute curls and a dimpled smile, and there was Gloria, a very sweet, dark-haired girl, Jack, a skinny boy, and Leona, a poor crippled girl with stringy, honey colored, whom nobody spoke to or played with. I felt sorry for her, and I wish I could have helped her in some way.
One day a little girl got a bloody nose, and she lay on the bench kicking and screaming while the red blood spurted out on her white dress. It was quite an ordeal, for the bleeding persisted. The teacher ran back and forth with dripping wet towels while the rest of us gathered around with our mouths open wide in awe and our eyes popping. We couldn’t understand what had happened to our little friend!
Another time a girl came to school with little red spots all over her face. Measles of course, but the teacher didn’t send her home. She said it would be all right this one day. It was just fine. The next day I was in bed with the measles.
Our teacher decided to put on a play. Yes, even then teachers believed in putting us in the spotlight. It was a Christmas play and I had a red crepe costume made to look like a Christmas bell. I had to wear the usual long white stockings and white shoes. Only the shoes proved to be a problem. My mother wore herself ragged hunting for white shoes for me. She was a proud mother and the shoes had to be very special. At the last minute she found a perfect pair. So there I was, a bell in the Christmas play!
All too soon the school bell rang for the last time on June, the twentieth, and we waved good-bye to Gale School, as we stumbled happily down the stone steps to the noisy street. This year had been fun, I thought. Why, all we did in school was play and have a good time. Little did I realize what lay ahead!
unpublishedhistory 
I recall almost nothing of my first day at school. I know my fourth-grade cousin, Mary Reagle, was tasked with walking me the mile to school. After that I was on my own. The name Winifred seems much out of favor these days. We had one in our class, Winifred Blatcher. She was unattractive and socially inept, so for eight years she was teased and tormented mercilessly. As an observer I never did the teasing, but I remembered the horror of it. One day around 10 years ago I had an awful attack of remorse — over the treatment that child had received. I wanted desperately to believe it hadn’t set the tone of her life. Doing some research I learned she had married, raised a family, and presumably had a satisfying life. Sadly, it did not last; she died in her late forties or early fifties. I’ll hope her spirit is generous in forgiveness of those who took the joy of her early years so evident in this piece of writing.
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