You’ve probably seen television and movie scenes of pioneer children gathered on the school playground with their lunch buckets packed by loving parents. There seemed to be mutual agreement among our ancestors that a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and a cookie made a great lunch. However, there was very little agreement about the ingredients to be found in that sandwich. One suggestion from 1919 was “Peanut butter mixed with a little salad dressing or milk, and chopped olives.” Another was “chopped tongue with horseradish”.
Then, in the twenties a few parents and teachers became concerned about winter lunches and began cooking and serving one hot item for the children. Clubs and groups soon joined in the effort. In 1929 the Cade 4H sponsored a hot lunch program on Tuesdays and Fridays. Pupils brought supplies from home that were cooked on the stove that heated the classroom. Lunch often consisted of soup, cornbread, and hot chocolate. Dishes were chosen mostly for availability of the ingredients and ease of preparation. The Colbert Home Demonstration club met in 1933 to discuss details for creating a hot lunch program in their school.
A more widespread county lunch program was developed in 1935 as part of the WPA effort to support agriculture and nourish America’s school children during the depression. The first lunches were provided through the State Board of Public Welfare, which was mostly responsible for distribution of supplies. The County Welfare Board handled storage, and “lights, fuel, water” for people carrying out the program. Since the initial programs were considered tem- porary, most school boards were reluctant to build kitchens or buy equipment. However, as the WPA began certifying cooks and encouraging gardens and canning projects, attitudes changed.
In 1938 the state announced that 600 schools would begin the year with hot lunches and more were likely to follow. The program had served about 150,000 students in 1937. Hot lunches cost the state 2 cents per child. Some of the commodities furnished were sugar, tomatoes, beans, cocoa, crackers, dried milk, rice, and prunes.
Some of the schools serving hot lunches in 1940 included Achille, Albany, Armstrong, Banty, Beams, Bennington, Blue, Bokchito, Bray, Caddo High, Calera, Cobb, Colbert, Ft. Washita, Hendrix, Impson, Kemp, Kenefic, Lone Oak, Matoy, Mead, Pirtle, Platter, Pleasant Hill, Roberta, Silo, Smith-Lee, Utica, Wade, and Yarnaby. Besides tasty and nourishing foods, it was hoped that the school lunch program would teach students healthy eating habits and table manners. They were also encouraged to not waste food.
There was some concern in 1940 that commodities would be shipped to Europe and thus endanger the lunch program’s survival. State administrator, Bert McDonald, assured everyone that sufficient quantities of commodities were on hand and more would become available. The real shortage proved to be cooks and some schools turned to the NYA (National Youth Administration) for help.
1940 was a year of tremendous growth and change for local programs. Many remodeled structures to serve as cafeterias. Mrs. Castleberry, the teacher at Bray, built tables, benches, and a counter to separate the kitchen from the dining room, and installed a sink and cabinets. She enlisted men and women from the community to complete other projects. Similar volunteer efforts were reported at Silo, Bethel, Achille, Impson, White Sands, and Pebsworth. Guy Young, principal at Pebsworth created a separate kitchen and dining area. Bennington tackled the most extensive project and their reward was one of the best operations in the region. They reroofed and remodeled a four-room house on the school grounds into a firstclass kitchen, dining room, and handwashing station.
In 1941 forty-seven Bryan County schools participated, feeding 4,603 children. One of the more interesting aspects of the lunch program was the acceptance of food from pupils. Caddo advertised, “The pupil may bring produce to pay for the lunches, at market price current. Three eggs will pay for a week…a gallon of buttermilk pays two weeks.” Hog ribs, backbones, lard, and canned beef were also acceptable trades.
Supervision of the school lunch program changed after the war and the 1945-46 school year was managed by a branch of the Department of Agriculture. The Board of Welfare, at various levels, took care of equipment, cooks, food selection, menus, and cleanliness. There were 50 Bryan County schools enrolled that year.
In June of 1946, Public Law 369, the National School Lunch Act, was passed and signed into law by President Truman. In 1947 the Oklahoma legislature assigned the State Board of Education with management of the program. The basic elements remained the same: commodities supplied by the department of agriculture, some foods supplied by local growers, cooks paid from the small charge paid by students. However, a few details of service began to change as districts modified plans to suit their needs.
Workshops were held regularly to train cooks and lunch room managers in creating healthy meals and keeping accurate records. In 1952 a large group of cooks from all over the county gathered at Hallie McKinney Hall on the campus of Southeastern. Caddo’s Kathleen Meadows was the college dietician and prepared meals for them that could be duplicated back home in their school’s cafeteria.
Cuts in federal aid in 1955 prompted the Durant school system to increase the price of lunch to 25 cents. They only received 60% of their allocation for April and none for May. Oklahoma needed $250,000 more than their $1.2 million in funds in order to operate a “full program”.
The U. S. government surplus contribution reached a peak of $133 million in 1957 since there was an abundance of cheap chicken, pork, turkey, and dairy products. In 1958 a few schools experimented with allowing outside vendors to produce such items as muffins and pizza.
In 1962 Caddo served “type A” lunches, which consisted of a protein, fruits/vegetables, buttered bread, and milk. Quantities and specific items were listed in the requirements for A, B, and C lunches. Prices also differed. Mrs. Loraine Howell, Mrs. Pluma Choate, and Mrs. Georgia Hastings managed Caddo’s program. That same year, Mrs. Choate, along with Nina Sims from the Durant program, attended a three-day workshop at OSU.
In 1963 Durant ISD hired Mrs. M. E. Dobbins to be the director of the city’s complicated school lunch program. The senior high school also served lunch for the junior high and Washington Irving. There was a “mobile catering hot lunch service” for George Washington and Robert E. Lee. The mobile unit was used because the purchase of “stainless steel hot food containers” and transportation was much lower than the cost of a kitchen.
Recording the development of the program after 1965 definitely requires more space than we have here. Some people believe that we have strayed from the goal of feeding our children healthy, nutritious food and have instead allowed our children to suffer the consequences of inadequate funding and the convenience of ultra-processed foods. There is an almost constant discussion of the program at all levels of government. We recently witnessed a change in the milk children are served. We have been promised a number of positive changes in the coming year. We can only hope that the changes are ones that would make our ancestors proud of our progress.