By Jim Studer
Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, Spoon River, Indiana, Winesburg, Ohio? What do they have in common? They are small towns featured in American literature. Grover’s Corners appears in the celebrated play, Our Town by Thornton Wilder; Spoon River Anthology by Edgard Lee Masters lays bare the town of Spoon River with poems from the graves of former residents. Sherwood Anderson exposes the folks of a small town in his collection of tales entitled Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small Town Life. Two of these works suggest that a small town is not a nice place to live. Only Grover’s Corners captures the idyllic nature that can exist in such a place.
I have lived in and taught in small towns, Albany and Maple Lake. I taught in St. Anthony Village in suburban Minneapolis; however, the school district is one of the smallest public schools in the Metro area. Most of the villagers’ homes had been occupied by the same families for dozens of years; the village lived up to its name. It is a small town.
My small-town experience is more closely related to the place created by Wilder. I enjoyed it. In most weather I could walk to school while teaching in Albany. In winter I could walk across North Lake with my friend Pete. I was waved at and vocally greeted as I passed familiar faces on the street.