ABSTRACT
Truro, Massachusetts, a small town near the end of Cape Cod, appears to be a quintessential New England rural village. On the winding road to the harbour is a well-tended central island with flowers and shrubs dedicated to Betsey Holsbery, who, a plaque proclaims, taught elementary school in the town for 50 years, between 1859 and 1907. In the Truro Historical Museum, Betsey Holsbery’s school bell is prominently displayed along with a photograph of her and her 1896 classroom. These artefacts and images call forth the selfless woman teacher in the idyllic country school. But who was Betsey Holsbery and why is she so remembered? What was the nature of the rural world in which she lived and worked? In this article, I use theories of place, rurality, and memory to explore the life of Betsey Holsbery and the changing social world she inhabited and to consider the ways in which the figure of the woman teacher in the country school serves to construct one version of the rural past while obscuring others.
