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Here we have a school portrait from the Niederhelfenswil village school in St. Gallen during 1969. St. Gallen is a a German-speaking canton. The girls all wear dresses or skirts. Bib-front styling seems popular. Most wear knee socks, but some girls wear tights. The boys wear a variety of casual shirts and sweaters. Most seem to be wearing short pants and at least the boys in front were barefoot. This seems to have been common in the warm weather, at least for the boys.
Niederhelfenschwil is a village in St. Gallen Canton. It is about about 20 kilometers from St. Gallen city.
About 2,600 inhabitants live in Niederhelfenschwil. The municipality Niederhelfenschwil today includes three former municipalities (Helfenschwil, Zuckenriet and Lenggenwil). There are records of these municipalities dating back to 782 AD. The place was known as part of pilgrimage to St. Rupert's Abbey in Bingen (Germany). Niederhelfenschwil is about 350 south of Bingen.
St. Gallen is a German-speaking canton located in the northeastern Switzerland along the Austrian border. Lake Constance and Germany are located to the north. The economy is largely agricultural, especially dairy farming and cattle rising. Industry has also developed and tourism is important. The area is well watered with the Rhine, Thur, Linth and Seez rivers flowing through St. Gallen. The topography includes both plains near the Rhine and Lake Constance which turns to hilly mountainous areas in the south. There are both forests and Alpine pastures. The canton consists of the land acquired by St. Gallen abbey over time. This is why St. Gallen surrounds other cantons. They were never part of Abby lands. St. Gallen was part of the Säntis Canton within the Helvetic Republic. The Abbey was secularized (1798). This occirred after the French Revolution when the Fremch Republic violated Swiss neutrality and occupied Switzerland. St. Gallen joined the Swiss Confederation (1803). A constitution was adopted (1890).
While Niederhelfenswil is a village, the school seems rather substantial. This was just one class, so there must have been several similary sized classes. We don't get to see the school here as the photograph was taken looking away from the school. I'm not sure what grades/forms it would have included.
The children here look to be about 10 years old.
The girls all wear dresses or skirts. Bib-front and H-bar styling which look to be pinafores seems popular. Several girls wear bibfront pinafores. This probably is a residual style from earlier when the children all wore smock-like pinafores. Most of the girls wear knee socks, but some girls wear tights. The boys no longer hear the H-front or suspender shorts that were once so common. They wear a variety of casual shirts and sweaters. The boys wear long sleeve shirts, some with sweaters. Note how the boys have buttoned their collar buttons. Turtle neck shirts seem popular.
Most seem to be wearing short pants and at least the boys in front were barefoot. The boys are wearing shorts even though it is still spring. Note the tree in the foreground is just budding. The girls This seems to have been common in the warm weather, at least for the boys. This is not a sign of poverty, but apparently many boys preferred to go barefoot. That seems a little strange to us. Actually we were surprised to see Swiss children going to school barefoot in the 1960s. We are not sure how common that was.
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