I vividly recall what it was like before this flag salute issue was settled in 1943. I started 1st grade in Lead SD in 1940 and it wasn't so bad that year as it was in 1941 when I was in second grade. That teacher was very patriotic and insisted that we salute the flag every morning. At that young age and my parents just coming in the truth, I don't know that I really knew the whole story of what was happening and the why of it. What I really got from my parents was that JEHOVAH did not want us to bow down to the flag and I being the obedient child that I was taught all my life, I wasn't about to salute it. As a consequence every morning she took me in the coat room and spanked me. But she never succeeded in making me salute. She could have beat me and I would NOT cry--or salute! I never told my mom about it cuz dad had told me right off if I was bad and got a spanking at school, I would get another when I got home. When they finally figured out why I didn't want to go to school, Mom went with me to check it out. The teacher said "I will teach her to salute the flag" and she grabbed me, took me to the coat room and gave a hard spanking in front of mom. But I didn't cry or salute! Then my dad got involved and reported it to the school board.
That was the end of the spanking but NOT the name calling by my classmates. I was the only witness in the school and the patriotic furor was really rampant. That area in SD was a hotbed of persecution for the witnesses. Several times my mom and the special pioneer sister that studied with her got hauled into the police station and in 1942 at our "Peace Can It Last" convention in Deadwood,SD a mob gathered to break up the assembly. The police quellled that and the brother on the platform said "let's go out and show them we are still here." We all donned the placards and did an information march. Being only 8 yo my placard came clear down to my feet. In the old video of "The New World Society in Action" there was a little girl about my age with a sandwich sign....almost to her feet! I was baptized at that convention and for a long time, I questioned if that would be a valid baptizm and just to be sure, I was baptized again. As a recent WT. study about young ones getting baptized, it said if one is old enough to know right from wrong, they could be baptized. That was reassuring but I have always felt a strong sense of right and wrong and especially where my worship of Jehovah is concerned. I thought the issue was long ago settled but I guess not. 🙄The book "Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses and the Dawn of the Rights Revolution" strongly shows what went on in those days and howJWs fought for the rights we now have!