Late 1800s...Did students ever live with their teachers instead of their parents?

Question

I have a man at 10 yrs old with a woman listed as a teacher and a different last name. 10 years later they have moved but are still on teh same census sheet but is now several more children with yet another last name. There is also a sister with the same last name as his that I know was born between the 2 census' but isn't on the second. So my question is...can she have just been a travelling teacher of sorts? There are no other adults listed with him on the first census and he was married in the second.

Answer 1

http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th...

per this message, Irene was Irene Finney by birth, and Jasper WAS HER son.  

This is an old message.. so not sure what is available to back this up.  For what it is worth... (on this statement, it would seem Jasper was born out of wedlock? )

edit-

in 1850, it is correct that IREANA FINNEY lived with parents John and Harriett Finney, in Washington, Co, Florida.  Harriett (her mother) is shown as Williams on the 1860 census, indication of the death of John Finney.  

In 1900.. Jasper indicates his birth as July 1858, which leaves Harriett out as possible mother.

I cannot find either Jasper or Irene in 1860, which would say a lot.  There might be a marriage record for her in one of the counties in Florida (and w/ civil war, she may have lost any husband).

Everything points to Jasper being Irenes' son.

Answer 2

I have several like that in my own family. Orphans, cousins ect.  They generally took care of their own and were willing to take in strays that weren't actually related to them. I would suggest that she probably made her living as a teacher and was raising the child because he had no one else. The same could be true of later additions to this home.

Answer 3

Helen Keller lived with her teacher, so yes, it is entirely possible for a student to live with his or her teacher.

Answer 4

I would imagine there were times when children were orphaned or maybe they lived too far away to go to school from their home that they might live with a teacher. Actually, the teacher might have had a boarding school.  It certainly isn't impossible.

Does the census show the relationship of the child to the head of the household?

Answer 5

It would have been clearer if you had listed the names. Did the teacher marry the student?

Yes, teachers lived with the students sometimes; more accurately, teachers and students lived at boarding schools. If this is the case, if you back up the page(s), sooner or later you'll run across someone whose occupation is "Headmaster" or "Principal". The top of the page has "Name of institution" on the later ones; if it is filled in, you know it was a boarding school, or a blind asylum or music conservatory or something.

Answer 6

There were smal boarding schools around the country, but what you describe doesn't sound like that situation.  Besides, a child away at school would probably still be listed as a member of his parents' household.  Could this woman have been an aunt of the boy?  Or was she old enough to have been his grandmother?