LB2017.19.60330

LB2017.19.60330

This image of Bobby Lofman playing on his way home from school was published in the story "Maine Schoolboy" in the February 1948 issue of Life Magazine. The caption: "Headstand in the snow seems like a good idea. He makes up in enthusiasm what he lacks in form." In or about the winter of 1947, Ruohomaa was inspired during a visit home to Dodge Mountain to spend a day taking pictures at a one room schoolhouse in the tiny town of Rockville, not far away. There, Ruohomaa returned to an experience close to his own heart -- his time, more than 25 years earlier -- attending the one-room Benner School near his home. In Rockville, he chronicled the mixed-age youngsters' school day, including the solo trek home of one of the younger ones, and Ruohomaa's first cousin once removed, five-year old Bobby Lofman. Well aware that his images depicted a time and way of life essentially gone by, Ruohomaa submitted the story to Life Magazine and won its February 1948 cover story. This achievement was by no means Ruohomaa's first story for the Magazine or a major publication; his work for major magazines had taken off a few years earlier when he signed on with the prestigious Black Star Publishing Company in 1944. The article's lead paragraph introduced the images this way: "The small figure...is enjoying one of boyhood's richest pleasures-- the dawdling hours spent coming home from school. He is 5-year-old Bobby Lofman, a Maine farmboy who is in his first year in grade school in the village of Rockville (population 90) near Penobscot Bay. Unlike city students whose homecoming is usually a crowded bus ride or a straight dash down the street, Bobby's journey is a leisurely adventure through the snowy countryside, with frequent pauses to explore the wonders of winter along the road. To record the antics and high freedom which Bobby enjoys on his daily trip, photograher Kosti Ruohomaa followed him home one day recently with a camera. From schoolhouse to home the route measures two miles, but by the time Bobby had finished with his special wanderings and visits to neighboring farms he had covered more than three miles and used up two hours." Selected photos from this group were used in a cover article in Life Magazine (Ruohomaa, Kosti. "Life Walks Home with a Maine Schoolboy." Life Magazine,February 2, 1948.)