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** One Room School House **

D

Dutchman

Well-known Member
The other nite they { on TV } were talking about the 1 room school houses ..
Got me thinking of the one that I went too..
and was just wondering how many others out there went to a 1 room school house ??
I know this will divide the young from the not so young ... SORRY ...

Anyway just curious ....
Mark
 
This is one of the three one room schools I attended. The "Little School," Middle Ridge Wisconsin
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I attended one in the 4th grade (1961) when we rented a home before we bought the farm I was raised on. Called "Campbell School" K-8th grade all in one room. Potbelly wood stove up front center. 3-8th graders. One was also janitor and started stove and kept going. Outdoor crappers. Closed for pheasant and deer openers. Simple and fun times. A bicycle and imagination was all the entertainment one needed back then.All farm kids and all walked to school. "Crime" back then was putting a garter snake in girls outhouse!
 
Went to one for the first three years until we were moved into town. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything!! Guess that dates me, schools closed in 1952. Not many can say that these days.
 
I went to a one room school house for my first grade in 1948 and then a newer school opened. My dad and brother also went there. The old building survived for many years for storage and then was tore down about two years ago. My brother and I walked from the ridge down into the valley to get there. There was also a wood shed and a pump that I remember. I can remember us carrying our lunch box on an old roller shade stuck through the handle. Being that I was the shorter one it always slid down to my side. :eek:)
 
grades 1-5, consolidation of several rural and town school put me on a bus in 1958 for a 4 mile ride sure beat a 1 mile walk in cold rain and snow
 
I visited school in one where my cousins attended, does that count? Also went to a number of their events such as boxed suppers and programs.

I have many fond memories of them from reading in my mother's old diaries as she taught 12 terms, mainly in country schools. One year she had only one student. They closed the school as soon as he had graduated that year.
 
Went to a 1 room School House 8 years (48-56) Butler,Mo 65 miles south of Kansas City, well water was always rusty for a couple of months. Weeds were always high , sometimes someone would mow them before school started. A couple of years I got to go early and start the fire, we burned coal and I was thrilled to get a new load of corn cobs,got fifteen dollars a month which was a lot of money. We played marbles,softball,(wasn't allowed to have a baseball-someone might get hurt),a basketball,wrestled a lot and played Cowboy and Indians. The most we ever had in school was 23. We used to have box suppers and whoever had the highest bid could set with that girl and eat with her. When we got in trouble we had to go and cut our own switch and it better be green and not break or we we would really get it. (Always got worse when we got home) Probably would be considered abuse today but it taught us to be honest,have good morals and we would be better off today if we could return to the values taught in a one room schoolhouse.
 
Went all eight years to one. Every morning pumped water into a bucket and set it on the shelf in the front hall for drinking water by the sink. At noon the teacher dipped water out with a dipper and poured it over our hands with a bar of soap to wash our hands. I quess we never missed having hot water or running water. Did have a fuel oil floor furance. The wifes school was closed at the end of her seventh grade year. Girls and boys outhouses was standard equipment.
 
I went to one for the first couple of years, 56-57. 25 kids in one room, water cooler in the coat room, and two outhouses. Cold on the north side, sunny on the south. I remember the teacher was better there than the one I had at the big Consolidated school. Also, no phone in the school, electric lights tho.
 
My older brother and I went to one in morgan co. Ill. It was between Franklin, and Pisgah Ill. They called it sulfur springs school I still remember Ms Stella Doolin, who presided over 8 grades of rambuncious farm childern! I belive that I was in the 3rd and 4th grades then. She was stern, and kind at different times. Winters were colder then, and 3 miles of deep snow was a lot for my short stature. Bro Herb was longer legged, and I had to hurry along to keep up! We left the area, and I went to a consolidated school for the 5th grade, at Alexander Ill. Last summer I drove back to Ill and ran the roads in pike, and morgan co, trying to see all the places I remembered, as a kid and teenager. You just can't go home!! So many farms and buildings were gone, roads had changed, and Sulfur Springs School, was a bean field along the road. If it haden't been for the cementary, across the road, I would have thought that I was in the wrong place. GOD I HATE CHANGE
 
I never went to one but I now live beside this one.
built in 1857 It was a school till 1953 then operated as a Church for a few years, then a chainsaw shop to now and antique shop going out of business, wish I could afford to buy it as it is for sale. but my adventuress days are over .
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Yup. K through 4th grade. Lack of students closed it down at that point and I started 5th grade in town.

One room, K-8, one teacher. His 'n Hers outhouses, but we DID have oil heat.

1955-1959, Clinton County, Michigan.
 
Did 1-3 in town. We moved back to the farm in 54. Two room school, 1-3 down, 4-6 up.
Did 4-6 in 1954, 55 & 56.
Two indoor outhouses. Someone was appointed to each day pour a pail of water (out of the handpump outside) into the hopper with a cuppa lime. Llewellen lived next door, and hadda keep the wood furnaces burning at nite,, one up and one down. Used slabwood from the woodshed on site.
Big ole bell on top would announce end of recess or lunch, the rope was fed down behind the furnace. Rulers were used! but not for measuring. One pencil sharpener up front but ya hadda do it during recess. Yup, walked lotsa times, bout 5 miles around road, 3 across the back 16 acres "buckwheat" field.
WAS a little uphill both ways.
 
1 room school for 1st & 2nd. then they closed the school. 2 room school for 3rd, 4th & 5th, then they closed it. 6th & 7th in town, then they closed it. Was in last class to graduate from my high school building, then they closed it.

This was all in Hamilton County, Indiana, from 1943 to 1955.

Stan
 
I started school in a 4 room school.There was a 1 room chool house still in use.When we moved here in 1966 they had just built a new school.There a school house beside my farm and 2 others still standing out of 10 that were in use in in 1965.The one beside me is owned by a Ladies club and is still used for meetings and craft sales.Theres the remains of one across from a friends place.A fellow who went to school there had the job of getting a pail of water from a nearby spring daily.A few old school houses collapsed under a heavy snow fall several years ago.Life was harder then but I think it was better.I remember the 40s and 50s they were better times.
 
Me too.
Hickory School, Farm Island township, Aitkin MN.
Did my first 6 years there after which it closed and my litle sisters were bussed into town.
Our "playground" consisted of a ball diamond and the Backstrom family's woods where we built log forts and played at being pirates. Also Mr Olson's hill where we went sledding all winter.
Somehow, despite no computers, counselors or high falutin bureaucrats we learned to read, write and do arithmetic.
The building still stands but is a home now.
I tell folks I can legitimately say I'm from the old school.
 
When i was in 6th grade we had a chance to spend one full day in a one room school house .

The school house is in the Greenfield village next to the Henry Ford Museum , it is still there to this day .

We did it in the winter so it was heated by a wood burning stove. We did our lessons on slate boards and all.

I have been out of school for 25 years know and still remember it clearly.
 
I went to one when in the second grade in 1940, then things got better with indoor plumbing. Hal
 
Oddly enough, the only kid of us kids that went to a one room school house was our youngest sister. The rest of us went to more modern and fancier schools. Thinking back on it, I don't know why she went there except that it was kindergarten and maybe our elementry school was filled up? She took a public school bus there, and it was a church school that was used although by that time we were all in the public school system. Couldn't do that today without someone screaming "...seperation of...". As a kid growing up, our father told us often that he went to a 1/2 room school house and had to walk up hill in driving rains and snows both ways every day, so we needed to know how good we had it walking through the flat plowed fields and woods. Grin

I'm surrounded by Amish these days. Lots of one room school houses. Seems to work for them.

Thanks for the thoughts Mark. I'm sure that many will appreciate the trip down memory lane.

Mark
 
Yup, but not quite as long ago as some. Brick building half mile down the road, first 3 grades.

---> Paul
 
Don't know if this would count. We only had one teacher for grades K-8(I think 8, maybe only 6) in Two Dot, MT where I attended 1st and 2nd grade around 1982. The building had more than one room, but just one teacher except for the music teacher who came in once or twice a week. For being such a youngster, it sure did have a lasting impact. I went back and visited about 10 years ago and the building was still there, and I even looked up some former classmates. I didn't think anyone would remember me, but they did!
 
Yes, grades 1 thru 8, in a one room school. Closed in 1960, my 8th grade finished. 7 kids in all that year.
 
All eight years. And my father went eight years to the same school 35 years before I did.

My dad said once they got a new male teacher, and the kids ran rampant the first day. They thought school was really going to be a breeze that year.

Next morning the teacher swatted his desk several times with a pi$$ elm switch and said, "Yesterday you kids had things your way. For the rest of the school year, things are going to go MY way". They did.
 
Went to rural school 1 though 6 grades, originally was 1 through 8 until late 40's or early 50's. School had a huge sliding partition which divided the school into "little room" (1-3) and "big room" (4-6). Partition was opened for Christmas play or other major event, One tearcher for each room. Closed in 1964, indoor plumbing not until late 50's. Southern Illinois, Fayette County. I am 62.
 
My Father-n-law told this story. he was raised in the coal fields in WV. He said that the older boys ran all the teachers off. when this one came. The first thing he did was place a club on the top of chalk board, and told them that was for the ones that missbehaved. and he pulled a pistol out and laid it in his desk top and told them that was for the ones that the club didn't correct. He stayed many years at that school.
 
Both of my parents attended one room schools, I never did. The grade school I attended was built around 1920-1922, the local farmers told the township trustees "You buy the materials and we'll build the building". They closed 16 one room schools and 1 two room school and for the first time had a local high school. The high school was consolidated in 1959, and the old school was closed as a grade school in 1973 when we were consolidated again.

My first grade teacher taught in that school 50 years, and when I was in first grade (1964-5) we still had the rows of desks bolted to the floor.
 
I do not remember any 1 room schools that I went to but I do remember a couple of 2 room ones. One I remember real well was in Leigh NE and I remember it so well because we where once asked what we wanted to become when we grew up and I said a farmer and I was told I would never do so. Well I think I proved him wrong LOL
 
Fond memories!!
I spent all grade 1 to 8 in a 1-room schoolhouse. The first 4 years were with an aging male schoolmaster who was good to most students but the Big Boys antics finally got to him and he retired. But the next teacher was a 19 year old beauty right out of teacher's-school and she could charm all the boys with no effort. She had no Big Boy problems that the former teacher had. She soon developed a reputation as being fair, tough and gentle and became one of the best teachers I ever had.
Our Shanty had a boys end, and a girls end as well as a wood storage area for the wood furnace inside the school. During recess one game we'd play was Ante-Ante-over-the Shanty in which we'd split into 2 teams, one team on each side of the shanty. Then a baseball would be tossed over the roof and if NOT caught without hitting the ground was thrown back over, but if CAUGHT, then would allow the team with the ball (the team was now "IT") to raid the other team and throwing the ball at their members. This would 'capture" that HIT player for the IT team and had to occur before that team could scramble to the other side of the shanty for immunity. So during an IT, the teams ended up switching sides of the shanty. This would continue until one side was decimated of players.
Of course the game would be upgraded by the Big Boys to using the schoolhouse instead of the shanty, and because the one-room school house had very high ceilings inside, it was quite a throw especially for the younger players to get the ball over the roof. Needless to say, windows were broken, game Banned (until fixed and paid by culprit) , baseballs trapped in the gutters (Banned again + scoldings). Sometimes the baseballs were confiscated to effect the ban and this would create huge outcries since no baseball game could be played either.

Yes fond memories.
And it was quite common for designated boys to carry wood from the shanty to restock the wood store beside the furnace. This wood store was a huge room about 20x20 area. The actual wood splitting was done by volunteer men of the community but us boys supplied much of the stacking labour.
That schoolhouse was renovated into a nice 2-storey home in 1966 and is still there today.
 
We had a female teacher once who wasn't above swatting you upside the head with the flat of her hand if you misbehaved or weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing.

The end result was we altered our behavior to what it was supposed to be. And spent the rest of the day in fear that our parents would learn of the incident because the response at home would be worse than the teacher's action.

Haven't times changed?
 
Here is the one I attended 1st and 2nd grade in about "68, and "69 near LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Actually had a block addition out the back so was 3 rooms with real plumbing and heat. Two grades to a room. I did most of the 2nd grade work in 1st and then got to move over to the 3/4 room in 2nd grade. Parents moved before 3rd grade and went to one of the newest schools in the area. Got the books for 3rd grade and told the teacher I had done all of that already. She quizzed me a little and took me over to the next room.

Have never met anybody any younger than I am that had a multi-grade school room experience. Worked out OK for me. Building is now a small museum. I took my kids back there a few years ago.
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Went to a 1 room schoolhouse for grade school. Went to town for high school. 13 kids in my graduating class. Prepared me for college VERY well. Graduated from USD/Springfield a South Dakota college. A few years later the governor closed it and changed it to a prison! So now, with the closing of our high school a few years ago, every school I graduated from has been closed. At least no alumni associations asking for money!!!
 
My grandmother attended Seaside School for all 8 grades. My mother finished 2nd grade there until they moved to town. If we had lived on the ranch back then I would have attended there for a few years. The school was closed in 1953 and more or less abandoned by the school district. My parents were able to buy it about 1965.
Seaside School, San Gregorio, CA
 
1945-53. About half way through we got "running water" (pumpjack before that) and even had a telephone by the time I graduated. Minimum 18 and maximum 24 kids during my time there.

Areo
 
Wife attended one room school up until 8th grade near Charlotte, MI. Her mother was a teacher in one room for about 6 years. Wife is pushing retirement age, and Mom is gone now.
 
There still 5 active one room schools in Huron County in the state of Michigan. Church School has been active for over 112 years. It is located on Church Road and is a public school. It presently has 28 students, one teacher, and two aids. I've been on the school board for 15 years. It is a K-8th school.
 
Attended grades 1 to 7 in a one room school house from 1949 to 1957 in SE Nebraska. District 89 Otoe county. School had outdoor toilets and no running water. School was heated with a coal stove the first years that i attended and later installed an oil furnace. We also had a small barn at the school because most of us rode horses to school. I think I received a very good education, went on to college and became an engineer.
 
Our local historical society moved this small schoolhouse about 3 miles from its prior location to this site which is where the one-room schoolhouse stood that I attended for my first five years. As you can see the original school was over twice the size. The roof collapsed in "58, the year they closed it. With no heat to keep the snow off the roof, and a particularly heavy snowy winter, it couldn"t withstand the snowload.
We were able to construct a downsized copy of the belfry for the brass bell from the origianl school and place it on the little schoolhouse which had no bell.
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Lonely Oak School, Winnebago County, Wi. Went there in the 50's, one room, wood stove, well was a handpump outside, and the famous outhouse, same as the one at home only bigger. Was four in our grade, about thirty in whole school and one teacher, always remember her 56 Buick, was newer than anybody elses I knew.
 
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