Initially, my plan for this project was to interview several of my family members who attended the Town Hall School and ask them to compare and contrast their time there with the educational experiences that followed. My thinking changed late in the process while having a post-Thanksgiving dinner discussion with my father, two uncles, and aunt who attended Town Hall. The discussion is something that will stay with me for a long time. What made it so wonderful was the joy and happiness that accompanied the subject. Stories of days long since past filled the room. The room suddenly filled with laughter. Each individual would share a memory, and ultimately one of the other siblings would be able to add more details. At that point I knew that I had to try to find a way to communicate what I was experiencing at that moment, through this project. So what follows are the stories of my family, with the Town Hall School serving as these stories' home. This turned into a deeply personal experience for me, for which I am very grateful. I hope you get at least a fraction of the joy reading these accounts, that I received writing them.

The Town Hall School consisted of children in kindergarten through the eighth grade. It was expected of the older children that they help in the education and nurturing of the younger students. Among their responsibilities was to assist the teaching in the instruction of certain subjects. My uncle David relayed this message proclaiming, "I've been teaching since the third grade!" The early exposure to teaching must not have been too traumatic, because he ended up (as you might have guessed from the quote) devoting his adult life to the education of children. David worked in the Belleville school district as a math teacher for many years before retiring ten years ago.

My father Mark and my Aunt Sally, the two youngest of the four Smith children, were taught by Mrs. Lorna Bone during their years at the Town Hall School. Mrs. Bone was a strict woman, but a "wonderful teacher" according to Sally, who was her pupil from kindergarten through fourth grade. While my father has fewer memories of Mrs. Bone, only having been in her class from kindergarten through second grade before the family moved into town, his one lasting memory is a classic. As he puts it, "That woman was ninety-years-old when I was in the second grade!" Now that may not seem unreasonable, everyone has had older teachers. However, when my father was in the second grade the year was 1954. Here's the thing, though. Mrs. Bone lived a long, and from my father's perspective a really long life, having not passed away until 1986! So by my father's account, that would have put her at 122-years-old when she died. The truth of the matter is that Mrs. Bone ended up living to the ripe age of 94 years old. True, it isn't 122 but it was a long, and let’s hope, good life.

Growing up in the 1940's and 1950's meant that baseball was not just a game, it was a passion. The eldest sons of Lee and Laura Smith were not immune to the lure of America's pastime. Growing up on a farm, much of their spare time was devoted to playing the game that they loved. While attending the Town Hall School, there was little in the way of organized baseball, but my Uncles Paul and David reminisced of a visit from a Pittsfield Township school that came to challenge Town Hall to a game. What sticks out most in their memory is that the kids from the other school laughed upon being led out to a cow pasture to begin play (Town Hall didn't have the most sophisticated sporting facilities). What followed was a thorough beating, Town Hall coming out victorious. As Paul said, "We took them out to the cow pasture, and then kicked the s___ out of 'em!" (That must be really cool to be able to say without making it up.)

Oft in the stilly night

Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,

Fond memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

New Book on One-Room Schools

Author Paul Rocheleau knows his one-room schools. He’s traveled the country photographing buildings, and the result is a book filled with beautifully clear, colorful pictures of schoolhouses, many of them architectural gems.

Titled "The One-Room Schoolhouse: A Tribute to a Beloved National Icon," the book traces the earliest American schoolhouses from their beginnings in the 1600’s up through the 1940’s. Every style is represented from simple log buildings through elaborate stone, brick, clapboard, and shingle sided relics.

This reviewer didn’t count the number of buildings pictured but there must be a hundred or more. Only one is a Michigan building and that one is a red-sided, white-trimmed 1914 treasure called the Traprock Valley School located in Lake Linden (Houghton County).

Rocheleau has photographed interiors as well as exteriors and included histories and anecdotes related to many of the buildings.

Published in 2003 by Rizzoli International Publications in New York (www.rizzoliusa.com) the hard-cover book sells for about $35.

~Larry Schlack

Five former students of Howe School, a one-room country school in Sandstone Township, Jackson County, Michigan, met for a class reunion in Branson, Missouri during the week of November 1, 2003. Celia Allen Sykes from Arkansas, Carma Allen Dryer from Texas, Ellen Carpenter Young from California, Martha Carpenter Van Aken from Oklahoma, and Ann Emrick Hensel from Spring Arbor, Michigan took in shows with their husbands, spent and afternoon in Silver Dollar City, and enjoyed sharing memories from Howe School days. One of the members, Ann Hensel brought a taped interview with their former teacher, Faye Snyder of Spring Arbor, Michigan, who was their teacher in 1949-51. Faye shared her favorite memories of Howe School. Listening to Faye’s memories was said to be the highlight of the reunion dinner which was held at one member’s condo in Branson. All five classmates shared how Faye had influenced their lives, as three of the five are retired teachers and one a retired school secretary.

Some of the classmates had not seen each other for over 50 years.

Steve Rossio, Chair

Judy Shehigian, Vice-Chair

Larry Schlack, Treasurer

Hannah Geddes Wright, Secretary

Rochelle Balkam

Linda Chapman

Dana Deimel

Tamara Gady

Dr. Thomas Gwaltney

Yvonne Hafner

Helen Squiers

Hannah Geddes Wright, Editor and board member