The Slate
Newsletter of the Michigan
One-Room Schoolhouse Association
Volume V Number II
Fall
/ Winter 1998
".... fostering understanding and
appreciation for one-room schoolhouses in Michigan."
Graphic Artist Loves Schoolhouses
Written by Larry Schlack
For a woman who never attended a one-room
schoolhouse, Marie Colby Gougeon has a great love for the buildings.
A graphic artist by profession, she
has photographed schoolhouses on her travels through many Michigan counties. Pictured
below is her first schoolhouse drawing, which was featured on the cover of the August 1998
issue of the Michigan Bar Journal as an introduction to articles on law-related education.
The drawing is a composite of features found on three separate school buildings. The
schoolhouses can be found near her current hometown of
Holt, Michigan. She captured the
windows from one, the façade and bell tower from another, and the landscape setting from
the third.
Marie Gougeon grew up in Jackson,
Michigan, and received her degree in graphic design from Ferris State University.
Photographing and drawing schools appeal to her, providing an alternative or break from
her normal professional duties. Schoolhouse buildings exhibit a simplicity in design, a
down to earth quality and living spirit and energy that remain evident even in the oldest
buildings.
"Besides," she laughs,
"everyone has a story to tell while I’m working on a building. Stories of the
schoolkids’ pranks, teachers’ retaliations, and recess fun.
When questioned at a recent
Association board meeting, Marie said she would be happy to discuss details with anyone
interested in commissioning her to draw their favorite schoolhouse; perhaps a
community restoration project,
converted home or place of business. Her fees are in part dependent on the size of the
finished artwork requested.
Marie Gougeon can be contacted at
MCG Graphics, 1548 Berkley Dr., Holt, MI 48842 (phone/fax 517.694.2975).
Schoolhouse Bulletin
Board
Michigan One-Room Schoolhouse Association 1999 Conference
Our Association Board members have already been busy planning the
Association’s 1999 conference in Portage, Michigan. The conference has been scheduled
for May 14, 1999. The Board has been meeting at Meridian Historical Village in Okemos,
Michigan (a convenient mid-point location for Board members to drive) to discuss details.
The Michigan One-Room Schoolhouse Association previously met in Portage, Michigan in
1995. The Conference was held at the Celery Flats Interpretive Center, a historical park
featuring historical buildings, and the Portage District No. 8 One-Room School.
Some topics already under discussion for the ’99 conference are funding (preparing
and submitting grants) for historical restoration projects, teaching techniques used in
one-room schools operating today, and one-room schools in Southwest Michigan.
In addition, the Board is seeking topics and methods of presentation (perhaps more
interactive or varied) that will add more excitement and different ideas. Some of these
ideas may be contained in suggestion forms from past conference years. We ask for any
additional ideas or comments be sent to us for immediate consideration.
More ’99 Conference information will be coming, so keep posted.
Addition of Board Members Strengthens Organization
Board Members for 1998-1999 are:
Lawrence Schlack - President
Judy Shehigan - Vice President
Suzanne Daniel - Secretary
Frederick Dean - Treasurer
Frederick Cordts - Newsletter Editor
Richard Cripe - Member
Thomas Gwaltney - Member
Warren Lawrnece - Member
Paula Gangopadhyay - Member
Hannah Wright - Member
New Board members for the 1998-1999 session are Paula Gangopadhyay and Hanna Wright.
Paula Gangopadhyay remains involved with the Meridian Historical Village in Okemos,
Michigan. She is experienced in funding of historical preservation and restoration
projects and has offered to help with the Associations’s membership policy and search
for new members.
Hanna Wright has written various articles and a book entitled Down the Myrtle Path:
The History and Memories of Town Hall School. In her writings she has documented Town
Hall’s history and her own recollections of attending school there. She has spoken at
a past one-room schoolhouse conference on researching and writing about one-room
schoolhouses.
Schoolhouse Survey Update
As previously advertised in our newsletter, the Michigan One-Room
Schoolhouse Association continues its quest to survey and amass a central database on
one-room schoolhouses throughout Michigan.
Our Association’s request for information and survey
forms have appeared in the Michigan Preservation Network’s newsletter circulated
statewide and appears in The Slate newsletter (see page 7) for the second time. The
survey form along with a written request has been mailed to many historical groups
throughout Michigan.
The result is very positive. Survey forms continue to come
in. The Association has received a total of 251 forms from the spring mailing with
information about one-room schools.
As mentioned before, this information will continue to be compiled and added to the
database along with information received from other surveys, groups and individuals from
around the state.
If you, or the group you are affiliated with, have not had the chance to do so, now is
your opportunity to include your local one-room schools in the survey.
Our thanks, in particular, to Judy Shehigan who continues to champion this project.
Association Membership
During their last meeting in Okemos the Board discussed ways of enhancing membership in
the Michigan One-Room Schoolhouse Association.
As most members are aware of, Association members receive The Slate twice
yearly. To this point, the newsletter has been sent not only to paid members but all
appearing on an extended mailing list. This has been done to help promote our
organization. The Board now is considering cutting back newsletter mailings to membership
only, hopefully enticing more people to become paid members.
Another idea is to offer conference registration fee discounts to members.
These and other ideas that you, the membership, may have will be discussed in upcoming
meetings.
Paula Gangopadhyay, one of our two new Board members, has volunteered to begin drafting
a written membership policy patterned after organizations similar to ours.
As it stands now, Michigan One-Room Schoolhouse Association dues are $10. This entitles
an individual, group or couple to one year of membership, commencing conference day (2nd
Friday in May) and expiring conference day the following year.
Inquiries and applications for membership along with check in payment should be sent
to: Michigan One-Room Schoolhouse Association, c/o Greenmead, 20501 Newburgh Road,
Livonia, Michigan 48152-1098.
Benedict School Continues its Long Local History
The original article appeared in the Sentinal-Standard May, 1980 Historic Home Tour
Country News Reprinted by permission of the
Sentinel-Standard, Ionia, Michigan
Benedict School, located on the northwest corner at the
intersection of David Highway and South State road (M-66), is a simple frame building,
with a gable roof. It has been considerably repaired and altered over the more than
century of its existence.
Its belfry, for example, was added sometime in the 1930s. Recently its foundation has
been repaired and some other interior changes made.
Benedict School is not included in the 1980 House Tour because it is a distinguished
piece of architecture. Benedict School is included because, along with a few other rural
schools, it (remains) open and operating.
Other house tours in Michigan and other states have country schools on display.
There’s a former school in Marshall, for example, and another in Greenfield Village,
and those old schools have been lovingly and carefully restored.
But from them have been removed the stains left by muddy, wet feet. From them is gone
the chalk dust, the possibility of running a finger nail over the blackboard, and the
chance of trading part of what’s in one dinner pail for something in another.
Benedict School is part of the house tour because, as with other people and places,
it’s better to pay a visit now, than to send flowers later. Its history is still
being made.
The school’s teacher Mrs. Eileen Main, and her 10 students will serve as hosts
during the house tour, even if it means going to school on Saturday and Sunday. It is,
after all, their school and they know as much about it as can be known. They’ve been
getting ready. Mrs. Sophie Ranger, their visiting music teacher, has helped them learn
some new songs.
On Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and
18, Mrs. Main and her students will greet
and talk to guests. They will sing their new songs at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on
Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday.
One Benedict student, Matthew Bennett, is the fourth generation of his family to attend
the school. One day last month his father, Bob, and his grandfather, Harold, visited
school and told about their school days. Harold brought along a photograph of a Benedict
School picnic in which both his parents appeared.
Harold told them that when the Bellevue Road (M-66) was built, students would hop on
the runners of horse drawn equipment and ride away, during recess and noon hour, and then
catch another ride back. They skated on a nearby pond in those days, too. He even allowed
that, now and again, paper wads got thrown and stuck to the ceiling.
Another event, grandfather says, declaring absolute innocence of course, was that a
couple of shot gun shells once got into a waste basket and then into the pot belly stove,
raising a good deal of hob and scattering soot. School closed for a day or two while new
stove pipe was installed. That was long ago when, as everyone knows, children were never
naughty.
Benedict School is part of the house tour because it is a vital link with the childhood
of our nation. There is no evidence that rural schools were ever
better or worse than the students that attended, the teachers that taught or the
districts that supported them.
There is evidence that residents complained about school taxes in 1833. With luck,
someone will be complaining about school taxes in 2033.
Old minutes indicate that, at one time, inside toilets were often opposed, new desks
regarded as needless luxuries, and the wood provided for heat either was green or short
measured. Hot lunch programs caused heated controversy. At least once there was opposition
to a book, which had a gestation table for domestic animals, an unusual view in an
agricultural community.
Over the last 150 years, however, rural schools have operated and contributed
significantly to the life of the county, the state, and the nation. What they achieved
most successfully had little direct relationship to the three R’s. They hatched
citizens and fostered communities. They may have been more important then families.
They served as polling places and social centers. When a church burned, they were
sometimes used temporarily for religious services. Occasionally a funeral would be held in
one, as well as various receptions. Halloween was a dismal failure, for many years, if two
or three rural school privies were not upended and at least one buggy parked on a school
house roof.
Gradually, most rural schools disappeared. The times, circumstances, and economics
changed. In effect, the rural schools declined as the internal combustion engine changed
living, agriculture, and a good deal else. Here and there, districts held on – and,
in a sense, rural schools are making their last stand in Ionia County.
There’s no going back, at least in this world, however much anyone may want to.
But there is still time to make a visit. If visitors to Benedict School listen closely
when the students sing, they may hear echoes from their rural schools. And on the way in,
no one will care if you give a good hard push and take a ride on the merry-go-round.
It’s more fun and just as educational as the one we’re all on.
***************
Students Take Education Classes in Old Schoolhouse
By Cheryl Wade
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Reprinted by permission of the Associated Press
MOUNT PLEASANT – Alan Quick rings the early school bell promptly at 7:20 a.m.
The students troop into the one-room schoolhouse, which smells like old wood with a
little must mixed in. The students sit in desks in perfect vertical rows. The desks have
inkwells.
Quick rings the late bell at 7:30. It’s time to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
And then, a student plays an old song on the upright piano in one corner of the room, and
everyone sings along: "School days, school days / Dear old golden room school days. /
Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmatic. / Taught to the tune of a hickory
stick."
Quick’s students are too big for some of the smaller desks. These are adult
students, and they’ve come to Central Michigan University for a graduate-level class
on the history of education. And this schoolhouse of the early 1900s is the perfect
meeting place for it.
"When you’re teaching the history of education, the advantage is, of course,
that you’re in the environment that was one of the greatest for students and
teachers," said Quick, a professor of Teacher Education at CMU. "If you had a
great teacher – which most of the one-room teachers were – you had a great
learning environment."
The period of the one-room schoolhouse in America was from early colonial days until
1950, Quick said. He believes this was one of the most significant eras in education.
Younger students listened to older ones giving presentations, so grade levels sometimes
had nothing to do with age, Quick said. Students could help each other. There was a
certain esprit de corps among the students, who learned together from kindergarten through
eighth grade.
"Most of the rural kids didn’t go to high school, especially in the early
days of
the one-room schoolhouse," Quick said.
The School is complete with a dunce cap.
"I always put it on to start class," Quick said, "so I can get their
attention."
The schoolhouse has more than the usual array of teaching materials. The building,
besides being the site for Quick’s summer course, is the Gerald Poor Museum. It was
named for a longtime CMU professor who was interested in the history of education.
There are shelves of old textbooks that have become valuable. There’s a replica of
a "horn book," a religious poem fixed to what looks like a paddle-shaped piece
of wood. The real ones were made of a translucent layer of a cow’s horn. Which served
as a lamination.
"If you’re studying the history of schools, its sort of absorbs you in the
material you’re learning, makes things a bit closer to home, I guess," said Jim
Bohn, who lives in Midland and teaches in the Hemlock District.
"History’s important to learn because you understand the past and interpret
the present," added Jennifer Lennon, who lives in Midland County and teaches at
Central Middle School. "You can apply that toward the future."
About the only thing the building doesn’t have is a bathroom. The privy used to be
out back, Quick said. Now, people have to go to the motor pool building across the street
when nature calls.
The old schoolhouse has a special connection with Midland County. Called the Bohannon
School, it was built in 1901 and situated on Coleman Road, south of M-20. It served the
children in Jasper Township School District No. 5, Quick said. Eventually, it was
consolidated into the St. Louis School District, continuing as a school until 1950.
In the early 1970s, Quick got the idea that it would be great to have a one-room
schoolhouse on campus. CMU got the word about the need, and the wire services heard about
it.
Offers came from Michigan and other states, but logistics of moving presented problems,
Quick said.
One day, Quick happened to talk to owners of Mount Pleasant Realty, who knew where a
school was to be found. The company ended up buying the building and donating it to CMU.
Lennon said her studies have brought her to the conclusion that teachers get more
respect now than they did in the 1700s and 1800s.
"They were paid barely enough to make it," she said. "They had to live
in the homes of their students."
But teachers have to jump through academic hurdles now, Bohn said.
The state has continuing requirements for teachers once they’ve been certified.
"That’s why we’re back here, because of the continuing education that we
need to have," he said.
Lawton Woman Eager Student of One-Room Schools
Kristen Garceau
Kalamazoo Gazette
Correspondent
Lawton – It has taken a little detective work, a lot of perseverance and a big
interest in history for a Lawton woman to uncover information about 185 of the estimated
524 one-room school houses that once dotted Michigan’s rural landscape.
Bess Britton says she began collecting information in 1992 when the Decatur Republican
newspaper ran a column asking people to contact the Michigan Historical Society if they
knew anyone who went to a country school.
"I knew one of the teachers and so it started. I had five or six that I knew about
and everyone I talked to knows one," Britton said.
The one-room schools began to consolidate in the 1930s: the last ones remained until
well into the 1950s.
"The Michigan Historical Society has a form asking about the date built, when it
was first used as a school, current use of the building, and list of teachers and pupils
still living," Britton said.
Britton’s task is sometimes difficult but her research has turned up much more
information than the Michigan Historical Society requires. Her work fills three large
notebooks.
She has found extensive history on some of the schools, including photographs of the
buildings, the students and teachers.
"The one I’m most thrilled about is Shannon School. I have pictures of all
the teachers," Britton said. She discovered a photograph of her great-aunt Nellie
Burlington in the group of teacher photos. The school was located on Burlington Road near
Marcellus.
"I didn’t know she taught school and didn’t have a picture of her. I was
delighted with that," Britton said.
Schools that Britton has the most information on include her own alma mater, East
Valley School, in Decatur.
She also has extensive information on the Shaw School, where Edgar Bergen once
attended, and Steeple School at the corner of Red Arrow Highway and Almena Road in Paw
Paw. Other schools across Michigan have scant information and no photographs.
"I would dearly love to find a picture of Bell School at the corner of Shaw Road
and M-40; I’ve asked everyone I know," she said. ‘It’s hard to get
pictures. I have to sell my soul to get them."
Another school Britton would like information on is Purgatory School, located at
Country Road 352 and 32nd Street between Lawton and Marcellus. Purgatory was
once a thriving community.
Some of the schools’ names she discovered are interesting for Britton. Names like
Pink, Green, and Brown Schools. One school’s name was Goodenough and Britton laughs
about another named Clap School.
In addition to school information, Britton is also collecting stories about life in the
one-room schools and also family histories of the students.
"Some of the kids told about a pump at the bottom of the hill at Shaw School. To
get drinking water, they had to pump the snakes and frogs out before they could get a
drink", she said.
At a reunion of Shaw School, former students were asked to write down their memories, a
request that produced a history of life at a rural school.
"There was a privy in the back, a two- or three-holer, and people remember the
boys peeking over the side. One of the boys remembers having a dunce hat on for talking
out in class," Britton said.
Other memories include carrying coals into school from the woodshed and kerosene lamps
in the windows when they had programs on winter evenings.
Britton says that a common thread found among those who attended the one-room schools
was a sense of togetherness.
"They had this center of closeness that they all seem to remember," she says.
Britton hopes that anyone with memories or information on one-room schools will call
her at (616) 624-1361. Exact locations of the schools would be helpful.
"A women just last week told me of the Lindberg School in Kalamazoo but she
didn’t know where it was".
Britton, collecting information on schools across the state, would welcome anything
anyone can remember or provide to her.
"I enjoy it very much. I like to hear about the old days and the way it was. I can
relate to a lot of these stories," Britton said. "And my husband says it keeps
me out of the taverns," she laughed.
The Strong One-Room School to be Moved to Vicksburg Historical Village
By Warren Lawrence
By Warren Lawrence
Commercial-Express Correspondent
This Sept. 10, 1997 article reprinted by permission of Warren Lawrence
his school year Vicksburg Community Schools is celebrating the various anniversaries of
major events that took place in the district since its conception. One of those
celebrations is to commemorate the "consolidation" that happened 50 years ago.
It was a time when citizens chose to give up their individual one-room schools in favor of
the advantages of a larger, modern school system. Although it is not originally planned to
be part of the celebration year, there is work being done to relocate the old Strong
School, now situated some four miles south of Vicksburg on 24th Street. The
building will be moved to a location near Vicksburg Depot Museum.
The project, one of the first for the new historic village, is a joint effort involving
the Village of Vicksburg, the Vicksburg Community Schools, the Vicksburg Depot Restoration
Committee and the Vicksburg Historical Society. The primary use of the building will be
for education and historical purposes.
The Strong School currently sits on two pieces of property, one owned by Robert
Schroeder and the other by Louisa Kopenhafer.
Both parties have agreed to donate their individual share of the building to the
restoration effort. The president of the Vicksburg Historical Society, Bonnie Holmes said,
"This is the beginning for the Historical Village. We are so thankful for the
generosity of Mrs. Kopenhafer and Mr. Shroeder and their families." Holmes went on to
say how pleased she was that the first building to come on site was a one-room school. She
feels that it is the type of building that generates a great deal of interest on the part
of citizens of all ages.
The school has been vacant for several years. The last teacher to teach in the building
was Marilyn Vleugel (who is sister to Robert Schroeder) in the 1970s.
Even though the building is in need of a new roof and some re-plastering on the inside,
members of the Depot Restoration Committee are very pleased with the solid construction of
the building. It appears that the builders used excellent materials and did not skimp on
the framing and finishing lumber. The main room has a hardwood floor and all the wainscots
woodwork, blackboards, etc. are still complete and in excellent shape.
The eventual goal is to have the building totally restored so that it resembles its
original 1919 appearance. Officials said that would take some time, but if the building
can be successfully moved and "closed in" during the celebration year that would
be an excellent start.
Holmes said that the Vicksburg Historical Society is looking for information or
materials relating to the Strong School.
Membership is open to everyone. Dues payable to the
secretary are $10 per year and all members receive our newsletter, The Slate, twice
a year.
Michigan One-Room Schoolhouse Association, c/o Greenmead, 20501 Newburgh
Rd., Livonia, MI. 48152-1098 |
