One-Room Schools Pt. 3

Although this school has been closed for many years it remains in very good condition. Although not being used, apparently the present owners are not allowing it to fall into disrepair.

I was very much surprised when I looked through the window to see a room much as it was following the last day of school. Only the furniture and wood stove appear to have been removed.

Many of our one room schools are now being used for other purposes. This school continues to serve the community as the Thompson Township Municipal Building.

The School Teacher

Morton’s Point School
March 29th 1923
Granddad is the teacher in the rear

My Grandfather’s was a school teacher during the one-room school era.

Granddad would sometimes tell stories of his life as a country teacher. The teacher would be hired by the school board year by year. Ladies were only employed as long as they remained single. The job entailed much more than teaching the students. Cleaning the school, splitting firewood, firing the stove before and after school along with disciplining the students was all a part of this demanding job.


The teacher would be roomed near the school. The school board would provide these accommodations by contracting with a nearby family to provide a room and meals for the duration of the school term. It was common for teachers to only serve one or two years at a particular school before being moved on to another location.


I recall hearing Granddad reciting poems he used while teaching his students. Poems such as, Thirty days has November………., Red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky in morning sailors take warning, were used to teach useful lessons to his hardscrabble country students.

Needmore Normal School
1918
Granddad has a small asterisk above his head

Becoming certified as a teacher was considerable different in those days. Following completion of the eighth grade the prospective teacher attended Normal School for the summer. Following this course they were then qualified to teach. They were also required to attend Normal School each summer during their teaching career. Granddad first attended Normal School at a local one room school and near the end of his teaching he attended State Normal School at what is now Shippensburg University.

Granddad left the teaching profession in the summer of 1927 to take up farming. With a wife and a new son it was time for him to settle down to live in one place with his family. Little did he know that teaching was about to undergo a revolution that would make combining family and teaching much easier.

Abandoned

The final bell has sounded. Class has been dismissed. All has fallen silent where students once gathered. The old school stands empty, faded and forlorn.


For many years the one room school house was a common sight across our county’s landscape. Rural schools were placed within walking distance of the pupils as they had little means for transporting the children. Change came slowly, but the advent of the school bus sounded the death knell for these quaint little institutions.


During the 1920’s larger schools began to be built in our area and by 1960 the last of the one room schools were closing. Advances in technology continually change our lives and the demise of the one room school is one more example.

The Winegardner School

The Winegardner School was built in 1858 and remained open until 1955. It was purchased by one of its former teachers at auction following its closure. She restored and maintained the interior until her death in 2003, upon which she willed it to the local historical society. Another member of the society who passed away in 2004 bequeathed funds to the society for the restoration and maintenance. Much has been done to date and this weekend it was open to the public to tour.

As we walked through the school an older couple entered and the gentleman began rummaging through a stack of report cards looking for his. We struck up a conversation and he explained that he had spent ten years in this building getting his education. He remembered where he sat all those years ago. When asked if he would take his seat for a photo op he happily obliged. This was one of those treasures in time that I am so glad I was able to capture while Dalbert sat in his seat with his wife by his side.

Outside the old privy remains is a state of disrepair. I looked at the distance from the school thinking of how that distance was intended for sanitary reasons but it would have made for a cold trip on those snowy winter days.

Crossroads School

My Grandfather was born in 1901. He and his siblings attended the Cross Roads School. They had a two mile walk to reach the school. Of course this trip was made regardless of weather conditions. The country schools of that day had all eight grades in one room with one teacher. Blanche Hollinshead is the teacher in this picture. I remember her from my childhood. She organized a non-denominational bible school which we attended each summer. She would frequently call on my grandfather to give a “Habit Talk”. The habit talk was a short story illustrating a moral lesson. She also did substitute teaching at my elementary school. Granddad is one of the small boys pictured in this class photograph taken in about 1910.

This is the Cross Roads School house today. It is now used by its present owner as a workshop