 Slate Board Sales Pitch You don't have to sell me on slate. For most of my 31 years in teaching both elementary and secondary students, I was fortunate to work in traditional inner-city brick schools with original slate blackboards. They were beautiful to write on and simple to keep clean. Hard or soft chalk would glide smoothly over their flawless surfaces and guide my cursive writing to perfection. A water wash would bring them back to gleaming black for the next day's lessons. In retirement, I took a volunteer job in our local historic schoolhouse that had one slate blackboard stretched across the front of the room. After 184 years it is still in perfect condition serving 1,800 fourth graders each year. The board, small by today's standards was germ of a teaching tool in 1842. Schools were proud to add them to their annual reports as innovative additions to their rural schools. They certainly beat the old horizontal pine boards butted one on top of the other and painted black. The price of our own blackboard was proudly listed on the expense sheet for the opening of the school in 1841....$1.25! Today if we still have the original slate blackboard in our schoolhouses, they are priceless! In years past it appears slate companies had to sell the idea to schools of all sizes. Beyond my simplified praise of their utility and value, one slate company constructed a list of reasons why schools should install genuine slate blackboards. The advertisement appeared in a turn of the century School Board Journal. Check out the numerous Pennsylvania companies that supplied these boards! 
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Three Day Conference and Schoolhouse Tour It's time to REGISTER for the 25th Annual Country School Association of America's COUNTRY SCHOOL CONFERENCE, June 21-23, 2026 in Geneva, NY. Join us on Lake Seneca at Hobart and William Smith College for all things "schoolhouse!" Complete information in the link below. Meet preservationists like yourself from across the United States! Attend if you enjoy one-room schools, their history, restoration, and preservation. Every schoolhouse enthusiast is invited! Convenient accommodations, meals, and an all-day tour of historic area schoolhouses are included in registration price. Don't delay. Click on the image below for complete information and registration links.  Stanhope Schoolhouse A Project of the Pinegrove Historical Society Pine Grove, Pennsylvania PGHS-StanhopeSchool.org [email protected] Submitted by Linda Mills – Chair, Stanhope Schoolhouse  Early History The brick one-room Stanhope Schoolhouse opened in 1876 for grades 1-8. The original brick schoolhouse burned down on October 22,1923. Students who went outside to get coal for the stove heater discovered the building's roof was on fire. Reporting this to their female teacher the only help to extinguish the fire came from families living nearby since there were no phones in the area at that time. The gutted structure was unusable. For the remainder of the 1923-1924 school year, students were transferred to the Marstown School, 2 miles away. In March 1924, the contract for a frame school went to Charles Werner & Co. The cost to erect the 26 by 36 feet frame schoolhouse was $3,440. It was constructed according to specifications submitted by the State Department of Public Instruction. Its design and materials were the first of their kind in this section of the country. Electric was installed at the schoolhouse in 1947. In preparation for the consolidation of schools by the Pine Grove School District, the 1951-1952 school year sent Stanhope students in grades 1-4 to the Marstown school, grades 5-6 were transferred to Brookside school (2 miles away), and grades 7 and 8 remained at Stanhope along with grades 7 and 8 students from Marstown and Brookside. The schoolhouse closed in 1952.  Post-School Use November 13, 1954 a non-profit organization purchased the property from the Pine Grove School District at an auction for $1,000. By 2013 the non-profit organization had determined the building had outlived its useful life and would be demolished. Linda Mills was made aware of this demolition plan in December 2013 and contacted the Pinegrove Historical Society in an attempt to save the schoolhouse. The mission of the society is the discovery, collection, display, preservation, and publication of archives and artifacts of the Pine Grove area, and to provide educational opportunities to the community. Finally on August 6, 2014 the Society took ownership of the schoolhouse for $1 plus closing costs totaling $2,618 and saved this piece of history.  Restoration From a lack of upkeep, there was a large hole (big enough for several large adults to fit through!), and lath and plaster was falling off the walls and ceiling. The abandoned building was a community eyesore marked by a shredded blue tarp flapping on the roof and pieces drifting around the property. Restoration efforts started on October 23, 2014 with an already organized community volunteer group providing 420 hours to repair the roof and clean out debris in the interior at a cost of $3,381 after every rafter on the west side of the building needed to be replaced! Without their efforts the roof would have most likely caved in with the snow that winter. Over the next seven years, some of the restoration work completed by volunteers included:
   Grand Re-Opening The Grand Re-Opening was held August 13, 1922 – eight years and one week (2,929 days) after the society took ownership! Progress was slowed with COVID and at times available volunteers since the project must be self-supporting and needed to rely on private donations, fundraising, and grants to pay for supplies. As much as possible, volunteer labor has worked on restoration, maintenance, and publicity efforts. Over 145 volunteers provided more than 3,500 labor hours . Since then, slate blackboards from another school have been installed, the outhouse foundation has been uncovered, an Eagle Scout project make a milled surface parking lot and removed brush, an historical-type sign has been installed, the exterior has been painted, and design work has been donated multiple years by local university students.    We are very fortunate to have seven Stanhope School alumni providing valuable first-hand information. In 2019 a story about some of them was written by a local AP reporter and was published in over 108 newspapers across the country. Four alumni presented the inaugural educational program “Stories from the Stanhope Schoolhouse” on September, 17, 2022.  Stanhope artifacts acquired from the community includes the 1883-1893 and 1911-1921 Teacher’s Monthly Report books; numerous class pictures, including a couple from the brick schoolhouse; and two sets of report cards.   150th Anniversary The 150th anniversary of the schoolhouse is in 2026. To celebrate this event, the book Inspiring Generations was published to preserve stories, photos, and memories that capture what education and community life was like in the area generations ago. Stanhope Schoolhouse librarian/genealogist, Terry Winters; and chair, Linda Mills compiled and edited the book. Today Stanhope is the only one-room schoolhouse open to the public in Schuylkill County and provides three free public educational programs and an opportunity to view the museum six times a year or by appointment. As with any project, there is still further restoration and maintenance needed for the property, additional classroom items desired, and more visitors to explore this piece of history.  *CSAA thanks our new members from the Stanhope School and congratulate them for realizing their restoration dream through dedicated hard work and determination.
Our readers can obtain PDF copy of this article by Linda Mills, Chair of the Stanhope Schoolhouse. Just click here on STANHOPE SCHOOL PDF.  A Peace Process in Action
If you've ever agreed to foster a cat from a rescue group that promised, "just until we can find a permanent home," and after a bit you decide to KEEP that cat forever...it's called a FOSTER FAIL! First, you debate with yourself convinced you don't need a fourth cat: more food, extra kitty litter, more vacuuming, vet bills, will my three knuckleheads get along with the new member? You set up the safe room. The others hover at the door for days, their routines change, they exhibit personality glitches. The initial meeting is rocky, some posturing from both sides, maybe hissing, then days of toleration ...eventually peace. And soon enough they're sleeping in the same space, if apart. You make the call of permanency. That failure becomes one of your successes when the cats settle happily enough in their crowder.* * a group of cats (just learned this!) I couldn't help but see a similar pattern when I was reading a 19th century essay by a county supervisor of rural schools in Pennsylvania. Actually, it was light reading despite its provenance, The Contributors Club section of The Atlantic Monthly, June 1899, Vol.83, Issue 500. That's a mouthful, but it serves as one of his/her first-hand accounts entitled, My Babes in the Woods, p. 857, writer unnamed unfortunately. 1. The Bright Idea* During my experience of seventeen years as supervisor of rural schools in one of the most favored counties in the South, it has been my habit, several times a year to travel twenty or thirty miles a day, often for five days a week, visiting schools....Sometime ago we proposed to consolidate the schools in one of our rural districts. We ordered seven small schools to be closed, hired three wagons to move along the highways and take the children to school, enlarged one of the buildings to accommodate a hundred children and had a fine program laid out. 2. Growing Pains for a Community* It should have been successful but it came to grief because every man wanted to do the "hauling." After the contract was given out, one man said he was not going to trust his children behind "them old runaway mules;" another complained of the driver, who was accused of taking a nip on a cold day; and a third objected to the wagon. The result was that everybody refused to be hauled and the wagons went back and forth almost empty for a month.The men who had the contract for a dollar a day to drive the wagons hauled nobody but their own children. They were content, but they were alone. 3. Compromise and Peace* A petition with many signatures came up before the Board of Education and the committee which was appointed to go over the whole matter declared that consolidation was good thing, but that it did not work for this community. So the wagons were dismissed, the little schools were reopened, and the district is now drifting along sleepily, with its seven separate groups of twenty to twenty-five children, scattered about five miles apart. The schools prevailed and the parents were content. The plan may have been badly managed, but I feel sure it was in advance of its times. Our people just needed time to grow up to it. * (my connections)  Ring Taw and Keepsies How lucky we are to have an interest in searching antique shops for artifacts that enhance our country schools. When we visit schoolhouse museums we often zone in on objects that we'd like to add to our own school collections. We make a mental wish list..."Uh...roll down maps, an American flag made of cotton, another bakelite inkwell, a metronome, a hanging globe, a piece of Holbrook's Apparatus....ahh, what a treasure!" I began a search a few years ago when I spied in a country school, a cluster of clay marbles among the rough hewn toys of another era....shades of tan, handmade, perfectly round, and age appropriate. I had to find some. It didn't take long and our school was rewarded with a whole glass jar of them for a mere $14. They generate a lot of questions each time we discuss clay marbles, the first being, "How did they make them so perfectly round?" The answer: Hand-Rolled Clay Marbles How were the earliest clay marbles made by hand? Steps:
Clay marbles offer the perfect opportunity to talk to children about simpler days that required resourcefulness and the value of using your skills and your imagination to create your own playthings....and your own games. "Ring Taw" and "Keepsies" were the most common games played int he schoolyard. Both girls and boys played with marbles. Notes: *Today you can use Crayola Air-Dried Clay found online and in craft stores to make your handmade marbles. *Children today are familiar with beautiful glass marbles of every color and size, but they know they're manufactured. They are easily found online today. Amazon, Hobby Lobby, The House of Marbles, or the Moon Marble Company offer oodles of them. *See the attachments below for rules Ring Taw and Keepsies, and a complimentary folder called The Game of Marbles from the Tyngsboro-Dunstable Historical Society in Massachusetts.  Click on this picture to access a printable PDF about MARBLES! The Remedy for Population and Transition As schoolhouse enthusiasts, we know that one-room schools dominated early rural education and the landscape. They served small, independent districts with a limited number of children. Consequently, as populations grew, some districts added a second classroom instead of building a full graded school. Expanded buildings often served as a temporary fix in a transition stage—between the classic one-room school and larger graded schools that came with consolidation. By the early 1900s, school districts across the country began consolidating into larger centralized schools, reducing the need for small rural buildings. This was a bittersweet and contentious age in the evolution of our public school system, as people loved their district schools, often holding out as long as they could to save them. Over time citizens would concede to the need for multi-room schools that would serve a growing population, and better methods of transportation would play a role in accomplishing the goal of consolidation. Here we offer a few examples of early two-room schools serving today as museums, or repurposed for community centers and historic societies. Styles were varied and interesting. Perpendicular, up and down, side by side, choose your favorite!  CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO ACCESS THE MUSEUM FACEBOOK Thanks to the Brunhoeber Family! The Country School Museum in Caldwell, Kansas exists to the delight of visitors because husband and wife team Mike and Valerie Brunhoeber believed two local icons of education deserved to be saved. With their personal finances and a heap of mid-western determination they trucked these schools to their Ironhorse Ranch knowing they would face years of restoration. We all appreciate their efforts! According their website: The Belleview School District #68 of Sumner County Kansas was built in 1894 and was used as a school until 1956. It served as a polling place for the local township until the late 1990s. In 2010 it was moved to the Ranch to be restored. The Spring Creek School District #36 of Sumner County Kansas was built in 1904 and was used as a school until 1947 then it served as the Spring Creek Community Club up until it was too dilapidated. It was relocated to be restored on April 5th of 2016. The Brunhoebers have been friends of the Country School Association of America for many years and both schools are on the CSAA National Schoolhouse Registry. Visit their website to enjoy their journey in pictures. Recently posted on the Country School Museum Facebook site you'll find the marvelous little video below that tells the story of one-room schools, daily life in a country school, and the contribution of Mike and Valerie Brunhoeber who undertook their own labor of love to create a local museum. How to Wash Clothes in Early Schoolhouse Times In our country school living history programs, we are always searching for artifacts and ideas that bring hands-on learning to life. We want our visitors not just to hear about the past, but to feel something of the demands placed upon children in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Our “field trip scholars” quickly discover how simple their schoolrooms were, with few materials and fewer comforts. Yet the lessons do not end at the schoolhouse door—they also learn of the many chores that awaited them at home, where boys and girls alike carried responsibilities that would surprise, and perhaps humble, most children today. Our contemporary students, if asked how they wash their clothes might say, "My mother does the laundry." If any visitor says that they know how to wash clothes they might say, "I put my clothes in the washing machine." Simple enough, of course! Not so easy in the days of one-room schools. It was a time-consuming chore that required some level of endurance. Below you'll find a very telling graphic that actually lays out a recipe for how to get that wash done! It is titled RECEET FOR WASHIN CLOTHES and is presented in some charming colloquial language. Invite your students to step back into that world. Have them decipher the spelling, interpret the directions, and even correct the text. In doing so, they’ll gain not only a chuckle, but also a deeper appreciation for the everyday labors of the past.  Country School Days: True Tales of a Wisconsin One-Room School (Narrated Presentation from the 2021 CSAA Virtual Conference) CSAA member Larry Scheckel attended the one-room Oak Grove District#15 School from 1948-1956. Oak Grove sat on a slight knoll in rural Seneca Township, Crawford County, in southwestern Wisconsin and educated farm kids from 1897 to 1962. Follow Larry as he trudges the one-mile gravel road with four siblings, the neighbor children, and a farm dog or two. He describes the interior: stove, library, drinking fountain, piano, hectograph machine, Ranger Mac corner, and radio. Larry will talk about the recitation period, visits by the County Nurse and the Supervising Teacher, softball games, playground and indoor games, Annie-Over, snowball fights, the outdoor privies, school discipline, the curriculum, the Basket Social, the Christmas program, and the end-of-the-year picnic. Larry delves into teacher training, contracts, teacher expectations, and how teachers managed 28 students grades one to eight. Larry also explores the bitter consolidation controversy and the closing of all 115 Crawford County one-room schools. This presentation was a prelude to his book, Country School Days: True Tales of a Wisconsin One-Room School, published in 2022. It is a comprehensive and delightful look at the 115 one-room schools in Crawford County, with emphasis on Oak Grove School.  Larry Scheckel grew up on a family farm in the hill country of southwestern Wisconsin, one of nine children. He attended eight years of a one room country school, four years of high school, off to the military for a spell, trained in electronics as a TV broadcast engineer, married, college, and started a teaching career. That career stretched over thirty-eight years teaching physics and aerospace science at Tomah, Wisconsin. Larry Scheckel has been named Tomah Teacher of the Year and Presidential Awardee. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Larry and his wife, Ann, are both retired teachers and live in Tomah, Wisconsin. Larry and Ann have published eight books, including Seneca Seasons: A Farm Boy Remembers, Ask A Science Teacher, and countless educational articles. For more about Larry Scheckel and his other fascinating books visit: larryscheckel.com
 ACCESS PDF HERE Classic Books with a Schoolhouse Theme Are you looking for children's books or series related to one-room country schools? Anyone who has attended all 20 CSAA annual conferences can attest that the resources we collect are exactly what we need to improve our programming or expand our resources on country schools. It escapes this writer which conference supplied the following reprint, but author Gwenyth Swain, penned an article called "Revisiting the One-Room School," suggesting a number of classics books on one-room schools well suited to young readers. It was printed in the ALA magazine called Book Links in 2005, but still very helpful today.  LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE - CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR MORE INFORMATION A Complex with MUCH to Offer! Sometimes you get more than you bargained for, in a GOOD WAY! Here I invoke the memory of CSAA's Bill Sherman, who until 2023, organized the Preservation Iowa Country School Conferences each fall in many of his beloved 99 counties. He gathered grateful schoolhouse enthusiasts from across the country to experience preserved one-room schools and treated us to other fascinating historic sites along the way. His many conferences are where I fell for the state of Iowa, second only to my devotion to New England. Bill always had a gift for centering us in places that revealed the very best of Iowa—places where we learned through visits to cultural centers, historic villages, and museums to honor the hardy pioneers who settled the state. One such place where we gathered with Bill was Cedar Falls, aptly situated along the Cedar River. Because The Report Card has featured other historic “villages” with schoolhouses, this is an ideal opportunity to highlight a Cedar Falls complex that includes an absolutely beautiful Little Red Schoolhouse. In addition to the Little Red Schoolhouse, Cedar Falls Historical Society curates the Behrens-Rapp Gasoline Station, the Ice House Museum, and Sturgis Park...all in one place. Call it a village if you wish. All are models of perfection in preservation and restoration! The schoolhouse transports visitors into the past of public education while the ice house is a monument to the days before refrigeration when Iowans relied on river ice harvesting. The gas station served motorists from 1925-1990!  CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR MORE INFORMATION  ICE HOUSE MUSEUM - CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR MORE INFORMATION  Class reunions serve as an endearing American tradition where old friends and classmates gather to review their shared school experiences and cherished (or forgettable) memories. In time, with age and dwindling attendance, these reunions sometimes disappear. Not so with a group of hardy public schoolers who still keep their school's legacy alive. The Iddles School: 98 Years Holding Reunions Submitted by Clare Adkin Iddles, a one-room country school located in southwest Allegan County Michigan, open in 1859 in a small log structure. In 1867, in a manner reminiscent of a community barn raising, it was replaced with a frame school house. The second school house served until the turn of the century when it was replaced by a modern red brick school house. Iddles ceased as an independent school district in 1962 when it voted to annex with Fennville Public Schools. It was certified as District #3, Casco Township, Allegan County, MI. Iddles operated as an independent K-8 school until 1962 when it annexed to Fennville Public Schools. Fennville utilized the school for three more years for grades 2-3. During the summer of 1928, Mary Litts, the daughter of the school’s builder, Thomas Iddles, organized an all-school reunion. From the start past and present students, their families and teachers were invited. Nearly 100 attended the first reunion potluck and its popularity demanded the planning of a second for the following year. Iddles has held an annual all-school reunion starting in 1928 and is currently planning to celebrate #99 on July 19, 2026. Loyal alumni are determined to celebrate number 100 next year. Iddles alumni believe they are members of the longest running annual one-room school reunion both in Michigan and nationally. So far no one has stepped forward to dispute their claim. And so a tradition began that has never been broken, even during the height of the 2020 Pandemic. The youngest alum is over 65 years old. 32 alumni attended last summer’s 2025 reunion which included Thomas Iddles’ Great-Great-Grandson, Brian Iddles. Jane Ann Nally in 2018 was the last Iddles teacher to attend a reunion. Jane Ann began her teaching career in 1952 at Iddles but could not sign her contract until the start of school, having to wait until she turned 18. Question: Does Iddles have the longest running consecutive year all-school reunion for one-room schools in the United States? Iddles alumni think so!
  Seated L-R Linda Stennett Wauchek, LeRoy Hogle, Kay Kuney Brush, Mary Ann Adkin Schlack, Chuck Stennett, Sharon Jerue Kuiper Middle Row L-R LuAnn Rainey Winfrey, April Adkin Wright, Larry Osman, Joanne Dailey McCauslin, Sally Stevens, Dora Lee Ransom Young, Sue Adkin Asher, Rose Ransom Merriweather, Dawn Osman Bronson, Dawn Clark Roose, Renee Kark Wilkinson, Dian Schlack Liepe, Judy Dailey Chatterson, Nora Dailey Drew Back Row L-R Martin Overhiser, Ted Stevens, Clare Adkin, Holly Adkin Wohlfert, Gary Flora (in hat), Robert Osman, Craig Osman, Tim Stennett, Russ Latchaw, Brian Iddles, Dorothy Stennett, Sharon Cope Parrett. Barb Latchaw Perrin attended but was not in the picture.  THE DISTRICT SCHOOL By William Ladd Taylor The Youngest Early Country School Learners A reprint from our former CSAA newsletter... By Michael Day, Barkhamsted, CT Here's a word you don't hear anymore: Abecedarian (/ā″bē-sē-dâr′ē-ən/). A teacher in the 19th century would have been very familiar with this word, for it denoted those young students whose immediate task was to learn the alphabet. The term was also occasionally used to denote the person who taught the simplest aspects of literacy. Outside of school, the word carried the connotation of learning by rote the basic elements of a subject in a pre-determined order. Warren Burton, when writing about attending school in 1800 (The District School As It Was) recalled that he was, "three and a half years old when I first entered the old school-house as an abecedarian." In his second year at school, he "looked down upon two or three fresh, slobbering abecedarians with a pride of superiority, greater perhaps than I ever felt again." The word can be traced back to the early 17th century and clearly is it derived from the first four letters of the alphabet. Some writers emphasized this connection in their spelling of the word. Samuel G. Goodrich (who would later achieve great fame in the world of children's literature as "Peter Parley") in his 1856 autobiography described the seating arrangement of the school he attended as a child: "The larger scholars were ranged on the outer sides at their desks; the smaller fry of a-b-c-darians were seated in the center." The term was in common use as late as 1880 when the New England Journal of Education in an article on schoolhouse scheduling recommended that, "abecedarians be called to recite four times a day". It's not clear just when the term went out of fashion, but it was probably when the district schools were consolidated, and kindergarten became a standard feature of modern education. While the term is no longer in everyday parlance, it may still be found in a certain research areas. Modern youngsters love big words, especially those that seem to just roll off the tongue. Next time a group of young visitors comes to your schoolhouse, introduce them the term that might well have described them a century ago: Abecedarian. Picture: The District School by William Ladd Taylor: Abecedarians slouch on steps and benches awaiting their turn at recitation, while older scholars toe the line. Michael Day of Barkhamsted, CT was a regular contributor to our e-newsletter of old, and we thank him again. He also sold print resources for one-room school museums called Clippership Publications, but we hope to hear from him and that he re-opens his business. Help us find Mike Day! I've reached out to the Barkhamsted Historical Society for information on how to contact Mike.  CLICK ON SANTA TO ACCESS THE MHS NEWSLETTER! Santa at the Schoolhouse December 6th-12:00-3:00
Thanks to member Ralph Buglass for keeping his eye open for our Report Card readers. He received the November digital newsletter from the Medford Historical Society in New Jersey and suggested that it is certainly worth sharing for its great ideas. We concur. CSAA member, Pat Alvino, is not only a Trustee and Director of Cross Keys Schoolhouse programs, but a recent recipient of our CSAA Service Award for her many years of dedicated work on behalf of their schoolhouse museum. She continues her work with other MHS activities and this holiday season at Cross Keys promises to be a good one. Just reading Medford's newsletter is inspiring to see a thriving membership actively engaged in all things historical...and fun! MHS President Bill Pflug's Page highlights the Apple Festival, Country Day, Quilt Show and Flea Market, wine tasting, blacksmithing, new Civil War and WWI exhibits, sprucing up the buildings, planning for our nation's Semiquincentennial, the Charlie Zahm Holiday Concert at the Quaker Meeting House, opening the Haines-Tomlinson House as a shuttle stop for the Dickens Festival...and drumroll....Santa at the Schoolhouse! Check out the flyer: apple cider, 19th century decorations on the tree, and a visit with Old St Nick! Free admission. If you're looking to improve your group's communication and participation you'll certainly find inspiration and some great ideas from the Medford Historical Society!  Corn Husk Dolls, photo by Michele Thomas A Re-cycle Drop Off Became Our Treasure! If you're involved with a preserved country school museum, you know well how we're always on the lookout for artifacts for our schoolhouses, and sometimes they just find us! Ebay, Facebook Market Place, antique shops and fairs...are always fun to browse. This time it was one of our own schoolmarms in New Hampshire, Michele Thomas, who hit pay dirt while just keeping an eye out. Michele lives in the picturesque suburban town of Mont Vernon boasting some 2,500 residents, with the name presumably derived from none other than George Washington's estate minus the "u." We do try hard to call it Mont, like "font." Following the practice of frugality, some friendly villages in New Hampshire like Mont Vernon have set up swap shops at their local dump or landfill where you buy nothing because the things people leave in the swap shop are free. Good stuff is preferable. Michele was doing her civic duty recycling when she spied a box of skillfully crafted corn husk dolls in her swap shop. Each doll was performing a farm chore typical of the 19th century. She knew instinctively that these well-preserved dolls would be useful for any number of activities and stories relative to our schoolhouse program, so she adopted the lot. Michele tried to find out who was so kind or desperate to give up these beautifully hand-made dolls to no avail. Consequently, she donated this treasure trove to our District #1 Schoolhouse in Nashua where she works with her "schoolmaster" husband, Ralph Sommese. Our knowledge of corn husk dolls was limited to our newly acquired treasure, so we took to the web for answers. This post could go on and on about corn husk dolls, but in the interest of brevity, links are provided if you wish to delve into their history and craft. "Google images" offers hundreds of pictures and Wikipedia posts information. We have even included the AI response when asked: "Can you tell me about corn husk dolls from the 19th century." To pique your interest...we can certainly thank our Native American cultures for their earliest contribution. Watch the video provided to see how Cherokee corn husk dolls are made and think of how you could construct them with students or feature the craft during heritage days. You can easily relate them to frontier farm life and schoolhouse history, so you may wish to incorporate the story with your class. Have fun! See links below to learn of: Native American Origins- Use by Pioneers- Their Appearance- Folk Art, etc.  Bill Sherman front and center... Dear CSAA Friends, It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of William "Bill" L. Sherman, a board member and friend of the Country School Association of America, on October 27, 2025. Bill dedicated his life to the service and promotion of country schools and preservation of early American schooling. During this time, Bill led the charge on several notable recognitions and country school conferences for his home state of Iowa and served as a founding charter member of our national organization, CSAA. Some of his work included: promoting the redesign of Iowa’s quarter with a schoolhouse, editing of two reference books on Iowa country schools, years of service to the Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance, Humanities Iowa Speakers Bureau, State Historical Society of Iowa Board of Trustees, and so many other contributions. His legacy will continue to inspire and benefit our CSAA community for years to come. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Bills family, his wife, Faith, and loved ones during this difficult time. Bill will be deeply missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him. A link to his obituary can be found below: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/obituaries/piow1316485 Faith Sherman’s address is 3928 Twana Drive, Des Moines, IA 50310. Donations in Bills memory can be made from the CSAA website using a credit card on the “give to CSAA” page: https://www.countryschoolassociation.org/give-to-csaa.html or by check to Country School Association of America, P O Box 152, Colts Neck, New Jersey 07722. Please indicate in memory of Bill Sherman. We stand together with Bill and all the members of his family at this difficult time. Please keep them in your prayers. "God of love and mercy, embrace all those whose hearts today overflow with grief, unanswered questions and a sense of loss. Grant them space to express their tears. Hold them close through the coming days." Yours, Dr. Veronica Ent CSAA President Note: We will all miss Bill, without whom, CSAA might not exist. He was "Mr. Country School," enthusiastic and dedicated to the end. We owe him much as he and Lucy Townsend spearheaded our organization and encouraged us at every turn to expand and carry on our preservation efforts. He was a character, known all over Iowa for his Preservation Iowa conferences which many of us attended in addition to CSAA. Every conference trip to Iowa was held in a different town and all were well attended and filled with activities. Bill's last conference was in 2023 in Clinton, Iowa. In the May 2025 edition of The Report Card we posted a classic narrated slide show on Noah Webster by Susan Webb, entitled "Webster in Your Classroom." Feel free to check it out again. In this edition, we offer even more information with easy to use PDF's loaded with fun facts for children about his Blue Back Speller and his "Webster's Dictionary" that became a staple in education for centuries. His dictionary grew from 40,600 definitions in 1806 to 70,000 in 1828, with over 225,000 today. Two PDF's in one file are available by clicking on the image below: Noah Webster's Dictionary Happy Birthday, Noah Webster! The activity sheets posted here would probably have Webster in a tizzy as HE was one of the major promoters of copyright laws to protect someone else's work. These were clipped from unknown newspapers, on an unknown date many years ago, but we promise that if there is an objection lodged here we will take down the post. Hopefully readers will value them for pedagogical use and the creators will be lenient on us.
Note: The "Noah Webster's Dictionary" page is from The Mini Page 2008 Universal Press Syndicate, which became Uclick (now defunct). Texas Schoolhouse Serves a Community When you meet members of the CSAA someday, you'll find that we are all involved in some manner with a schoolhouse: enjoying, owning, preserving, curating, researching, repairing, fundraising, programming, teaching in them, or writing about them. We talk about schoolhouses like others talk about their grandchildren or their pets. What we have in common is that we're trying to save these quaint little buildings and their history. One of our previous posts talks about how it takes a village to care for them, and luckily, many of them are part of a historic village. Two of our CSAA board members, Richard and Catharin Lewis (TX) know all too well what it takes to save a schoolhouse, moving it 45 miles to League City, Texas in 1992. The website tells us that, "West Bay Common School Children’s Museum is a League City Historical Society project. This One Room Schoolhouse sits on the site of League City’s original school built in 1894 on land donated by JC League. The school provides a hands-on-history program where over 100,000 school aged children have experienced what a day was like in a one room school in the late 1800’s." When we speak of LCHS's village, the site also includes a fabulous Barn Museum, an Ice House and a Barber Shop, an original Outhouse and a Water Pump. And with all that history to share, it appears members of LCHS never rest. The community events they organize are varied and fascinating often drawing hundreds of people of all ages. Check out their website for ideas for your own society including: White Linen Night, National Night Out at the Museum, Punkin' Parade, Murder and Mayhem in League City, Music in the Historic District, Victorian Christmas Tea....etc. Remember, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. When you meet Catharin and Richard at the annual conference in June 2026...they'll tell you about their decades of involvement with this wonderful village.  Finding the Long Sought For A-5 Speedball Pen Nib
If you've been reluctant to utilize an AI program thinking it might eliminate your NEED TO THINK, I can't predict the future or assuage your concerns. Believe me, I don't wish to dumb MYSELF down by over reliance on ChatGPT, but for sure, asking a question now and then has saved me a lot of time in my research on all things schoolhouse, health, history, etc. I must admit I haven't used any of the more creative applications of AI beyond generating a picture or getting an answer. I also haven't submitted this post to AI to correct grammatical errors or punctuation ...in case you noticed. Most recently I was searching the web high and low for A-5 Speedball Nibs for our writing lessons in our schoolhouse's living history program. They're pretty darn rugged, but our visitors often apply a bit too much enthusiasm in their cursive writing lesson. Hence replacement. My old vendors failed me and stopped selling them. They weren't easy to find until the lightbulb went on and I remembered AI! I asked a simple question: "Where can I purchase Speedball A-5 nibs in bulk, like 30...not in a set?" Wow! My search was over. AI provided me almost instantly with explanations and vendors I never knew existed beyond Amazon and Dick Blick! So, to save you time in your own pen nib search, I'm going to share the VENDORS suggested by my new best friend, ChatGPT. I'm not advertising for them and I'm not an influencer. Just trying to help. BTW, Amazon has very reasonably priced "Nib Pen Holders." Utrecht Art Supplies Paper and Ink Arts Wet Paint Art Blick Art Materials Speedball Art (Beautiful Digital Calligraphy Catalogue, but no online ordering)  One Dozen Good Reasons to Attend a CSAA Conference!
2026 at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Lake Seneca No big explanation here, just a list to jump start your plans to attend the 2026 Annual CSAA Country School Conference in Geneva, New York on beautiful Lake Seneca. Everyone nation-wide is invited. See drop down menus as information unfolds. 1. Meet like-minded people with experience in schoolhouse preservation. 2. Make new friends. 3. Hear about schoolhouse topics, historical and current. 4. Discover programming ideas for schoolhouses. 5. Travel to a different state and college campus each year. 6. Enjoy a tour of area schoolhouses and heritage sites. 7. Share information about a historic your schoolhouse. 8. Engage in the local culture, museums, nature, history, architecture, scenery, and cuisine. 9. Look forward to dining and discussion with schoolhouse enthusiasts. 10. Become a presenter and offer a topic of interest. 11. Support the preservation of a national icon. 12. Revive personal energy in preservation and restoration. |
