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Shall We Hold a CSAA Conference Near You?
A question for you...! Where shall we hold CSAA conferences of the future? The 26th annual conference will be held in Tampa, Florida at Cracker Country on the Florida State Fairgrounds from June 13-15, 2027. This venue is entirely unique in that we historically hold the gatherings on college campuses, while choosing a pioneer museum in Texas, a national monument in Nebraska, and a retreat center in Maryland as our chosen location in past years. Cracker Country, Tampa, offers an entire village of original structures dating back to the late 1800s reflecting Florida's rural past, and our attendees will be presenting in the very heart of this history. Details are published on this website under the tab WHAT WE DO Annual Conference Information. We've held our conferences in over 22 different states and keep our antennas up for possible sites for 2028 and beyond. We encourage our members and readers to suggest suitable venues that would offer a number of country schools within a reasonable distance for our annual full day tour. Preservationists across this country are proud of their restored schoolhouses and this is a chance to bring visitors and national attention to your local efforts. Offer a Suggestion! If you believe your state or your local area offers such an opportunity, check in on our information page to learn how we can bring the CSAA conference to your area! The key is to have your local schoolhouse group work closely with our volunteers to handle all the logistics. All our conferences have been huge successes bringing together a community of schoolhouse enthusiasts. All have been memorable and mostly a lot of fun just meeting like-minded preservationists. Email me at [email protected]. (Susan Fineman, Conference Liaison) As examples, our list of venues includes the following: Rivier University, Nashua, NH Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA Miami University, Miami, OH Pioneer Museum, Fredricksburg, TX College of the Mines, Golden, CO Millersburg University of PA, Lancaster PA Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ Homestead National Monument of America in Beatrice, NE Berry College, Berry, GA Hobart & Williams College, Geneva, NY
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Photo left: President-Chuck Stennett, Vice-President-Clare Adkin, Secretary-Sally Stevens, and Sergeant at Arms-LeRoy Hogle.
QUESTION: Do you know any country school alumni group that has been meeting for more than 99 consecutive years? Well, the Idles All-School Reunion is already planning for their 100th gathering in 2027. The Report Card introduced you to this resilient group in a 12/31/2025 post "Still Gathering," submitted by Clare Adkin, Vice-President of the group. They met in July for #99! The Iddles School is located in Allegan County Michigan, and while the schoolhouse may no longer appear as an icon of education, its alumni certainly remain loyal to the memory of school days gone by. Clare has shared his report on this milestone reunion below: Iddles Reunion #99 It’s the third Sunday in July, the traditional date for the annual Iddles all-school reunion. Alumni are hurrying home from church to put the finishing touches on a dish to pass for a potluck luncheon. This country school reunion has convened every year since 1928—first held in front of the school on 109th Ave., a quarter of a mile west of 62nd St., Casco Twp., Allegan County, MI. Closed in 1965, the now crumbling vine-covered building is obscured from view by surrounding trees and bushes. Be that as it may, this one-room school house, Iddles, lives on the hearts and minds of those who once attended there. As alumni, families and friends gather in the early afternoon, a whiff of excitement fills the air, not to mention tantalizing aromas from tempting favorite recipes displayed cafeteria style. Since 2018, alumni president, Chuck Stennett, has opened his barn for this assembly. Attendees agree it’s the perfect setting for such an important countryside event and plans are immediately being made for next year’s Centennial Reunion, Sunday, July 18, 2027 at 1:00 PM-- where else but in Chuck’s barn! President Chuck rings a cow bell to call the group to order and then leads the Pledge of Allegiance. Roll Call follows with class members stating their name and the years of attendance. Vice President Clare Adkin offers special recognition to Chuck Stennett and LeRoy Hogle who served as members of the last school board. Linda Stennett Wauchek is thanked for holding twelve reunions at her home. Secretary Sally Stevens is recognized for her steadfast service as alumni secretary. An appreciative round of applause follows. Sally then conducts a brief business meeting. An alum is heard saying, “She’s the glue that holds us together.” Since 1928 there have been only three official Iddles alumni secretaries. Position longevity has never been questioned. Following the business meeting, Brian Iddles, the great great grandson of the school’s first builder, offers a heartfelt blessing. On the heels of “Amen,” a cacophony of excitement rises to the barn’s rafters and continues all during the meal. Happy memories of school days and early childhood connections flow to and fro. There’s lots of friendly banter and a sporadic, “Yes, that really happened!” Whether true, false or embellished, it is all savored. Chuck rings his cow bell, the congregation slows down. Sally shares a particularly poignant poem, “The Land That Made Me, Me” by Carolyn Jones Modica. All are captured in rapped attention. Chuck calls on Clare to make an announcement. “Put Sunday, July 18, 2027 at 1: PM on your calendar!” Chuck rings his cow bell and the meeting is adjourned. All go outside to have a group picture taken. “See you next July!”  Hornbine School, Rehoboth, MA Birthplace of Public Education? From the Hornbine School in Rehoboth, Massachusetts: "When people think about the birth of public education in America, they often think of Boston. But historians say the story actually starts farther south, in Rehoboth. The town lays claim to one of the earliest publicly funded school systems in the colonies." Retired teacher, Dave Downs has asked that we share the video offered by NBC Channel 10 WJAR. Some fun history here... The schoolhouse will be featured during Apple Days September 13th, 27th, and October 4th from 2-4 P.M. at 146 Hornbine Road in Rehoboth, MA.  Click Photo to access CSAA Registry Application Is the CSAA National Schoolhouse Registry Free? A question arose recently about the CSAA National Schoolhouse Registry. Through its National Schoolhouse Registry Program the Country School Association of America (CSAA) recognizes school buildings that contribute in some positive way to the appreciation and understanding of the country school experience and their unique architectural and historical heritage. Through application, school buildings that are at least 50 years old, that have been restored, renovated, and well maintained to retain the integrity of their original design, are invited to display that honor. It is the hope of the Country School Association of America that this registry and the optional marker will not only serve to identify school buildings of historical and/or architectural significance, but will also recognize preservation achievements and encourage the continuing care and preservation by our CSAA members. CSAA member groups or individual members are invited to submit application to be considered for the registry with no obligation to purchase the marker. We encourage purchase because it is an attractive addition to your schoolhouse. *CSAA members or member groups who purchase the CSAA Landmark Schoolhouse marker generally display it inside their schoolhouse or affix it on the outside. Markers may be ordered for $250 which includes the production of this durable cast metal plaque and postage. Many have opted to own one designed to call attention to the importance of their schoolhouse in history.  Vanessa Abbott with her proud parents Eugene and Jennifer Abbott New Preservationist Receives CSAA Scholarship & Artistry Award! Meet Vanessa Abbott of Ayer, Massachusetts, who was recently honored with a 2026 CSAA Scholarship and Artistry Award for her commendable research on behalf of the Sandy Pond District #11 Schoolhouse in her town. Vanessa completed an in-depth video project chronicling all the teachers who taught at Sandy Pond School from 1868 through 1906. Her research engaged her in the collection of their biographical information, the years they taught, their formal schooling, their photos, their family relations, related history of the times, where they lived or moved to, and where they were buried. Photos, charts, and music complete her challenging endeavor! In June, Vanessa hosted a presentation at a Sandy Pond Open House to share the details of her project, and her extraordinary video. She answered numerous questions from her enthusiastic visitors. People were both proud and amazed at the depth of her research and the entertaining organization of her information. When you watch her video project below, you can only imagine the hours Vanessa spent collecting and cataloguing her research, complete with a comprehensive bibliography (available at the Sandy Pond website)! We honor Ayer's young historian for preserving the history of a schoolhouse she loved, while leaving a compendium of knowledge to one of our remaining country schools. We wish Vanessa our best wishes as she attends Westfield State University in the fall! ---Country School Association of America Press, PAUSE to read any one page at a time!  CLICK ON THE RED SCHOOLHOUSE TO ACCESS ARTICLE Country School Resources
From the moment I took a job as a schoolmarm in country school living history program, I began a search for anything and everything "schoolhouse": articles, memorabilia, lesson plans, history books, artifacts, photos. I spent more time on the web researching than I can possibly recall. I wanted to know everything about how they operated, who built them, who funded them, who tended them, what a typical day was like, who the teachers were, what children of the past two centuries learned in them...and on and on. Sound familiar? From that search it was easy to amass country school information and articles, most of which I haven't revisited to this day. Returning to my "files" (a.k.a. boxes), I found priceless articles I should have been sharing. The Report Card is the perfect vehicle to spread the wealth. For this Report Card edition I offer: "The Old Red Schoolhouse" by Helen Lee, published in The New England Magazine, Volume 4, p.292, 1891. (books.google.com) Here are some of Helen's memories of her days in a one-room school. First person accounts return us to those times with simple stories and vivid imagery. Rest assured the essays posted will be well beyond the restrictions of copyright, and available resources will be cited. "Uphill Both Ways to School in the Snow..." As we swelter in the summer heat of 2026 we long for that break in the weather that will bring us cooling relief. Today in the northeast, temperatures reached from 82 to 93 degrees in one hour and two days ago my digital weather station recorded 101 degrees. As a cold weather person I recall how my father from New Jersey used to jest that my mother was a, "clam digging, blue nosed, New England Yankee." That blue nosed thing says something about how cold it can get here in New Hampshire and how many of us long for a hint of that right now! Scrolling through my digital photos for something other than this heat wave, I came across a photo from last years's Farm Days Event at Muster Field Farm in North Sutton, NH. On display was a giant snow roller, used from the mid 180o's into the early 1900's to "break out" the roads after a heavy snow fall. According to a post by John Robinson for WFMK Radio 99.1 in Michigan: "Before there was such a thing as snow plows, there were snow rollers. The rollers didn't remove or plow snow, they simply packed the snow down to make a smoother surface. Roads back then were not smooth to begin with – there were ruts, potholes, crevasses...all getting filled with packed snow by snow rollers to make the roads maneuverable. A snow roller was basically a large wheel that was pulled by horses or a team of oxen. Once the roadway was flattened, it was easier for carriages to get through, once they attached planks that resembled skis." This mammoth apparatus was more efficient than breaking out the road with a giant log pulled by the same horse or oxen power. The very weight of snow roller and the farmers driving the animals made for some very efficient hard packing of the roadways. All I could think of was... poor horses....poor oxen. And, remember the tales of our forefathers who claimed to, "walk uphill both ways to school in the snow?" They failed to mention snow rollers that made that trek a bit easier for school kids heading off to their country schools. Note: The snow roller under the pavilion (x2) is located in Bow, NH  Ryder Corner Schoolhouse at Muster Field Farm, No. Sutton, NH In Memory of our CSAA Co-Founder Our 2026 Annual CSAA Country School Conference ended on such a high note this week, that we know our dear friend Bill Sherman would have approved! We did however, pay tribute to Bill as co-founder of the Country School Association of America at the annual meeting. It was strange to be without him, a sad loss for all of us who kew him. But, he would be happy we carried on with his mission of schoolhouse preservation, spreading the word while adding many new members. Bill Sherman was "everyman" to country schools as you will witness in our video tribute below. We also honor his wife Faith who will remain our dear friend and fellow preservationist. Sunday Free Events Near Geneva, NY We'll be back after the 2026 CSAA Country School Conference with all kinds of news for you! Conference begins Sunday and ends Tuesday with the area coach tour of country school museums. Sunday Schoolhouse drive it-yourself tour is free for all.    CLICK ON FLAG TO ACESS "THE "PATRIOTIC READER" DIGITAL EDITION Carry the Torch in 2026!
July 4th 2026 will be the official 250th birthday of the United States of America. Celebrations are being held in every one of our 50 states to honor our experiment as a constitutional republic, of the people, for the people, by the people. Are we still promoting the patriotism that holds a nation together? Do today's public schools engage our children in patriotic ideals as they did in the country schools of the past? Open up The Patriotic Reader, by Bemis, Holtz & Smith of more than a century ago and you can make the assessment. The copyright is 1917, when patriotism and love of country were foremost in the minds of teachers and scholars alike in our nation's one-room schools. Savvy schoolbook publishers offered patriotic readers designed to teach the ideals embodied in the very best of our history. They included poetry, short stories, quotations, songs, character studies, and biographies...all designed to highlight the great men and women who forged a free nation from the American Revolution onward. Any three of the quotations below are appropriate to the task, boldly reflecting the spirit of our great thinkers. Daniel Webster proclaimed, "I was born an American: I will live an American: I shall die an American." Benjamin Harrison ordered this: "Do not be ashamed to love the flag or to confess your love of it. Make much of it; tell its history; sing of it. It now floats over our schools, and it ought to hang from the windows of all our homes on all our public days. Every man should rise when a national air is given at a concert or public meeting." Henry Cabot Lodge added, "Believe in your country,- be Americans." And so it goes. The chapter headings speak of the stories that children loved to hear.
I guarantee you'll find inspiration for your country school's living history experience! Access the digital copy of The Patriotic Reader by clicking on the flag above. Poets and They Know It! When you open the inside covers of a very old book, you may just find messages written in the past to people of that present! There may be drawings, doodles, or unrelated initials. Frequently you are wowed by a show of elegant Spencerian Script. Some of the more sophisticated entries are hand-inscribed poems; playful, possessive, sentimental, or even threatening. We'll even examine few. These artistic meanderings are often called “flyleaf scribblings,” “book rhymes,” or “flyleaf inscriptions.” Schoolbooks were convenient places for students to leave their musings. Blame boredom, runaway imagination, or the tradition of leaving a message on the last day of school to memorialize their experience. At the turn of the 20th century, Clifton Johnson, author of The Country School, dedicated an entire chapter on flyleaf scribblings in another of his books entitled, (click on link) Old Time Schools and Schoolbooks. Like initials carved into trees, school clapboards, or desks, like love locks chained to a bridge, flyleaf scribblings acknowledge a moment in time that says…“I was here.” Here are some examples I found in the front and back leaves of ancient copies of Town's Fourth Reader(1847), Dubb's Complete Mental Arithmetic (1893, and Course and Methods by John T. Prince (1886) I'll wager you have a few good ones to share. Flyleaf Poetry Remember well, and bear in mind, A constant friend is hard to find. But if you find one just as true, Leave not the old one for the new. Valeria C. Moses 1851 May virtues attend you And peace be your end Are the sincere wishes Of Jane, your friend. Happy did we meet, Happy have we been, Happy may we part, Happy may we meet again! 1851 Cyrene G. Webster Gilmanton, NH Written in the end page of Town’s Fourth Reader For photos below: Click on the photos to enlarge. Check out the ominous warnings of one book owner! I like this one: "See these leaves ain't (ant) torn apart, before this book is learnt by heart."  Dear Readers, We Haven't Forgotten You ...Been a bit busy this past month preparing for the upcoming 2026 CSAA County School Conference in Geneva, New York! I've been working on a presentation about schoolhouse privies and it's been an absolute HOOT. I began the project with a few things in mind and when I started unpacking the particulars, down the rabbit hole I went! So many unexpected twists and turns. When the conference is over I'll share some terrific information with you, but for now I'll post one of my handouts to pique your interest in our country school outhouses. If you're lucky enough to have one on your schoolhouse property you know what a curiosity they are for our young visitors. Those country school kids and their teachers sure were a hardy bunch! Freezing cold seats came up regularly as something to be reckoned with...along with Sears Catalogs. As I said...stay tuned!   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!  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.  First Hand Account: A "Consolidation Fail"
Articles in professional journals of the past tell some very interesting stories about rural school life. I came across a 19th century essay by a county supervisor of rural schools in Pennsylvania in a random Google search. Actually, this entry 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 the writer's first-hand accounts under the title, My Babes in the Woods, p. 857. Unfortunately, whoever penned the essay went unnamed, which seemed very strange, but it was one of four different stories included under the same title. 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 re-opened, 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.  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.  |
