Genealogy & Family History Community
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With a few hours to spare on a recent road trip to Wisconsin, I decided to locate the old two-room schoolhouse my Dad attended from 1924-1932. It was a cool, drizzly, windy Sunday afternoon ... and the remote country road fairly empty, but the schoolhouse itself was bustling with activity!
And the renovators were eager to share stories about the school, giving me a tour of their work, and later inviting me to their home for coffee, cookies, and more stories!
My paternal grandparents came to America from the Netherlands in 1904, settling first in Iowa; they moved to Wisconsin in 1920 when Dad was two years old. The schoolhouse is about two miles north of the old farmstead. One of Dad's favorite stories involved walking home from school after a storm that had left huge icicles on each of the fence posts. Dad, being a typical kid, started breaking off the icicles and sticking them into the tops of snowbanks along the road. Later that evening, his much older brother came home in a towering rage ... the team of horses he was driving (yes, they were still farming with horses in the 1920s) refused to pass by the icicle-bedecked snowbanks. My uncle knew exactly who to blame!
Although he was not a "scholar" by any means, Dad had many fond memories of his boyhood school ... what was like to learn in a two-room school house, with four grades in each room, and very little in teaching aids besides the blackboard and a piano. In addition to book learning, there were the social skills--especially fast-track language immersion! With no television, and very few movies (which were still in the "silent" stage in Dad's childhood), a good many of the students were not fluent speakers of English in their homes--many of them were children of Danish immigrants. Dad's family had been in America for nearly 15 years at the time he started school, but the language of the house was Dutch...and Dutch was all Dad spoke until he was six and entered first grade.
And the lasting friendships he made! A few years after graduating from 8th grade, one of Dad's best buddies began dating a young woman from the next county over, and they decided to introduce Dad to her stepsister (my Mother)--and the rest, as they say is history.
Fortunately, a good many of the families in the area have equally fond memories of the old school -- because the building itself nearly became "history." It was used as a school until 1964, and was also functioned as the meeting place for youth clubs (like 4H) and the townhall ... but eventually the building deteriorated and was deemed unfit. A new town hall was built on the property
(eww?), and the old one abandoned. There is no love for the new building--my new friends call it "the place where we have to go to vote." Maybe it is nice inside, but I can't imagine anyone being nostalgic for it 100 years from now.
Anyway, a couple of years ago the powers that be prepared to demolish the old school. The threat of losing the cherished old building caused a bit of a "to do", and a group of enthusiastic alumni from all over Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota got organized last year to preserve and restore, including painting the outside
and refinishing the floors on the inside (maple c1924),
rescuing some of the old desks from the basement
And collecting pictures and stories from other alumni and their families. I sent them a copy of this picture of my Dad's 8th grade class, c1932, proudly holding their diplomas. Dad is seated in the middle of the front row:
This summer's project will include work on the old bell, and maybe some cleanup of the playground equipment still on the site (swings and an old metal slide). They are planning a grand reunion picnic for Labor Day weekend ... which I've been invited to attend (we'll see).
All in all, it warmed my heart to see such a love of history going on, especially when the school Mom's grandfather built about 25 miles away has not had the same sort of luck
Those family stories shared by your parents and grandparents ... write them down because they may be all that is left one day.