Echoes From One-Room Schools
Monroe County, Indiana
by
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PREFACE Wendell Brinson sparked the idea of preserving information about one-room schools. He had attended a one-room school in Stella Alexander volunteered and Harriet Fulton, Lee Riggs, and Helen Sturbaum offered their help. Stella taught in Stella asked for volunteers to collect information and photos from each of the twelve townships. We owe many thanks to the diligent work and contributions of Bob Burkett, Glodene Chambers, Julia Deckard, Maurice and Francis Endwright, Lou Gilliland, Anna Lee Gross, Ruth Libke, Alma Long, Edith Phillips, Ida Mae Taylor, Thelma Whaley, Betty Williams, Martha Bell Young, and Velma Young. As ten years went by, some of these people passed away, and Stella Alexander became unable to continue this endeavor. When Wendell Brinson realized that the one-room school project was faltering, he challenged the membership to get involved. At each meeting he told us that we should get started before it was too late, as some people were already gone, and we were all growing older! So he and Rachel Christy, and possibly others, called Dorothy Riensch White, the caregiver for Stella Alexander. Dorothy had known Stella for many years and they shared an interest in one-room schools, as she had attended Dorothy acquired Stella’s accumulated treasures, and gave them to Anna Lee Gross who passed them on to Frances Weinberg who was president of the Monroe County Retired Teachers Association at that time. We are thankful to Dorothy Riensch White for saving this material. In the fall of 2003, a group of retired teachers met as a One-Room School Project Committee. The group organized the materials, began acquiring even more and started planning for publication. Some members had attended one-room schools in We decided to include two-room as well as one-room schools. While two-room schools did not have one isolated teacher with all eight grades, they still shared many of the same characteristics, such as the limited facilities and outhouses, and several ages grouped together with one teacher. Some one-room schools suddenly became two-room schools with the aid of a curtain hung in the center to divide the school. In many cases we have indicated how students relocated when their one-room schools closed – first into three or four-room schools, and then into the graded school systems. However our emphasis has been on the original one and two-room schools. We present this book to document the early history of education in We are truly indebted to all who have shared their early memories, photographs, and mementos from
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About the Book
CHICKEN COOP, HOOPPOLE, LICKSKILLET, SAND COLLEGE, AND JOINT
Listen to the echoes of these and more than a hundred other one and two-room schools in Monroe County, Indiana. The members of the One-Room School Committee, a part of the Monroe County Retired Teachers Association, take pleasure in presenting this book.
Echoes documents the early history of education in Monroe County, Indiana from the 1800s to the last school in 1967. Many people have shared their early memories, photographs, and mementos from Monroe County’s early rural schools. In addition to what was originally gathered, we have added information from many former teachers and students. We have recorded and transcribed interviews, received written stories and documents, held many telephone conversations, and have made a serious effort to be accurate in our reporting.
Echoes contains 285 photographs of school buildings, students, and maps showing the locations of these schools. While we have made every effort to be accurate, we realize that people’s recollections may vary, names may be misspelled, and some dates may not be correct. These individual memoirs capture the atmosphere and the spirit of Monroe County’s one-room and two-room schools.
Let this book take you back to a simpler time--to the hills and hollows of southern Indiana. Walk with Monroe County’s children through the fields and along unpaved roads to the little schoolhouses with warm pot-bellied stoves. Spend a little time with teachers organizing learning for all eight grades. Sit with students at the recitation bench and then go outside at lunchtime and learn how to play andy over or stinkbase, and listen to these echoes.
We dedicate this book to all the early teachers in Monroe County: to those whose names appear in this book, and to many whose names have been lost. They taught under primitive conditions with meager facilities and few supplies; they had varying amounts of personal education, and little remuneration. Despite all this, these teachers devoted their talents, their energy, and their affection to the children in their little schools. They provided a solid foundation for the educational system in Monroe County, Indiana.
About the Author
Echoes was written by a group of retired teachers from