Little House On The Prairie

[1STMP]

As I get older I find certain memories of my
childhood resurfacing and becoming more
frequent.
It may sound strange, this next question, but how
many here attended an actual one room schoolhouse?
Complete with a wood burning stove for heat, a bell
tower, and grades 1thru 12 in the same classroom.
(Rural Minnesota circa 1959).
The schoolbus was a 1939 Buick touring
sedan with an extra row of rear seats added.
I don't recall it's ever getting stuck in frequent
snowstorms of Minnesotas' caliber.

 

[kiwigtx]

Almost. It was I believe from memory a two-room for the entire school from Year 1-8 (up to age 12/13). My father got the job of demolition of the schoolhouse only a year or so after I started. I remember helping load all the wood onto a big tipper truck he had borrowed to do the job. We kept a lot for our farm, and the junk went to the local tip. Total roll was always around 60-65 - all made up of local farmers children.

At the time our house was around 100 years old, and it was a drafty old place.....we slowly built a new two-storey 'flat' with a double garage and workshop with two storerooms underneath. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a small kitchen with a generous lounge big enough for our pool table. One of my uncles is a cabinetmaker and he built that for us. While we lived in the flat we demolished all of the old house except for the laundry room, shower and bathroom. The bathroom was open basically with no door - looked out over the cow shed, and on a clear day you could see Mt Ruapehu nearly 100 miles away.

Anyhoo....the schoolhouse was old and was replaced quickly by a new 3-room Prefab building which I believe still serves the school today.
Below is a picture of the old schoolhouse - I found this one on the net....have to locate a photo album for a better shot. You can see the Pre-fabs being erected on the left.

A new toilet block was built after the old building was torn down....at the rear of the old building.

 

[Curiousyellow71]

This is a great topic! I went to country School and am preserving Harmony School...district 53, a one room school erected in 1879! When the School closed in 1997 they auctioned it off and my Grandmother gave my Aunt Betty 25 bucks to spend at the auction to buy a souvenir. Betty spent a LOT more, and came home owning the School. Betty Loved it and did much to preserve it, including getting on the National historic building registry. Sadly, Betty passed suddenly in '17 and my Dad inherited Harmony. Betty never married, but to her I was one of her boys! In 2023 my wife got a grant to buy the School from Dad and restore it. I have been the project manager so to speak and part of the Nebraska Country School Association, a nonprofit that was started by my Aunt just before she died. We have pictures of my Grandfather and his sibblings standing in front of Harmony in 1912. The School had a bell tower at that time, which will go back on. Our goal is to have events at the beautiful grounds and host grade school classes to have a day at country School. I will also host smaller car and tractors shows! My Aunt should be looking down from above smiling.
Betty's One Room School
More School pictures to come! This first picture from wikipedia..this is Harmony School:

 

[1STMP]

This is a great topic for me, I went to country School and am preserving Harmony School...district 53, a one room school erected in 1879! When the School closed in 1997 they auctioned it off and my Grandmother gave my Aunt Betty 25 bucks to spend at the auction to buy a souvenir. Betty spent a LOT more, and came home owning the School. Betty Loved it and did much to preserve it, including getting on the National historic building registry. Sadly, Betty passed suddenly in '17 and my Dad inherited Harmony. Betty never married, but to her I was one of her boys! In 2023 my wife got a grant to buy the School from Dad and restore it. I have been the project manager so to speak and part of the Nebraska Country Scool Association, a nonprofit that was started by my Aunt just before she died. We have pictured of my Grandfather standing in front of Harmony in 1912. The School had a bell tower at that time, which will go back on. Our goal is to have events at the beautiful grounds and host grade school classes to have a day at country School. I will also host smaller car and tractors shows! My Aunt should be looking down from above smiling.
Betty's One Room School
More School pictures to come! This first picture from wikipedia..this is Harmony School:

View attachment 1770371

View attachment 1770372

View attachment 1770373

A great piece of history!
Thanks for posting.

 

[1STMP]

Almost. It was I believe from memory a two-room for the entire school from Year 1-8 (up to age 12/13). My father got the job of demolition of the schoolhouse only a year or so after I started. I remember helping load all the wood onto a big tipper truck he had borrowed to do the job. We kept a lot for our farm, and the junk went to the local tip. Total roll was always around 60-65 - all made up of local farmers children.

At the time our house was around 100 years old, and it was a drafty old place.....we slowly a new two-storey 'flat' with a double garage and workshop with two storerooms underneath. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a small kitchen with a generous lounge big enough for our pool table. One of my uncles is a cabinetmaker and he built that for us. While we lived in the flat we demolished all of the old house except for the laundry room, shower and bathroom. The bathroom was open basically with no door - looked out over the cow shed, and on a clear day you could see Mt Ruapehu nearly 100 miles away.

Anyhoo....the schoolhouse was old and was replaced quickly by a new 3-room Prefab building which I believe still serves the school today.
Below is a picture of the old schoolhouse - I found this one on the net....have to locate a photo album for a better shot. You can see the Pre-fabs being erected on the left.



View attachment 1770360

A new toilet block was built after the old building was torn down....at the rear of the old building.

Thanks, kiwi!
My old school house I'm
pretty sure, is long gone.
I'll do a net search for old
school houses around
Detroit Lakes, MN.

 

[70 sublime]

My parents both went to two different one room school houses
I ended up in the new school with many rooms they had built after the one room school house

My mothers school house still stands and is part of someones home now
Dad's old school which we could see from our farm started to fall apart so it was torn down 10 years ago and the property now has a house on it

 

[Hey-O]

I can't contribute, but love the thread!

 

[RJ Squirrel]

The grade school I attended in Montana (1960's) used a small old church building on the property for a classroom when needed. My 7th grade year was spent there, we all loved it. In the main school building I was always the dumbest kid in the smart kid class. But out there, I found my calling. The smartest kid in the dumb kid class. There was a small stage in the back where we would perform our little school kid plays. It had a basement full of cool old stuff we were not supposed to mess with but did anyway. The teacher who was also a football coach had a nice big wooden paddle and used it once or twice a month. It worked!

 

[Curiousyellow71]

This was Hard Scrabble School. It got its name from the muddy clay roads that were hard to navigate by the teacher. I stopped to take a picture with the buzzards because I thought it was funny. The next day I took the following picture w the roof going..and a week later a 90 mph wind collapsed it. Buzzards knew.Lol
That was 2018, just memory now..last kids attended in '54.

 

[kiwigtx]

Almost. It was I believe from memory a two-room for the entire school from Year 1-8 (up to age 12/13). My father got the job of demolition of the schoolhouse only a year or so after I started. I remember helping load all the wood onto a big tipper truck he had borrowed to do the job. We kept a lot for our farm, and the junk went to the local tip. Total roll was always around 60-65 - all made up of local farmers children.

At the time our house was around 100 years old, and it was a drafty old place.....we slowly built a new two-storey 'flat' with a double garage and workshop with two storerooms underneath. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a small kitchen with a generous lounge big enough for our pool table. One of my uncles is a cabinetmaker and he built that for us. While we lived in the flat we demolished all of the old house except for the laundry room, shower and bathroom. The bathroom was open basically with no door - looked out over the cow shed, and on a clear day you could see Mt Ruapehu nearly 100 miles away.

Anyhoo....the schoolhouse was old and was replaced quickly by a new 3-room Prefab building which I believe still serves the school today.
Below is a picture of the old schoolhouse - I found this one on the net....have to locate a photo album for a better shot. You can see the Pre-fabs being erected on the left.



View attachment 1770360

A new toilet block was built after the old building was torn down....at the rear of the old building.

Just an as aside....when I started school, some kids were still using a slate for writing.

 

[1STMP]

Just an as aside....when I started school, some kids were still using a slate for writing.

I remember the teacher
opening new boxes of Big
Chief tablets. The school
doled out all supplies. There
were holes cut in the desk
tops for ink wells but they
weren't used.
I also remember the smell of
homemade bread coming
from the entryway coat
room where the students
stashed their paper sack
lunches.
The seniors had to show up
an hour early to chop wood
and start the fire in the wood
stove, and to clean the chalk
board.

 

[kiwigtx]

Almost. It was I believe from memory a two-room for the entire school from Year 1-8 (up to age 12/13). My father got the job of demolition of the schoolhouse only a year or so after I started. I remember helping load all the wood onto a big tipper truck he had borrowed to do the job. We kept a lot for our farm, and the junk went to the local tip. Total roll was always around 60-65 - all made up of local farmers children.

At the time our house was around 100 years old, and it was a drafty old place.....we slowly built a new two-storey 'flat' with a double garage and workshop with two storerooms underneath. Upstairs were two bedrooms and a small kitchen with a generous lounge big enough for our pool table. One of my uncles is a cabinetmaker and he built that for us. While we lived in the flat we demolished all of the old house except for the laundry room, shower and bathroom. The bathroom was open basically with no door - looked out over the cow shed, and on a clear day you could see Mt Ruapehu nearly 100 miles away.

Anyhoo....the schoolhouse was old and was replaced quickly by a new 3-room Prefab building which I believe still serves the school today.
Below is a picture of the old schoolhouse - I found this one on the net....have to locate a photo album for a better shot. You can see the Pre-fabs being erected on the left.



View attachment 1770360

A new toilet block was built after the old building was torn down....at the rear of the old building.

I found the photo album with my very first school photo. Probably less than a dozen copies of this photo still exist - it's not even on the web.

Taken in 1969. ................................................................................................That's me in the corner... ^^^^

 

[#41]

Not me, but my Dad. Also rural MN.

He went to a one room school house and would walk there and stay through class with his sister who was 2 years older. He was smart.... so they just moved him into her grade and he graduated from school at 15. His farmhouse and the school had no indoor plumbing or electricity... so yes, a wood stove and a bell. The first time he had use of a real toilet or hot shower wasn't until he joined the army at 18. The school house is still there, but of course is now not a school - just a historical community building. The bell was restored a few years ago.

 

[RemCharger]

@440 4 speed

 

[SteveSS]

My parent bought a ranch with a one room brick schoolhouse on it. Going into it was just like school had let out. It had some extremely heavy slate blackboards. Lots of desks, McGuffy Readers. It had a roll down stage backdrop with business advertisements painted on it. It eventually burned down but I still have the very large bell from the bell tower.

 

[Curiousyellow71]

Most one room Schools had districts that were placed so kids would walk no more then 2 miles to their home. Up hill both ways in the snow as they say. Sparcely populated areas were farther distances between schools. Dad when he was old enough liked to drive a '51 Ferguson TO20 tractor to school. My Aunt and uncle rode a horse named Babe to school. Babe would get bored being tied up all day and he would get his reins loose from the tree he would go back to the farm. He only took them to school. They almost always had to walk home the two miles. I randomly take pictures of one room schools, they are typically abandoned buildings and many have lost their battle to time and the elements.

We put a basement under Harmony this year. New roof last year. James Harding is donating new siding. Hopefully that will be done this winter. There were original 114 one room schools in the county where Harmony is. I believe 11 still exist. But only 5 are historical. Only Harmony is being restored and on the national registry.
This brick school is in central Nebrasks. Boarded up, but still someone hoists the flag.

 

[Curiousyellow71]

This is Camp Creek School. When I was a kid a friend went to school their and we would visit, the teacher was hot. LOL
I remember being there when it was election time and people came in to vote. It closed in the late 1980's. I believe it was built in 1877. My great Grandmother went to School there. It is about 4 miles from our Harmony School. It has been kept up on the outside, used for storage on the inside.

 

[DeltaV]

I found the photo album with my very first school photo. Probably less than a dozen copies of this photo still exist - it's not even on the web.

View attachment 1770648

Taken in 1969. ................................................................................................That's me in the corner... ^^^^

I was going to guess this kid was you.

 

[1STMP]

Most one room Schools had districts that were placed so kids would walk no more then 2 miles to their home. Up hill both ways in the snow as they say. Sparcely populated areas were farther distances between schools. Dad when he was old enough liked to drive a '51 Ferguson TO20 tractor to school. My Aunt and uncle rode a horse named Babe to school. Babe would get bored being tied up all day and he would get his reins loose from the tree he would go back to the farm. He only took them to school. They almost always had to walk home the two miles. I randomly take pictures of one room schools, they are typically abandoned buildings and many have lost their battle to time and the elements.

We put a basement under Harmony this year. New roof last year. James Harding is donating new siding. Hopefully that will be done this winter. There were original 114 one room schools in the county where Harmony is. I believe 11 still exist. But only 5 are historical. Only Harmony is being restored and on the national registry.
This brick school is in central Nebrasks. Boarded up, but still someone hoists the flag.

View attachment 1770892

View attachment 1770893

View attachment 1770894

View attachment 1770895

Wow!
Glad to see those memories
retained.
We lived way out in the
sticks. Pretty sure it was
farther than two miles from
the school house. No way
to walk it, especially in
winter.
The old farm house we lived
in had no running water, an
out house, and a wood stove
for both cooking and heat.
I couldn't find any pics of the
old school house.
My dad and mom managed
some cabins on Detroit
Lake.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Little House on the Prairie Cast: Where Are They Now?

'Little House on the Prairie' ran for nine seasons starting in 1974. Here's everything to know about the cast and where they are now.

people.com