Old Schools

I love to look at old schools, whether one room or several rooms.... they are vestiges of a slower time in our countryside.  We are blessed to have a variety around us here at Calamity Acres.  I have shown you a few, but there are more that I am going out to try to take pictures of. 

When I was a child, my grandmother, and her son and daughter, my aunt and uncle who never married, lived on a dairy farm in the next county over.  On their road (wonderfully named "Moonlight Road") stood Moonlight School.  It was one room... and when I was about 13, it was moved over to the other side of the road, and turned into a house, where it still stands.  In it's place was built a "modern" two room school, and I wanted to go to school there more than anything.  When my own sons were 11 and 13, my mother and I took a contract on a school that had been converted into a home, on an acre here in Leavenworth County.  It was 1983 though, and we could not sell our big house in town.  Finally, we released the sellers from the contingency contract and they were able to sell the schoolhouse.  Six months later when I drove out to see it... it was GONE.  It had been moved from the place it had stood since the 1890s.  It had had a barn and another outbuilding, and I pictured myself raising my children in it's peaceful setting. 

Here then, is a house I featured once before... the White School in Lawrence, Kansas.  It is for sale now, sitting in a commercial area that once must have been a neighborhood in North Lawrence.  It has been a commercial building for many years. 

This is the back.  We think it probably had three levels, based on the window coverings you can just barely make out to the left.... in the side wall... and the door in the back under the covered roof that appears to go into a basement.  There were clearly two floors upstairs.

It is on an acre and a half, so I suspected that there was some type of barn structure for horses near. 

And this is a school from down our road, which I also featured here.  It was built in the 1880s, and then was used as a church for a while.  It suffered a fire, and the "modern" parts of the building were stripped away to leave the limestone.  About two years ago, a young carpenter bought it and remodeled the interior extensively. It is now brought up to our century on the inside, but maintains it's charm on the outside.  It sold again this year, and we do not know who owns it now, they are not living there yet.... and it's windows are dark again at night.

It reminds me of the picture below.  I love old pictures... I love to look at the faces and homes and pets of those who came before us, whose footsteps haunt our land and who left their imprints here for those of us who followed.

(as always, click on the picture to bring their faces closer to you)

Speaking of School

Hund School - 1930

Reads the title on this little white building that is in our country neighborhood, as the crow flies. Dotted around us are several of these tiny one room buildings, that were home to pupils of times past. Some, like the Hund School, were only there since the 30's... not so old, we say, but it was a time when electricity did not come to every farm around yet, and people were lucky to get their news on a big radio against the living room wall. Down our road is the tiny Admire school, built of limestone. It is being lovingly restored by a young carpenter who has repoured the floors and bolstered the walls against decay. He hopes to move his little family into it someday, and the school will be the core of the new family house, with a bedroom wing built on. We love to see it lit in the evenings now, while he is working on it, it's lights aglow again on it's corner of the road.

Our mare is up and moving, and consultation with her previous owner says that she may have had too much medication for her ills. She is wandering very slowly in the yard with her companion in the sun this morning, and the vet will see her again on Tuesday. It is deceptively sunny, the sun belies the fact that it is still briskly cold, and I hurried through the chores before church. It beats the blowing snow of three days ago, though, by far.

The ducks and geese are asleep in the straw of the vacated horsebarn. One gander, Timmy, cannot figure out how to step through the tube gate, so stands outside honking at his friends. Now the gate is open, so that all five are in there sleeping, heads tucked under their wings. Some of the hens have joined them, and they are all resting in the straw. The little hens are still in the henhouse, it is harder for them to stand up to the breeze, and their roosters keep them close. One tiny one, Dovey, is on a clutch of eggs, but we will take them out from under her today and endure her pecking. It is far too soon for anyone to be setting this year, and we hope not to have chicks... we will be on guard against this, in fact. We ended up with too many cockerels last year, and foolishly have not gotten rid of them... so don't want to encourage any more.

Saturday passed in a blur of errands and "must-dos". Today will be slower, with laundry and picking up to do, but keeping quiet the Lord's day.