Memories of country school - A Sesquicentennial feature story

One room country schools played an important role in educating rural students from the mid 1850s to the late 1940s at which time many of those schools were closed down.

Boone County Historical Society’s Trail Tales Bulletin 26, published in 1976, documents the schools in Boone County, including the country schools serving rural students.

According to The History of Boone County published in 1880 by the Union Historical Company, the first schoolhouse built in Boone County was about one and a half miles southwest of Boone near Honey Creek, in Section 33; was built of unhewn logs; and was about 16 x 18 feet in size.

Former vice president of the Boone County Historical Society Bertha (McCall) Harten, in her introduction to “A History Boone County Rural Schools” shared some memories of her own, as well as recollections from stories told by her parents and aunts who taught in these early schools:

“Each township could have had as many as nine one-room rural schools with a one-room frame building each two miles. In these rural schools of the late 1890s, the frame building was usually painted white or red. The school was not only used for school, with maybe four terms (fall, winter, spring, summer) or maybe six weeks or longer terms. The building was the place where all special meetings were held. Church and Sunday School met in some of the buildings, and in some buildings, funerals may have been held. 

“The school houses had from three to four rows of double seats - the middle row divided by a big pot-bellied stove. There were usually kerosene, or Aladdin, or “Angle” lamps on the side wall used for after-dark occasions. In the corner near the door was a table with a bucket, tin dipper and wash pan, and cake of soap in a tin can. The roller towel had to last a week. Wash Day came only on Monday. Water was carried from a farm home nearby, for it was much later before the schools got their own wells. Most schools had two outhouses.”

Effie (Rinehart) Peters in her overview of time spent at Amaqua No. 6, or Maple Grove, one of nine rural schools in Amaqua Township northwest of Ogden, states that she and Eugenia Whitmore, were the first to come into Ogden to successfully take the Eighth Grade Examinations, so that they could enter high school in Ogden that fall of 1919.

Amaqua No. 6 (Maple Grove) she recalled, had 64 different teachers in 56 years (1888 through 1943). Teaching several terms in 1891 and 1892 was Mame Shelley, sister of well-known Kate Shelley. While most country school teachers taught just a year or two, Miss Ruby Hall continued teaching there 13 years, from 1930 to 1943.* Several pupils who attended school there never had another teacher in grade school. Hall later taught in the Boone School system and only retired in the early 1970s. Maple Grove School was closed in 1944, sold, and the building was moved to Howe Street (now SE Second Street) in Ogden. Another former country school house can be seen on SW Fifth Street. 

Eldora (Stumpenhorst) Heineman is one of the few remaining country school teachers. She taught at Dodge Township School No. 13 from 1944 to 1946, then later at Marcy School No. 4.

Her story:

Heineman was raised on a farm outside of Blue Hill, Neb. where she attended country school until third grade. After a year at a parochial school in Blue Hill, she returned to country school for another two years. 

While in high school Heineman underwent “normal training,” and upon graduation received a teaching certificate. (“Normal” schools were created to train high school students to be teachers.) “This was during the war, so teachers were scarce,” she explained. 

Heineman got her first teaching job at a country school in Nebraska for the 1943-44 school year. During the summer sessions she attended Kearny State Teacher’s college in Nebraska.

There is much more to this Sesquicentennial story. Check out the June 15 issue of The Ogden Reporter.