Residents reminisce about country schools

FAIRFIELD — Residents who attended a one-room country school got together Saturday, June 24, in Fairfield to share stories and reminisce about their glory days.

The Carnegie Historical Museum hosted the event, which it dubbed the Inaugural One Room School Reunion. Appropriately, it was held in a one-room school, the Elm Grove School No. 4 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in Fairfield.

At one time, Jefferson County had 99 schools, which were placed 4 miles apart on land acquired from farmers so that no student would have to travel more than two miles. Museum interim director Lawrence Eyre said that Iowa once had 12,000 schools, the most of any state.

Among those to share their recollections Saturday was Loretta Crile Diers, who attended a one-room school in Lockridge township from 1950-58. Diers was one of several people who spoke that day who said that they were the only child in their grade. Diers said there were 14 kids at her Union No. 1 school, which like most schools served kids in grades kindergarten through eighth.

Diers was expecting to attend Lockridge High School, but that closed in 1958 just as she was about to enter high school, so instead she attended Fairfield High School, and graduated in 1962.

“I was quiet and an introvert, so it was a big jump to go from being the only one in my grade to having 180 students in my freshman year,” she said. “They were mostly strangers, because my family and I didn’t come to Fairfield much, except to watch a movie.”

Diers said she was in 4-H, so she did know a few other 4-H members from the Lockridge and Salina area, so that made the transition to high school a little easier.

Diers said her one-room school classmates “felt like another family,” because it was such a small group that spent so much time together. She said she’s glad that her school still is standing, and in fact is used by Amish people for Sunday school classes once a month.

“When I visited it later as an adult, it seemed smaller,” Diers said.

A few others who shared stories Saturday were Letha Goehring and Janice Bannister. Goehring attended multiple schools, Richwood-Buchanan No. 1 and Blackhawk No. 7, because her family moved when she was in third grade. She said her new school, in Blackhawk, had only five students. By the time she was in fifth and sixth grade, she had one classmate in her grade. Bannister attended Des Moines No. 5, where there were about 16 students, though that number fluctuated a bit from year to year.

Bannister and Goehring said that, by the 1950s, attending high school had become the norm, so most students continued their education after leaving one-room schools. Both of them attended Fairfield High School. Bannister said it wasn’t even a matter of discussion with her parents whether she would attend high school.

“It was like going to church, you either had to be sick or almost dead before you didn’t go,” Bannister said.

Bannister said that her transition from one-room school was pretty smooth because she recognized students from church and nearby farms. Goehring said that, because she was an only child, she had to work harder to pave her own way because she didn’t know as many other kids.

Goehring and Bannister shared a few humorous stories about the superintendent of country schools at the time, Orissa Lyons.

“She turned the doorknob with a handkerchief,” Goehring said.

“She was a germaphobe,” Bannister said.

Goehring said Lyons had the ability to slip into a schoolhouse without the kids noticing she was in the room.

“Even if the door normally creaked, it never creaked when she came in,” Goehring said.

Goehring told a story about how when she was in kindergarten or first grade, she and a boy named Bob Cummings were outside in the snow. Cummings grabbed a handful of snow and told Goehring he was going to throw a snowball at an oncoming car, which he did. When the car drove past, the two kids could see that the person inside was Orissa Lyons. Cummings’s mother witnessed the event, and scolded him when he got home. Goehring was on edge for days after that, expecting Lyons to reprimand both kids the next time she came to school, but she never brought it up.

  Buy Photo

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

  Buy Photo

  Buy Photo

  Buy Photo