Lutheran Interparish School students Bristol Finnegan, Myla Yelland and Ryder Van Zuiden say the Pledge of Allegiance at Gritter Creek School during a school trip Oct. 9. The school takes fifth graders to Gritter Creek every year to experience pioneer life. (Winona Whitaker/Hometown Current)

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NORTH ENGLISH — A dozen fifth graders, lunch pails in hand, walked up the gravel road to Gritter Creek School as its bell, squeaky from disuse, rang through the cool morning air.

The students of Lutheran Interparish School visit Gritter Creek School west of North English every year after studying pioneer life in class. They dress the part and, for one morning, live the life of children in the late 1800s.

Doug Schmidt, a member of the Iowa County Historical Society Board, tested the bell before students arrived. It squeaked as it swung above the contemporary red metal roof — but it worked.

Teacher for the day at Gritter Creek School was Deb Hinshaw. She welcomed students to the school, and they followed her inside, placing their lunch buckets in the designated area before taking their seats at old wooden desks in the unheated school room.

Lutheran Interparish School student Ada Greene uses chalk to write on an ersatz slate at Gritter Creek School Oct. 9. (Winona Whitaker/Hometown Current)

Unlike one-room schools when they were in use, Gritter Creek no longer has a working stove.

Gritter Creek School has electric lights, but in keeping with the pioneer experience, Hinshaw didn’t turn them on.

Delores Tibben and her husband John used to host pioneer day at Gritter Creek School for the Lutheran school students, said Hinshaw. Tibben asked Hinshaw to take the class this year.

Hinshaw, of Victor, has 32 years teaching experience, 31 with BGM.

One-room schools usually began class each day with a prayer, Hinshaw told the dozen students seated inside Gritter’s single school room. So the students folded their hands and closed their eyes while one of them prayed aloud.

Then the students rose for the Pledge of Allegiance which would have been recited after the 1890s, said Hinshaw. The pledge didn’t exist before then and was not the same then as the pledge we say today.

The school is made of brick because bricks were manufactured just up the road from the school, and residents had easy access to them, said Hinshaw. Families would have built the school and paid the teachers themselves.

Deb Hinshaw, right, greats Lutheran Interparish School students and their teacher, Donna Armbrecht, left, to Gritter Creek School near North English Oct. 9. The students dressed as pioneers and brought lunches that students in the late 19th century might have prepared more than a century ago. (Winona Whitaker/Hometown Current)

In 1913, the porch was added to Gritter Creek School, and in 1951 it closed its doors, Hinshaw said.

Students would have written on slates with chalk as they learned their lessons, said Hinshaw. She passed out black sheets of paper to mimic slates, and the students wrote their names — in cursive — with chalk provided by Lutheran Interparish School teacher Donna Armbrecht.

Hinshaw passed around a second grade reader that would have been used in the early 20th century. She thinks today’s second graders would find it hard to read, she told the fifth graders.

Hinshaw gave the children a sample poem that might have been learned by students at the school:

God make my life a little light,

Within the world to glow;

A little flame that burneth bright

Wherever I may go.

Lutheran Interparish School Sutdent McKenzie Pirkl writes with chalk at Gritter Creek School Oct.9. (Winona Whitaker/Hometown Current)

A sample recitation through the alphabet — A was an apple pie, B bit it, C cut it — included the andpersand at the end, following X, Y and Z.

Teachers worked hard in rural schools, Hinshaw said. They had to bring in drinking water in a bucket, and students would drink from the the bucket using a shared ladle, Hinshaw said.

Some students might have had their own drinking cups with which they dipped water from the bucket, Hinshaw said. If they forgot their cups, they could make paper ones. Hinshaw showed the children how.

Teachers also had to bring in fire wood and start a fire in the stove before children arrived. Students sitting close to the stove would have been warm, but children sitting farther away would have been cold.

Lutheran Interparish School students Oliver Tuttle, in back, Trae Stoltzfus and Myla Yelland eat lunch at Gritter Creek School Oct.9. (Winona Whitaker/Hometown Current)

Teachers had to follow many rules, said Hinshaw. They had to fill the lamps, whittle nibs for students, spend an hour each evening reading the Bible and avoid barber shops. They had to be of good morals and could not smoke or drink alcohol.

Teachers stayed in the homes of their students, Hinshaw said, and when female teachers married, they were dismissed so they could take care of their own households.

Lutheran Interparish School Sutdent Bristol Finnegan unpacks her lunch at Gritter Creek School Oct. 9. (Winona Whitaker/Hometown Current)

When lunchtime arrived, the Lutheran Interparish School students retrieved their lunch buckets packed with homemade food wrapped in dish towels or paper. Homemade cookies and breads were common, and many students had apples and popcorn for lunch.

Students also brought dates and nuts, hard-boiled eggs and cold pancakes.

Hinshaw drank lemonade from a ball jar used for canning, a common practice in pioneer days, she said.

The fifth graders said they enjoyed their morning at Gritter Creek School. “I liked learning about the school and how it used to be,” said Myla Yelland. “It just sounds fun.”