In the 1940s and early 1950s (till 1956) Kids in Butler Township, DeKalb County attended one room country schools. A few years prior to the “consolidation” described below , three country schools in the twp. were closed. This closure could have been due to the looming onset of WW2 in order to conserve resources. One of the schools was “Five Points” which was just west of the Holiday Lakes community. The other schools were on (I think) what now county road 68 somewhere east and west of Five Points. This closure would have been about 1939 or 1940. Until 1944 all 8 grades were then housed in three remaining schools. No child was required to walk more than 1 mile to school in the old 6 school setup. A worn out Ford bus served the Twp. with the 3 school setup transporting students from outlying areas to the three remaining schools. In the fall of 1944 the grades were split as follows: Grades 1 and 2 attended Butler Center School. Grades 3, 4, & 5 attended Hogue School; Grades 6, 7, & 8 attended St. Johns School. A new bus was added that year to serve a slowly growing student population. A few years prior to the “consolidation” three other country schools in the twp. were closed. Buses were then provided due to the longer distance to school. The schools started to be phased out in the fall of 1956 with the construction of the J.E. Ober School in Garrett. The GKB (Garrett, Keyser Twp., and Butler Twp.) school corp. now included the Butler Twp. Schools.
The schools were somewhat different in architectural structure. The Butler Center School was the showcase school of the Twp. It sported a bell tower and a closed off cloak room as well as two coal fired heating stoves and a glass façade on the cloak room. It also had an inside wood bin. Water was obtained from an outside well at the Heitz farm across the road. There were no washing facilities at any of the schools. Toilets were of the outside variety on all three schools. Drinking water was stored in an earthen ware container. Students furnished their own drinking cups. (Sometimes) Each school had an outside wood shed that was used to store coal. It was a real treat to be “allowed” to get a fresh bucket of coal for the stove. The teacher sometimes acted as janitor, custodian, and stove fireman. Every fall there would be a fresh coat of linseed oil applied to the wooden floors. Every fall around Halloween neighborhood ruffians would upset the outdoor privies. Several local farmers and the Township trustee would get them back in place. If we were lucky it only happened once a year. Each time a privy was upset it never quite gained back its former glory.
Hogue School was a simple one room school building with no adornments. I think this was due to what the neighbors were willing and able to afford. Water was obtained from an outside well.
St. John’s School was much like the Hogue School except it had a bell tower and a small cloak room. Each of the buildings had four bare light bulbs suspended from cords on the ceiling. These were obvious additions as the schools were all built before the turn of the century. Fire protection was in the form of a leaking brass “fyr-fighter” extinguisher that was slightly larger than a thermos bottle. The leak caused the floor under the extinguisher to deteriorate. Windows were single pane with no storm windows. It was unwise to sit next to one in the winter but great in the spring and fall when they were opened. All of these buildings are still standing but are in great disrepair.
One thing that puzzled me for many years was the fact that some students would disappear in March and others magically appear in their place. Years later I found the reason was that their fathers were tenant farmers and they had signed contracts to rent and farm land in March. I think the reason was so they could get the oats planted in order to feed the horses. Yes, horses were still used in farming because there were no tractors being built during the war plus the fact that the nation was just emerging from the great depression of the thirties. The horses that our neighbor owned were named “Battle Axe” and “War Department”. The school year was only eight months long. The reason for the short year was that it allowed the farm kids to be free from school in order to get the spring plowing and planting done. The harvest in the fall could proceed at a slower pace so that no time off was required. In some cases certain kids were allowed time off if it was known that conditions warranted an absence.
There was a morning and an afternoon recess. It was supposed to be 15 minutes long but if it was a really nice day it could stretch into an hour. No one seemed to notice. Lunch time seemed to be whatever time the teacher deemed necessary. The boys usually played “crossout” softball. I have no idea what the girls did. Who liked girls?? In the winter time we could go downhill sledding if there was sufficient snow. We used to trek over to “Burniston’s hill” for sledding. We were allowed to take our sleds to school on the bus. Can you imagine that today? After a tough afternoon of sledding the boys would sit around the coal stove with their feet on the stove to dry out their shoes. There was a large ash pile out in back of the school as a result of years of coal fires. This ash pile was used by the smaller kids to play “king on the mountain”.
The special needs kids were schooled right along with the rest of us. We thought nothing about it except that we knew they were not very smart. The teachers wisely passed them along knowing they would pick up something along the way. There were eleven kids in my third grade class. Two were special needs and another was autistic. (No one understood what autism was at that time). He was just considered to be “dumb”. These kids usually dropped out of school at age 16 but were still in grade school.
We also had culture!! Once every two weeks we had a music teacher that would come for two hours in the afternoon. One time she tried to teach us to dance. I had worn my rubber knee boots that day. It was a long afternoon. I think the music teacher learned a lesson that day too. We had an annual Christmas program and once in a while an actual talent show. Twice a year we had an afternoon movie program. It usually contained a health movie plus a cartoon, usually a woody woodpecker or Donald duck cartoon. After the war we had a photographer visit once a year to take a group picture of all the kids and the teacher. I remember the cloak that he would place over his head and camera when he would snap the picture. There were absolutely no after school activities because most kids had after school chores to perform at home on the farm.
There was also discipline in our society. Such a crime as whispering would draw a strict reprimand from the teacher. A violation of the “no gum chewing” code would result in the culprit having to place the gum on his or her nose. If there was a very serious breach of etiquette, corporal punishment might be administered with a ping-pong paddle. This was an extreme measure. My wife relates that the usual punishment in her school was getting a whack on the knuckles with a foot long ruler administered by the teacher. One thing that seemed to slip by the “authorities” was the carving of initials on desktops and seats. It seemed like every surface was marked in one way or another. Almost all boys carried pocket knives. Wrestling bouts were common among the boys but fist fights were not. These matches served to create a pecking order among students.
We studied math, English grammar, history and/or geography, spelling, and reading. With three grades and five subjects it was almost impossible for the teacher to get through the entire list of subjects in one day. She took her time and covered a subject before she proceeded to the next. There was more time allotted to 4th grade long division and fractions than 3rd grade “carrying” addition. This allowed for at least 2/3 of our day allocated to study. We had no excuse for not being prepared. Many times, if our preparation for our own class was complete, we “listened in” on one of the other grades to see what was going on. It was really what amounted to learning at your own pace. By the time you got to that class one or two years later you had already developed an understanding of the subject. On one occasion I remember the eighth grade was having such a good time reading a play in reading class that the 6th and 7th grades joined in the fun. I think that dispels the idea of us being backward country hicks. We were, in fact, light years ahead of the curve in our learning process. I personally spent a large amount of time reading the different books in the set of the schools encyclopedias. I can still spell Czechoslovakia without even having to stop and think about it. One real problem was that we learned to read by “rote “and recognize whole words. To this day I still have trouble in sounding out words in order to spell them. Vowels are a real problem. I mix “I” and “E” and “A” and “E”
In the spring the Ag Teacher and the principal from Garrett High School would visit our school to sign the 8th graders up for high school. The boys were always signed up for agriculture and the girls always signed up for Home econ. No exceptions allowed. Fortunately, once in High School, it was possible to switch to something that was more in line with the student’s likes and abilities.
All in all, it was a much simpler era in which we kids enjoyed much more freedom than students experience today. We did not suffer,however, from a lack of knowledge. Many of the country kids ended up as successful businessmen, Engineers, skilled tradesmen, Teachers, Nurses and other professions beneficial to society. One of my close friends even ended up working on the space program as an optics scientist .
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