Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance One-Room School Workshop

The Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance held their annual one-room school workshop on October 4-6, 2007 .The host organization this year was the Johnson County Historical Society in Coralville, Iowa. For those ofyou who haven’t been to one of these, they have a few main speakers and then try to give a capsule of everything that’s going on in one-room schools in Iowa.

The program started on Thursday night with a lecture on the long term effect of the Amish school shootingby Mark Dewalt of Winthrop University in South Carolina. He literally wrote the book on Amishone-room schools. Friday morning began again with Dr. Dewalt talking about The Future the One-Room School in America.

Next up was Diane Schupbach from the University of Northern Iowa. Schupbach talked aboutstandards in school. Iowa is about the only state that reserved the right to have local standards under No Child Left Behind. She talked about finding local standards and tying what your schooloffers school groups to all sorts of standards, not just history, but subjects like spelling and math.No Child Left Behind and budgets have led schools to really cut back on field trips. To maintain those tours, you have to help teachers make the strongest case possible how a visit to your museum will fitwith the curriculum. She also told us about a new program at UNI where they got legalpermission to collect the one-room school material from the Area Education Agencies in Iowa.They are still in the early collecting stages, but this should prove to be a great improvement to have the records all in one place, organized and preserved. This program is called P.H.I.R.E.and I expect we’ll hear more about it in years to come.

Susan Fineman of Nashua, New Hampshire presented her program from the CSAA conferenceon discipline in one-room schools. Although focused on the east coast and a time frame pretty earlyfor the Midwest, it was a very interesting program and was a good example of usingprimary documents to prune back some of the myths that surround one-room schools.

Iowa is home of a National Heritage Area called Silos and Smokestacks. A heritage area is a national recognition of an area where sites can join together around a “>central theme.Candy Steed from Silos and Smokestacks talked about opportunities and positive effects that rural tourism can have for your museum. Gordon Hendrickson from the State HistoricalSociety of Iowa came and talked about the Iowa Country Schools Grant Program and othergrant programs that could be available to one-room school museums. Roseanne Malekfrom the Iowa Department of Education covered two topics. Malek first talked about herparents’ experience. They both attended one-room schools in Iowa and both had Czechas a first language. In one school Czech was used in the classroom and in the other it was restricted to English only. The language barriers faced in many schools today has been with it a long time. Malek also talked about the service learning grants offered be the Iowa Department of Education for schools to do projects with schools that might be a useful program for one- room school museums to be involved with.

After lunch at the new Marriott, there was a collection of what was happening in one-room schools around Iowa. Marilyn Robinette of Albia told about how they had decided that the schools around their county couldn’t really be saved and so they decided to build a new, recreated one. They also decided to make this new school a central location for information on all the one-room schools in the county. They put a call out for information and organized it into one notebook for school. They are up to about 18 notebooks now.Helen Augustine of Emmetsburg talked about her new book “They Opened the Door andLet My Future In” about one-room school teachers in her county. Jeanette Kottke talkedabout her project to put together a video about their school. Mike McGill of Independence talked about them developing a new agriculture museum they call a agribition center called Heartland Acres. They have really focused on the agritourism and on getting business tie-ins to the complex. A final session was on the Country School Association of America. Susan Fineman talked on the value of joining CSAA and I talked about the oneroom listserv.I hope other people will join as well. Everyone moved to the school building that the Johnson County Historical Society has on 5th Street. This school has gone through several renovations. Currently the first floor is restored to 1876-1877 (the first year the school was in use) and the top floor to the late 1930s-early 1940s (when the school was last in service as a school). It’s been renovated, down to the button light switches, but is in the process of gatheringthe last few artifacts to completely dress the school room. The stairway in between the two floors has a timeline showing the changes in the school and Coralville in between the two periods depicted. It’s a unique school and one well worth seeing. http://www.jchsiowa.org/ After supper we returned to the museum for an author night where people shared, sold, and signed books and videos they produced.

The following day was the caravan tour. We stopped at the Washington Township School. Now used as a community building, it was one of a handful of Township schools in the country, trying to avoid consolidation into town. The school across the street was a one-room school that served as an elementary to the township high school. We stopped at the Cheese Factory (a local Kalona landmark) and went on to stop at the Straw College school house at the Kalona Historical Village. We stopped at the Middleburg Amish school. This one-room school was previously used as a public school and now is active >as an Amish school making it one of the longest actively used one-room schools in Iowa. The teacher Rebecca was there to talk about what they do. A final school stop was in Wellman where we visited the Smith Creek School Museum. The tour was topped off with a meal in a Mennonite meal. The date is not yet fixed for next year (either the first or second weekend in October), but will be in Ames, Iowa.

Sarah Uthoff

Article about Malone Event

I just came across a news article about Malone’s anniversary celebration. It includes more information about the documentary Dean Butler was working on.

 http://www.pressrepublican.com/homepage/local_story_262203118.html

 Sarah Uthoff

Trip to Malone – Part 3

The next day we drove over to Stowe, Vermont  to see the Von Trapp family compound. Vermont definitely deserves its name as the granite state. The mountains were high and jagged. The highway went  through passes blown away and instead of limestone like around here, it revealed granite. The granite wasn’t in level layers either. You could see the lines where it had been thrust up. We went over Lake Champlain which was also not developed like I had expected. We got to the VonTrapp Lodge and saw a really neat orientation movie about the family background and an ad introducing you to the Lodge. Armed with a map we went to the family cemetery which had really interesting iron work markers. We also looked over the rock garden and saw some genuine edelweiss. Lunch was at the Austrian tea room. It was a very good lunch complete with dessert and windows that looked over the valley to other mountains. They also have a large giftshop there at the restaurant.  Back up the hill at the Lodge we got a horse drawn wagon ride and tour of the compound.  Afterward, I wanted to climb up to the chapel. It was built by one of the sons after he returned home safely after World War II. The story was in the “World of the Von Trapps”  by William T. Anderson. The book is available through their online giftshop http://trapp.e-beans.net/products/index.php?c=8 It’s quite a climb to the chapel, not for the faint of heart.  The sun who built this chapel died just this year.

http://www.trappfamily.com/familystory/history.php?tid=572

Next stop was Connecticut and driving through the Northeast, again and again I was surprised by how little developed it was. I expected to see all houses, industry, and farm fields, but I saw a lot of mountains and woods. Dansbury itself was in a more of a suburban area, one of those places where it’s difficult to tell where one town ends and another begins. However, yards were big and there were plenty of trees. Rose’s house is at 23 Kings Street. The yard is fairly grown up and it’s hard to see the house from the end of the driveway.  The man who owns it now let the bus trip in from Burr Oak the last time they came, but this time wouldn’t even answer or return a phone call before the trip. At the top of the hill is the King Street United Church of Christ. This was the church that hosted Rose’s funeral and while Rose wasn’t a member, she did involve herself in the church doing things like donating to their bake sales. We arrived shortly after Sunday service was over and our group got to talk to several current members. A couple members of the Bible study group remembered Rose and her white turban and her yappy little dogs.

Driving back from Connecticut was really interesting. We drove across the Hudson River and through the Hudson River Valley. I don’t know how they early settlers could face it, crossing one mountain range after another. The mountains got flatter as we headed west, but were still there well into Pennsylvania.  Then they disappeared to reappear in Wisconsin, although they didn’t look near as impressive once we’d seen Vermont.  Although Malone and Danbury are out of the way for many Laura fans, I think they are well worth a trip.

Sarah Uthoff

Trip to Malone – Part 2

Then we went on a tour of the house and buildings. Overall they did a great job and I really think it was worth the trip. We started at the barns. It was interesting to see the barns and our guide said that they had found the actual foundations. They had a blueprint based on that and Laura’s description, but I wonder at some of the proportions were off. I think maybe some of the changes were deliberate to accommodate groups rather than farm animals. They had fake animals (some pigs and some chickens) set up in the barns. There were lots of tolls and some things where they would never be. I was also surprised by the layout of the barns. I pictured the open end of the square facing the house, but it faced away with the opening closed in by a fence rather than the house.

 

We went into the house by outside door directly into the wood shed. It was surprising how many doors there were in the house and how few of the rooms were next to each other. The house wasn’t a square at all, but a skinny rectangle with only one room all the way across instead of two (except for the Master Bedroom/Parlor and Pantry/Woodshed). There was a ladder leading up to Father’s workshop. We went into the kitchen. It was set up with a bathtub in front of the stove, a plate rail set all the way around the top of the kitchen with plates set up decoratively, and for some reason dried apple rings hung from the plate rail. We went into the dining room next. They have a nice display of family photos there and a great oil lamp over the dining room table. They had willowware dishes on the table, in the corner, on the buffet. The stair case to the second floor opened into this room. The wall opposite the stairway has three openings. One is a door into the master bedroom. It was blocked off by a Plexiglas panel. Laying on the bed was their half of the coverlet Mother Wilder made. (DeSmet owns the other half.) Next was an opening around the stove. I always had trouble picturing how the stove was shared between the two rooms, but on first glance I’m doubtful of this version. There was a majorly big opening around the stove. I think there was a two foot clearance from any edge of the stove. It was so big it basically made the two rooms just one big one. I’d like to know the basis for this kind of opening. The third doorway led into the parlor. The wallpaper was very nice. They had a couple of horsehide chairs and the matching settee covered in velvet. One really shocking thing was that they had a George Bent organ. Bent was originally from Burr Oak, Iowa and his biography is a prime period source for the history of the town. I don’t think they’d realized the connection, so it was a cool coincidence.

 

The second floor is reached by the original stairway. I spend a lot of time in old houses and I was still amazed my how steep it was. It was much more like a ladder with risers. It was a little less step than the steps to Rose’s room in the hallway in Rocky Ridge, but not by much.  Upstairs were three rooms.  The attic room over the pantry/woodshed was Father’s workshop and was unfinished. The main room that the steps came into was Manly and Royal’s bedroom. There were two beds in a corner. There was also a towel stand with a notice saying the towels were Rose’s and several other textiles throughout the house had also belonged to Rose. I’d have liked to know what they were as we went along, but we didn’t have time for many questions. Some of the group walked down to the Trout River, but the bus was going to leave in an hour so I spent the time taking photos around the homestead instead. It really just whetted my appetite and I hope that I can plan a return trip sometime.

 

We left the farmstead a little early to meet a guide at the Morningside Cemetery. It was moved from near the Congregational Church to its present site in 1862. It also is the burial site of Vice President Wheeler under President Rutherford B. Hayes and also the founder of the Gibson Guitar Company. To find the Wilder graves go in to the upper exit, turn left on the road twice and go around the pond. They are at the top of a little hill overlooking the pond. The Wilder plot includes Almanzo’s paternal grandparents and a nearby plot has James’s first wife (who died shortly after their marriage) a story that I hadn’t really taken notice of before.  We revisited a few spots on the way back to the hotel as I pointed out points of interest around Malone. We went to supper at the same place as Dean Butler and then went to bed for a long ride the next morning. Tune in for Part 3.

Sarah Uthoff

Trip to Malone – Part 1

September was a very Laura month in real life, but that hasn’t left much time for virtual life, but I hope to get the rest of the webpage updated very soon.

 

The tour began from Burr Oak at 5:30 am, so we (my friend Mary and I) drove up the night before. I had just been up there in June, but I wanted to find to get some more photos to update my slide set. They’ve really opened up some areas that they hadn’t before.  You can walk into some of the bedrooms now and the central cupboard. (Photos show that this was pre-renovation and they jacked it up during their foundation replacement.)

 

This bus trip was headed up by the Laura museum in Burr Oak. They have hosted several trips, including a previous one to Malone in 1998. (Watch their website for possible future trips.) Quite a few staff members and volunteers came along, as did some from the Spring Valley museum.

 

It was a long two days drive out to Malone. I was really surprised by most of the rest areas. Around here most rest areas are bathroom/picnic areas, maybe with some tourism information. These rest areas out east were full of restaurants and gift shops. I was also surprised by how much of the area near the road seemed to be undeveloped. I expected that far east to be all developed farm fields, urban areas, and suburbs, but there were tons of trees and mountains or near mountains.

 

We got into Malone after dark. We were staying at the Super 8 which is fairly centrally located and if you stress a point (everyone seemed to think it was 10 minute walk to anywhere no matter what you asked in Malone) walking distance to several restaurants, various types of stores, gas stations, etc. The next morning we weren’t supposed to get on the bus until 9:30, but I wasn’t going to waste the time. Mary and I started walking the Main Street.  We were looking for the post office, but also to see what we could see.

 

We came across the bridge across the Salmon River.  On one side is a small park with a historic marker about the history of Malone. There was information on the marker, historic photos, and an old town map. It was right after that we saw the three cornered square where they celebrated the Fourth of July. It gave me shivers. We also saw the County Court House where Dorothy Smith did her research, and the congregational church. We did miss the House of History, but I hope to get back sometime. 

 

Coming back we found the site of the Franklin Academy. The high school is still called that, but the actual site is the location of the Jr. High. The historic marker is in the hallway and you have to get permission to enter. It doesn’t mention the Wilders, just the history of the school. The man we talked to was a local history buff and told us about the school. He also told us about the location of the old Methodist church and the Franklin Hotel that was built over it where Rose stayed on her trip. It is currently the site of the Stewart’s gas station. There are two in town, it’s the one closest to the Super 8.

 

Once we got back to the hotel we got onto the bus. We stopped at the Franklin County Fairgrounds. The front gate was locked up, but you can get in on the side. The fair buildings are all on left. They were mostly shut up, but there were horses being training on the track. Then we stopped at the Market Barn where we picked up lunch. It’s an antique/junk shop with different stalls for different people. I found some tiny tin punch lanterns there and I bought a genuine Malone baby pumpkin.

 

Next stop was the farm. It’s just 17 miles from the Canadian border (downtown Malone is 13 miles away). All of a sudden the farm just appeared on the left. It gave me kind of lurch to see the historic marker sign. I’m so used to seeing the marker in black and white, that it was weird to see it in color in real life. We ate lunch as a group on the grounds.

 

Dean Butler was on the grounds, but was all business because he was shooting a travel video that should be out in the spring. Unlike everybody else he was allowed to shoot inside the buildings. Jody Wheeler was also there. Who’s Jody Wheeler? Well, it seems that Renee Graef got to putting out so many books in the style of Garth Williams that she had to get two other people to do books in the style of Renee Graef. Jody Wheeler was originally from roughly the area near Malone and was chosen to do the Farmer boy picture books.

 

It was a smaller gift shop than I expected, but they seemed to have different editions on display very nicely. They have their cover of the Homesteader framed behind the counter, but I didn’t see any for sale. They have a museum space directly connected with the gift shop. Highlights included photos of the history of the site, letters from Laura, a model of the farm, archeological finds from the survey, old tools, a display on maple syrup and the painting of the farm by a relative that Garth Williams used as the basis of the dust jacket of the book. I had always accepted this was just a painting, but WOW. It must have been a mural in a house. It appeared to be on two different pieces of some kind of wall board or plaster that was fraying at the edges and was from ceiling to floor. Next up was the tour. Tune in for Part 2.

Sarah Uthoff