Echoes from One-Room Schools

CHICKEN COOP, HOOPPOLE, LICKSKILLET, SAND COLLEGE, AND JOINTListen to the echoes of these and more than a hundred other one and two-room schools in Monroe County, Indiana. The members of the One-Room School Committee, a part of the Monroe County Retired Teachers Association, take pleasure in presenting this book. Echoes documents the early history of education in Monroe County, Indiana from the 1800s to the last school in 1967. Many people have shared their early memories, photographs, and mementos from Monroe County's early rural schools. In addition to what was originally gathered, we have added information from many former teachers and students. We have recorded and transcribed interviews, received written stories and documents, held many telephone conversations, and have made a serious effort to be accurate in our reporting. Echoes contains 285 photographs of school buildings, students, and maps showing the locations of these schools. While we have made every effort to be accurate, we realize that people's recollections may vary, names may be misspelled, and some dates may not be correct. These individual memoirs capture the atmosphere and the spirit of Monroe County's one-room and two-room schools. Let this book take you back to a simpler time--to the hills and hollows of southern Indiana. Walk with Monroe County's children through the fields and along unpaved roads to the little schoolhouses with warm pot-bellied stoves. Spend a little time with teachers organizing learning for all eight grades. Sit with students at the recitation bench and then go outside at lunchtime and learn how to play andy over or stinkbase, and listen to these echoes.We dedicate this book to all the early teachers in Monroe County: to those whose names appear in this book, and to many whose names have been lost. They taught under primitive conditions with meager facilities and few supplies; they had varying amounts of personal education, and little remuneration. Despite all this, these teachers devoted their talents, their energy, and their affection to the children in their little schools. They provided a solid foundation for the educational system in Monroe County, Indiana.