This was my school house in 1955. It was located in Bloomfield NE. The photo was taken in 1968.
The school house had 8 grades within. 1st to 8th with one teacher for all. There were 4 seats across in each row. Row 1 is where the first graders sat and so on back. There were 3 kids in my class. I had 2 sisters within the rows behind me. Yes, there was an outhouse. Recess and lunch was in or around the school house. The teacher would call everyone one in by ringing a hand held bell. The school was built on our farm so I lived only 1/4 mile away. Every morning the teacher would send two kids, with buckets in hand, to my house to fetch drinking water.
There was a porch on the front of the school house which as you can see, was already torn down. It was used as a mudroom and coat area for the kids.
We sold our farm in 1956. The school stayed as a school only for a couple more years and the new farm owner tore the porch off of it and turned into building to house his pigs.
My wife and I visited the school house when it was still standing and that was in 2005 and that is when the photo was taken. It has since fallen down. When we were there I cut the door knob off the saved it. That is about all that was left that was worth taking.
by Big_Tonight5838
1 Comment
Very cool!
I’m also a one-room-school alumna, but from a different generation. I went to Cottonwood School in rural Dawes County in the 1980s! I was one of the last kids to go all the way from kindergarten through eighth grade there. Parents began sending their kids in to town at seventh grade for junior high so they could do band and sports.