The Old Country School

This last weekend I traveled back to the north central part of Nebraska where I grew up. The family ranch is located approximately 30 miles south of Ainsworth on the Calamus River. I lived here in the late 60’s and early 70’s, during my junior high and high school years. Since that time I have been back for many visits. The home ranch is still owned by my mother and managed by my sister and brother-in-law.

I want to tell you about the old country schools of Nebraska, and specifically about the one I attended. First, a little history. In  1918 there were 6638 one room school houses in rural Nebraska. With the coming of improved roads and declining rural populations,  the country schools throughout the United States began to close. By 1959, there were 2812 of these country schools left in Nebraska. By the end of the 20th Century, one room schools across the U.S. had nearly vanished. There were only 840 left in the entire country in 1984 and Nebraska claimed 45% of these or 385 schools. And since that time those have closed as well. The country school is now a thing of the past.

The country school I attended was actually one of the more modernized schools of that time. We had indoor plumbing with two bathrooms – one for the girls and one for the boys. If I remember correctly, the sink sat between the two. We  had the large room where the desks sat, but we also had a smaller room where there were multiple chairs that sat around a table. We only had one teacher, but she often used this smaller room to teach a class to the younger children, while the older children were supposedly studying in the larger room. For the most part, I believe that is what happened, although I also remember a few spit wads flying by on occasion or a few notes being passed from student to student. After all, it wasn’t a school for angels. I started 6th grade at the Raven School and we had 12 students, ranging from first grade to eighth grade. By the time I graduated from the eighth grade, we had eight students in the school and the eighth grade class made up half of those, helped out by a set of twins. The schoolhouse was close enough to one family that those children walked to school every day. My family lived the farthest and Dad would take me the ten miles each morning, and each afternoon my brother would pick me up on his way home from the High School in town.

For those of us that attended these schools and now see them abandoned and physically decaying across the grasslands, it causes  a twinge of sadness. So many events were centered around the school in those days and a lot of fond memories have been collected. Perhaps the Christmas programs were the most noted events, filling the schoolhouse with standing room only. Every child had “a piece” to say – a short poem that they had hopefully memorized. Plays were performed that were also memorized, and songs were sung. The students were dressed in their finest clothes. Santa always showed up to pass out candy at the end of the program, and neighbors visited long after the teacher was ready to turn out the lights.

On my trip back this last weekend, I  learned that the fate of the Raven School is better than most. I was delighted to hear that someone was making this building into a home. I couldn’t help driving up the muddy lane to see for myself. Sure enough, it is happening. New windows, new doors, a second floor, and a new roof have been installed. What fun it will be to watch the progression of it. You might ask who would take on this major project? It’s not hard to figure out. Of course – a former student of Raven School with a few fond memories.