My niece, Diane Christman Smith, of Bastian Road, Kutztown, asked me if I’d be interested in writing an article about the one-room school reunions she organizes.
Since I myself attended the one-room schools, Stone Quarry (near Maxatawny) School and Eagle Point School, and also lived in Millcreek School (Millcreek Road, near New Smithville) a few years, she definitely piqued my interest.
Diane told me, “I wanted to get our seventh grade class together for a reunion, because 1962 was the last year we attended the one-room schools.”
Plans for a reunion were realized in 1978 at the Virginville Fire Company. Diane challenged herself again. In 2011, a reunion was held at C. J. Hummel’s Restaurant, Lenhartsville, and in 2014, another at the Kutztown Fire Company. Another reunion is in the works for September 2016.
In attendance at the first event were 34 class members and spouses. In addition, there were six teachers: Mrs. Rachel Kline, Mrs. Anna Dietrich, Mrs. Alta Ketner (music teacher), Mrs. Alma Hartman, Mrs. Annie Werley, Mr. Ira Schroeder and one school bus driver, Mr. Norman Hartman. Rev. Dennis Schappell, an attendee, and pastor at Emmanuel UCC, Bowmanstown, said the prayer prior to the meals. Since this first gathering, attendance blossomed into approximately 150, plus spouses.
The schools represented at the reunions are located in Windsor Township, Berks County. They are Hepner’s School (Hepner Road), Windsor Castle School (Windsor Castle, intersection of Balthaser and Sunday Roads), Balthaser School (at the corner of Balthaser and Christman Roads) and Schraer’s School (Old 22, Edenburg). Also included is Zion UCC Windsor Castle Church, which held classes in the basement and under the band shell at Edenburg Park, where eighth grade classes were held.
The Hamburg Area Joint School system formed in 1956. The one-room schools closed in 1962. The Hamburg Junior-Senior High School was opened in 1962-63.
Diane coordinated this event with a number of classmates, and a variety of jobs, from phone calls, a booklet with class names and addresses, plus photos of each school, entertainment and door prizes. For the 1978 reunion, a few classmates raised money through hoagie and bake sales. The 2014 reunion held a Chinese auction. Monetary donations came from classmates who also helped in fund raising. Eventually, the cost was divided between the number in attendance.
One of Diane’s requirements is to capture the precious sights, smells and sounds of these schoolhouse memories through paper (lunch) bags, filled with some of the old candies and small games they grew up with. There is also a plethora of story tellers. A prize is given for the best story. Diane recalled, “Coming home on the school bus one snowy, wintry day, our bus driver couldn’t make it up the hill with a sharp curve. He asked some of the boys to put chains on the back wheels. They placed chains on, and we made it up the hill.”
Beforehand, she had asked the classmates to name a favorite game that they played inside when it rained, during recess. The favorite was Hangman, which was played at the 2014 reunion. Here are the instructions for Hangman: The player has to guess the letters in a phrase, which are denoted by blank spaces equaling the number of letters. If there is an incorrect letter guess, you add a limb (head, legs, arms, body and so on) to the hangman figure. If all the limbs appear on the hangman before the phrase is guessed, the player loses. If the letters are all filled in on the phrase, before the figure of the hangman is finished, it is a win.
The little red schoolhouse long ago disappeared from the public education scene in rural Pennsylvania, but in many parts of the state, some have been converted to chic country homes; others stand abandoned and rundown. Still, others have disappeared entirely.
Thanks to individuals and organizations with a passion for preserving the unique relics from our past, some of the schoolhouses have been restored, and some have even been opened to the public as living museums, such as the Freyberger School, which was moved to the grounds of the Kutztown Pennsylvania German Society.
Two attendees of the reunions have connections to their childhood schools. Terry and Sandra Correll lived in the Windsor Castle School some eight years prior to moving to Hamburg.
Likewise, Helena Correll (Mehrkam) Stover, of Robesonia, told me, “My first husband’s grandfather, Paul Kohler, bought Hepner’s School, where he once stored grain. It’s still in the family and owned by Douglas Mehrkam, who converted it into a home.”
These schools weren’t all red in color. In the earliest Colonial days, the first schoolhouses were four-square log buildings, with spaces between logs filled with dirt, clay or stone. After the Revolutionary War, new types of schools were built, reflecting the cultural preferences of the nationalities that dominated Pennsylvania at that time. The English-speaking people built octagonal buildings with three-foot thick walls, which were plastered inside and white-washed. But, the Germans constructed four-square brick structures similar to those in their native land, and so it was that our “little red schoolhouse” was born.
In finishing this article, I was reminded of what Dan Valentine wrote in his “American Essays”: “A school is never empty. All the great minds of the past live in its classrooms.”
Thanks to Diane, the memories continue to stay alive in the one-room school reunions.
Carole Christman Koch grew up in Berks County and has been published in numerous publications. She has a passion for writing and has many stories from growing up on a farm to everyday stories.
