For the Love of Knowledge

Chapter IV

       The rural school has held a unique place in our national life.  It has taken its place beside the church.  Our forefathers reasoned that an enlightened citizenry would know how to build and preserve their freedom and they built schools of all kinds on this premise.  Lucas County had some 83 to 90 rural schools through the years, each of which contributed to our history and our heritage.  This column is pleased to record the sagas of some of these schools.

  In the march of progress came reorganization and the beginning of the end of the rural school area.  Most of the school buildings which had known the antics, capers and happy voices of children at play, suffered the harsh ring of the auctioneer’s hammer, the pain of being torn from their moorings and reduced to the ignominy of becoming animal shelters.

        Happily, though several of them evoked an echo from the hearts of certain citizens who wished not only to preserve them, but to continue with their worthy past.  It is a delight to record that Stanley was one of these.  It is now the club house for our 20^th century equestrians, the Chariton Saddle Club.  Not only do they hold their regular meetings there, but in the summer, family reunions, picnics and other gatherings enjoy the rustic facilities.  Other organizations may use it for a small fee.

    In the early days, Stanley was a part of Grove district, south.  The school house was in the Grove part which made about five miles for some children to walk.  When a new school had to be built, both north and south wanted it.  A vote settled the matter by dividing the district and Stanley was built in 1872 three miles north of Chariton on land owned by Robert Stanley.  In the next 15 years 13 children by the name of Stanley from two families were registered at the same time as the largest group in the records with the same family name.

   School started in the fall of 1872 with Lou Culbertson as teacher at a salary of $30 per month for 24 weeks.  A registry was made of all parents and guardians of children between the ages of five and 21.  James McDiffit was the first chairman of the board and John Bigham, grandfather of J. C. Williamson, was the first sub-director.  To Mr. Bigham go the thanks for setting out the maple trees in the school yard, some 17 of which are still living.

       In 1877, Stanley was moving right along.  They voted to introduce American school books, to allow Sunday School to be held regularly and to have eight-months school.  Two years later they voted for nine months and to buy bracket lamps.  The teacher’s contract specified that he must refrain from any series of profanity or improper conduct in the presence of the pupils and that he must build the fires.

       In those early days there were often three terms in the year, sometimes with a different teacher for each term and always a month or more vacation in the fall to allow the big boys to help with the corn husking.  The lower salary was $18 per month and the highest $30.  Winter teachers were paid more because attendance in winter was larger and discipline a greater problem.

      Much of the social life of the community centered around the school.  The chief amusement of the young people in winter was spelling bees, one school challenging another.  There were singing schools, taught by a paid teacher.  A Literary Society was formed.  There were always Christmas programs with the traditional Christmas trees trimmed with strings of pop corn and balls, polished red apples and bright chains of tin made from scraps of metal gleaned from tin shops in Chariton.  Every child received a bag of candy.  Gifts were hung on the tree – never placed under it.

     Sunday School was often held Sunday afternoons, especially after many new families came during the years when the mine was working.  As stated before, the Lucas county mines brought a high class of people from Europe.  The Evans family was one of these.  They were a very talented singing group.  Father Evans was a Welsh coal miner.  He was also a natural song leader for all community gatherings, son Will played the organ, daughter Carrie was a fine soprano and young Davey was a good bass.  Carrie and her father won a contest singing a duet at the Easteddofd, a Welsh Society of singers.  Davey was later a member of the Chariton Male Chorus conducted by Lloyd Mikesell.

      In 1895-6 Enos Anderson was Stanley’s teacher with 39 pupils.  He later became an attorney in Chariton.  Roy Gittinger taught at Stanley in 1898-9 became Dean of the University of Oklahoma at Norman, Ok.  Charles Hamilton, brother of Mrs. J. C. Williamson was both a pupil and then a teacher.  He graduated from Central College at Pella, then Rochester Theological College in New York and held pastorates in Iowa and Nebraska.  In 1899 the late Elsie Courter (Newell) taught at Stanley.  Her brother, Hugh Courter and his wife live in Chariton in the home where all the family grew up.

       In 1886 the board adopted the Eclectric series of study books, McGuffey’s Readers and Physiology, Reed and Kellogg’s Grammer, Swinton’s Geography and Barnes’ History.  Your Historical Museum has some of these books and would like to complete the sets.  If you have any that you would like to give, you may check with any board member.  It will be greatly appreciated.

       In 1902 Nelly Matheny Goltry taught at Stanley.  She is now in McCollum Nursing Home in Chariton.  In 1904, the late B. W. Frazier and his son John who still lives in Chariton were engaged to build a porch on the east end of the building at a cost of $30.20.  Five years later, the Fraziers were again contracted, this time to build an extension on the west end at a cost of $342.60.  The board also contracted with Ensley Hardware for a furnace costing $119.50.

      The late Ralph Bowen was a Stanley student.  He became Mayor of Chariton, serving from 1958 to 1962.  His brother, Gerald, also a pupil at Stanley, was killed in WWI.  In 1904 J. C. Williamson was elected secretary, a position he held for 53 years.  In 1908 the board voted to buy 17 single desks, two double rear seats, and two recitation seats seven-foot long.

      In 1913 the teacher, Ida Boyles, reported 100 books in the library and 45 trees in the yard.  Some time later a contract was let to dig a well at $1.60 a foot and for coal to be delivered at the school for 13 cents a bushel.  By this time the Inland Coal Mine was operating and school attendance had grown to 69 pupils in 1914 when Mrs. Maude Campbell was a teacher.  The board contracted with A. A. Swanson to build a room on the south for $280.  A second teacher was then employed.  Irene Shields, and the two rooms accommodated 74 pupils.

     Dr. Ralph Williamson, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Williamson, finished school at Stanley, graduated at Chariton High, received a B. S. from Iowa State University at Ames in diary husbandry in 1934.  HE was awarded an STB from Boston University, an MS from Cornell University in New York, a PhD in Rural Sociology from Drew University in Madison, N. J.  He was minister in larger parishes in New York and taught Rural Sociology in South Dakota Wesleyan University and is now professor of Rural Sociology in International Theological Center in Atlanta, Ga.  During the past year, he has been on sabbatical leave teaching in Universities in Japan, Thailand and Kenya.

   His brother Raymond is a minister of the Independent Fundamental Church.  After graduating from Stanley and from Chariton High, he attended Iowa State two years, then graduated from Moody Bible institute and is now in charge of extension work of the Independent Fundamental Church of America.  He lives and works in Wisconsin.

      Carl Caviness was a Stanley student.  He was the first Lucas county boy to make the supreme sacrifice in WWI.  His body lies next to that of his mother in the Chariton cemetery, but his name is honored for all time by his compatriots in the title of their organization “The Carl L. Caviness Post of the American Legion.”

      This column is indebted to Mrs. J. C. Williamson, formerly of Chariton, now of Wychwood, N.J. for the excellent history of Stanley.  Mrs. Williamson wrote history in 1950 from a carefully kept set of records.  She donated the original history to your Historical Society and loaned to this writer a copy from which this column has been compiled.  Stanley’s doors closed in 1959, having served well for 87 years.  Mrs. Mabel Cavett was the last of a goodly list of teachers there.

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    Clinton No. 4 was another lucky school house.  Originally it stood a top the big hill south of Lucas.  Some years later, the district was divided.  Clinton was moved to the valley below where it was known as Happy Hollow.  There it stood until the surveyors for Highway 54 ordered it moved a short distance east.  Mrs. Will Ashby, a former Lucas county teacher, had long desired to own a rural school house.  When Clinton was put up for sale in 1959, her dream came true.  It was renamed Ashby Dells and is now the center of happy family reunions, Club and Circle meetings and weekend retreats.  The children love to romp and play while the adults relax – all in a whole valley full of peace and contentment.

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    The Graves School in English township was the alma mater of the Rev. Guy Howard.  He lived in the community awhile, then moved to the Shepherd of the Hills country ministering to the people of that whole area.  His book, “The Walking Preacher of the Ozarks” brought fame and fortune.  In his own words, the book is the saga of a country preacher who walked literally into the lives of countless Ozark backhills people and a revelation of their physical and spiritual existence.  His second book, “Give Me Thy Vineyard” published in 1949 won the $10,000 first prize in the International Fiction Contents.

    Graves school also produced Avery Graves who had a beautiful voice and was in theatre work for a time.  On tour with Helen Hays in “Victoria Reginia’ one of his appearances was in Des Moines.  He later, however, went into the insurance business in Los Angeles. 

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   Your Historical Society would like to have a memento from each rural school in the county.  If you have something from your schoolhouse that you would be pleased to see in the museum, it will be greatly appreciated.

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