The Three R’s Chapter Seventeen schools for their children. The first school in a new settlement was often held in the home of a homesteader until a schoolhouse could be built. Many Holt County schoolhouses were built of sod, a few were dugouts, and most were built by families who donated their labor and any cash they could spare to provide the bare necessities. In what is now western Holt County the Davis, Cross, Alsworth and Night-engale children had their first sampling of education in the small home of John O. D. Nightengale, with John himself as the teacher. After that first short term of school the families organized a district and constructed a schoolhouse on Martin Doyle’s land. The building was unique and the cost Felix Sojka, aged forty-three, met his tragic end in Chicago in December, 1931. A farmer from near Page, he had lived in Chicago until five years before, when he moved to Holt. He had gone to the city to see a doctor and visit relatives and had put up at a hotel in the northwest section of town. His badly beaten and nearly naked body was found in a nearby alley.
Police learned that he had been visiting two men, John Lasarez and Joseph Donset, in their room near his hotel. He had known Donset when he lived in Chicago and in the house police found fresh blood spattered about in the attic. In the basement they found a blood stained chunk of wood and Sojka’s bloody shirt. In his money belt, also found in the attic, was a cancelled check, drawn by Sojka on a Page bank, and $117 in bills.
The two men claimed Felix had come to their room in the evening, bleeding and bruised, and told them two men had beaten him. They said they offered to call a doctor but Sojka insisted he was able to get back to his hotel by himself. When neither man could explain the blood stains in their house, or the presence of the check and money, the officers arrested them for the murder.
Felix Sojka left a widow and three sons, also two brothers, Walter and Louis of Page. Both Felix and his wife are buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Ewing. Of his sons, Bruno now lives in Waterloo, Nebraska, Franklin in Indiana and Ted in Chicago. The brutal murder stirred his quiet home community to its very roots.
almost nil. The finished structure measured nine by ten feet, inside. The builders first dug an excavation two feet deep, then laid up sod walls two feet back from the edge of the excavation, leaving an earth bench all the way around for the pupils to sit on. Planks placed in front of them provided desks. William Spicer made the blackboard. Water was carried from the nearby Armstrong home. Officially the school was District 19, but its popular name was the “Dogtown School,” bestowed because the little dougout-soddy was surrounded by the homes of prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. John O’ D. Nightengale, who taught the school for several terms, penned some appropriate verses that began: 125 Margaret Murphy and her “tin Lizzie” ii which she traveled as she taught in Holt County rural schools.
“The Dogtown School, built of prairie sod, could not have been nicer. The blackboard made of common boards was built by William Spicer.” As the settlers prospered they built frame schoolhouses; which had one distinct advantage over the sod schools— they could be moved. This was often necessary for school populations shifted and it was desirable to keep the seat of learning as nearly as possible in the center of the cluster of families it served. Some schools were moved often, others were fairly stable. The Celia school, built in 1884, was moved to a new location in 1895, where it remained for the next sixty- nine years while the footsteps of four generations passed over its threshold. James Morgan, later a Holt County judge, was teaching thirty-five pupils in the school when the 1888 blizzard roared down upon them. He sensibly kept the children there throughout the night. The old schoolhouse now rests on a foundation in Atkinson, where it is a part of the home of the Harry Van Fleet family.
Mrs. A. F. Parkhurst describes a much more elaborate and sophisticated pioneer schoolhouse. The building was thirty feet long, with an entry at one end and a coal shed on the other end. This school had double desks for the pupils, a desk and chair for the teacher, an organ and stool, a glass fronted bookcase and a long “recitation bench” at the front of the room. At the rear was another bench for the water pail and wash basin. The “blackboard” was green and there was a globe and several maps and charts. The school was first heated by a potbellied stove, later by a modern “coal burner,” complete with coal scuttle and shovel. There were long rows of coat hooks at the rear; the boys used those on one side of the door, the girls those on the other side.
The acre-sized school yard was fenced with barbed wire. Back of the schoolhouse stood the “his” and “her” conveniences. In one corner of the yard a hay barn was provided for the horses that carried pupils to school. In another corner the younger children had a playhouse, also made of hay, which had to be rebuilt each year. There was a well, topped by a pump that often didn’t work. An ash pile near the door grew with the passing years.
For “opening exercises” someone played the organ and everybody sang, or else the teacher read from a book, adventure stories, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and others. At noons and recesses the students played Pump Pump Pullaway, Anteover, Dare Base, Fox and Geese (when there was snow on the ground), Baseball, Old Witch and Drop the Handkerchief. In season the boys played marbles, indoors or out. After recess on Friday afternoons the pupils lined up for spelldowns, cipherdowns or a geography name hunt. This school even had storm windows for winter but, as in all the others, the teacher did the janitor work.
Box suppers, annual affairs at all pioneer schools, were extremely popular. Many boxes were works of art, beautifully decorated and adorned, and much ingenuity came into play. One lady, having nothing else on hand for decorating her box, covered it with popped corn and achieved a most unusual effect. The proceeds from the auctioned boxes were used to buy luxuries for the school. Among the first purchases for a newly built schoolhouse were sure to be pictures of Washington and Lincoln to hang in the front of the room. Even the dugout Dogtown School had framed pictures of the two great presidents.
Each school had at least one major holiday program. The children learned songs, recitations or “pieces,” and took part in plays or “dialogs.” This 126 required much memorization and was considered a good educational exercise for the pupils. The last day of school provided an occasion for the community to gather for a program, games and a picnic dinner.
During the early settlement years short spring and fall terms of only two or three months were carried on. This was due partly to the fact that, even at only $15 to $25 a month for teacher’s wages, the district could not afford longer terms; and partly because the bigger boys in school were needed at home during the rest of the year to help plant and harvest the crops. As times got better, seven, eight, and finally nine month school terms became the custom.
In Atkinson the first term of school was taught in the summer of 1878 by Miss Ellen Hovey in the home of Frank Bitney. The first schoolhouse stood where the Kramer Machine Shop now stands. A Mrs. Schaeffer and Alica O’Connell, daughter of John O’Connell, were the first teachers. This was actually a home, which was sold just before the town was surveyed in 1880. A frame schoolhouse was then erected a few blocks south of the town square. Six years later (1896) the first brick schoolhouse was built nearby and school was held in both buildings for some years afterward. Cheever Hazelett was superintendent at the first frame school. A Mr. Whitney, whose home was six miles south of town, later held that Violet Holmes, early Atkinson school teacher.
office. Every morning in the spring, or during rainy spells, he donned his rubber boots and walked into town, crossing numerous creeks and sloughs on the way. The sturdy old frame schoolhouse was later sold and moved to the south part of town, where it became a creamery. Still later Bill Bruder bought it and because of its immense size, used it as the plant building in which he manufactured cement blocks.
The Atkinson district very early instituted a three-year highschool course. Mattie Copp entered this high-school in 1889 and graduated in 1892. Until she began highschool Mattie’s only instructor had been her mother, who taught her from borrowed text books. In the spring of ’89 she passed the state eighth grade examinations with very good marks and, following her graduation from the highschool, taught rural schools for six years. Another Atkinson graduate, Vera Humphreys, looks back with nostalgia on her days spent in the old red brick schoolhouse. Previous to moving to Atkinson in 1903, Vera had attended a much larger and more modern school in Sioux City, Iowa, and the transition made a strong impression on her. Outstanding in her memories is “the pump just outside the main door, where we labored to get our drinking water.” “The desks were small and wiggley, she wrote, “with inkwells set into the upper right hand corners. These were a menace as they had a tendency to overflow and spatter on our books and papers, making it hard to be neat with our work. The first floor housed the grades from first to seventh, the eighth grade and highschool were upstairs. Each room had a small table in the corner on which sat a pail of water with a long-handled dipper. Beside it was a wash pan and a soap dish. One of the highlights of the day was the privilege of being the one to pass the water pail down the aisle. Each child drank from the dipper. “Fire drills were frequent and when the bell rang we dropped everything and ran. There was a pair of long, beautiful banisters which the upper classmen slid down for a faster exit and for fun if we could manage a slide when there was no teacher in sight. We did not have a lawn with shade trees for a play ground. We had a sand lot— and after recesses we had to empty the sand out of our shoes and spend considerable time picking sandburrs and cockleburrs out of our stockings. In back of the schoolhouse was a pair of white buildings, one marked ‘Boys,’ the other ‘Girls.’ At times those little houses served as retreats where we could sit and meditate in solitude. “School began in the morning with a prayer, a song and a grand salute to the flag. Somehow this gave us a good start for the day. Friday was always a day of joy, for after last recess we could do whatever we wanted— paint with water colors, spell down, cipher down, or select favorite stories from our readers and read aloud in front of the class. It was here that we learned ‘The Children’s Hour,’ ‘Hiawatha,’ ‘Thanatopsis,’ and many more. Most of all we learned the meaning of the words ‘discipline, respect and love,’ for we did love and respect our teachers, our dear janitor and, most of all, our superintendent, Charles A. Morman.
“Many fine people acquired their basic knowledge in that old red brick schoolhouse, people whose names have made headlines in Nebraska and other states. It was a sad day for those of us who watched when it was torn down.” School District 5, known as the “Wolf” school was organized January 26, 1884, and functioned for eighty years— until it was absorbed by O’Neill District 7 in 1964. Early school board members were Elijah Thompson, Edmond Wolf, Samuel Wolf, Jacob Norris, Henry Hoxsie, Michael Toohill and William Wisegarver. The school census ranged from a low of seven pupils to a high of forty. In its early years the terms were two months in the fall and two or three months in the spring. The teachers were often changed for each term, and it was not until the 1900’s that the terms were lengthened to nine months. Teachers’ salaries ranged from $40 in 1908 to $400 in 1962. The Freouf children all went to school in District 213, better known as the Tasler or Bouska school. The older children remember Lettie Wheeler as one of their teachers, also Anton Francis and Earl Shrunk on their way to high school in Atkinson about 1920. Their sister Mabel went along to drive the team back to the farm, ten miles northeast of Atkinson. The boys stayed in town Monday through Friday. Prussa, who taught many terms in the district, as well as in various other schools.
Johannah Hayes Meals taught in Stuart’s first school, a soddy. The term was three months and she was paid $15″ per month.
District 86 was located about fifteen miles northwest of Stuart. The schoolhouse stood on an acre of land deeded to the district by Agustus Allyn on January 30, 1889. The teacher, W. W. Wright, was also a farmer and school was held only three or four months out of each year. At this rate boys and girls grew up, married and/or took up other occupations before finishing the eighth grade, the highest offered in pioneer rural schools. After eighty active years there were only two children of school age left in District 86 and in 1969 it consolidated with District 249, just south of it.
All seven of the Zink children graduated from the eighth grade at the Sand Creek school in District 232. Children had to be rugged to stand daily trips of two to four miles, each way, in the dead of winter. Besides, as one of the Zinks said, “It took sturdy horses that could run all the way, and sturdier spring wagons that could stand the pace, but we seldom missed a day at school.” The Frickel children, too, liked school so much that they willingly walked the three miles to their school when they had to, rode three on a horse when one could be spared from farm work, or rode in an open buggy. When little Esther was four years old she made up her mind to go to school, too. One day she went out to play as usual after the noon meal, waited until no one was paying any attention to her, then took out across the neighbors’ pastures toward the schoolhouse, running most of the 127 Undated picture taken beside the old Inman schoolhouse. The teacher was Mildred Riley. Pupils (back row) Harvey Tompkins, Rex Butler (twin), Marva Conard, Louise Davies, Robert Jackson, Stella Hopkins, Ruth Keyes, Ruth Killenger, Esther Fraka, Jessie Coventry, Dale Miller and Marvel Hartigan. Front row: Vera Butler (twin), Warner Possnecker, Virginia Craig, Ruth Fraka, Curt Smith and Herman Reimers. Rest unidentified. Pupils and teacher in the District 27 school in 1886. The teacher was Lucinda Goodsell, the pupils, left to right: Ida Wormser, Claud Goodsell, Willie Dart, Bertha Blitzkie, Orlando Blitzkie, Delia Goodsell, Ella Stine, Emma Stine, Nora Rouse, Della Bradford, Viola Goodfellow. One boy not identified. 128 Dorsey school 1900. Left to right, front row: William Derickson, Roy Elder, Esta Yocum, Barbara Reynolds, Ethel Lee, Lizzie Goden, Lucie Marston, Rene Alder, Jennet Derickson, Lottie Yocum, Mary Goden, Sadie Derickson, George Derick-son. Second row: Grant Alder, Henry Alder, Herold Marston, Lawrence Marston, Grace Hudson, Dora Mertz, Alice Lee, Ida Alder, Ada Yocum, Sadie Willows, Edward Alder, Arthur Reynolds, Charlie Reynolds, Carl Conely, Frank Reynolds. The teachers are Effie and Maggie Willows. Nellie Davidson is also in the back and Johny Davidson and Otto Mertz are in the window. One young lady’s name is undecipherable.
three miles. She arrived at last recess and was taken in charge by her brothers and sisters until school was out and they could take her home. “We spoke German at home,” Esther wrote, “and English had to be learned at school. This caused some problems and my sister Dorothy once recited a Christmas poem half in English and half in German.” The Dogtown school that began in the tiny dugout-soddy was later replaced by a frame building with a row of windows on each side. “It was very modern for that time,” Hy Nightengale said years later. He, too, mentioned the inevitable pair of “conveniences” in the rear. One was for “Pointers” and one for “Setters,” he recalled, proving again that there is nothing new under the sun.
In those days, even as now, there were families who did not take education too seriously. Attendance was not compulsory then, but farm work was; and the balance of schooldays as compared to work days was sometimes weighted in favor of the latter. Occasionally, too, big brothers enjoyed “joshing” little brothers as their first day of school approached.
Hy Nightengale has never forgotten his brothers telling him the sad facts of life concerning school. When the bell rang for school on that fateful first morning, they said, he would forever lose his freedom. Moreover, the least mistake would bring down upon his head the awful wrath of the teacher who kept “a very good rod by the blackboard or on her desk— and used it upon the least provocation.” One can imagine the fearful little boy’s great relief when the young woman placed “a kindly arm around me while showing me the little task I was to work out.” Many years have passed since that first day in school and Hy still calls down blessings on Anna Slaymaker, his first teacher. The Southside Schoolhouse in District 18 was moved about the turn of the century to a less snake infested site. In 1902 there were very few children in the district, but later twenty children went to school there, making it necessary for the teacher to seat three pupils at desks meant for two and to put one at her own desk. The schoolhouse had been an old store building. Its outside was steel, marked like bricks and painted red. The inside was walled with wide u,.
Outdoor basketball game in Inman, 1911. Governor Chester Aldrich is watching game from right side of back seat of car. Superintendent is standing beside the car. Courtesy Karl Keyes, Inman. boards which had shrunk, leaving big cracks.
When Minnie Richardson taught in that unattractive hall of learning she instituted a beautification project by tearing old clothes into strips to paste over the cracks. When her pupils finished their lessons she let them help with the pasting. The cracks covered, she papered the walls, painted the woodwork, put up shelves for the lunch pails and hooks for the coats and caps.
Lizzie Harte graduated in 1894 with the first graduating class at Inman. Later she taught in the primary room there, driving her horse and buggy from northeast of town to the livery stable, then walking on to the schoolhouse. In 1907 the school house was remodeled into a four-room building. In 1918, when two rural school districts consolidated with the Inman district the country schoolhouses were moved into the town school yard and additional teachers employed. On January 1, 1935, the schoolhouse burned down and was replaced with the present structure. Arthur Renner, school custodian for twenty-one years in Inman, was much beloved by all the students.
In 1911 Professor Brinkmeyer put together Inman’s first basketball team and played teams from Page, O’Neill, Ewing and Clearwater. All the games were played out of doors and Inman won the Holt County Championship. Nebraska is said to have more school districts than any other state in the union. Even after extensive consolidation this is still true of the big state. In 1907 Holt County had nearly 250 districts, and some districts supported two separate schools. Soon after this date, with improved roads 129 and means of transportation, consolidation began. When District 18 no longer had enough children to need a school it consolidated with Prairie Rose (District 10) to the east. The Badger school, still farther east, combined with 18 and 10 in 1956, where school is still held in the District 10 schoolhouse. District 86 held on until 1969, when its last teacher was Sarah Allyn. That year, with only two children left in the district, it merged with District 249, just south of it.
And so it went, all across the county. Most rural schools have now consolidated with the various town schools and the students ride the familiar orange buses to modern school buildings. Gone are the school yard hitching posts, hay barns, outdoor pumps and privies and clusters of waiting buggies, wagons and saddle ponies.
Somewhere around 1906 Florence Zink was elected Superintendent of Holt County schools, the first woman to hold that office. She was one of the seven Zink children who walked or rode the two miles to the Sand Creek school and seldom missed a day. After teaching for four years in the district schools of her home area, she went to Stanberry, Missouri, for a two year course in the Normal School there, where she taught the children of pupils who had gone to school to her mother before the Zinks came to Nebraska. After graduating, with very high grades, from the college in 1897 she taught for five years at Stuart, then took a review course at the Peru Normal in southeast Nebraska. She then spent two years as principal of the Bassett schools before being elected to the superintendent’s office in Holt County.
The duties of her office were rigorous in those days, as the superintendent was expected to visit every rural school in the county each year, to ascertain the needs of the schools, advise the teachers, referee teacher-parent or pupil problems and endeavor to raise the standards of schools all over the county. Miss Zink did all that and more, during her four years in office. One of her outstanding accomplishments was the compilation of a complete directory of county schools, the first ever brought out in Holt. For this she was commended by the State Department of Education. She also served as a member of the legislative committee of the State Teachers’ Association and was instrumental in getting a number of laws beneficial to the schools enacted.
The project that made her famous, however, was an original piece of art work, completed in the late summer of 1906. While an instructor in the Rock County Teachers’ Institute, Miss Zink asked all the teachers attending to send her bunches of grass from their respective districts. She received 87 varieties, which she wove into a dress with which she clothed the figure of a woman. Her attractive exhibit was dispatched by Holt County to the State Fair that fall. In Lincoln the popular “Grass Widow” was viewed by thousands, resulting in a flood of letters for Miss Zink and much commendatory publicity.
Upon retiring from-office Miss Zink became Mrs. Florence Downey of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Recent Comments