Kansas One Room
School House Project
History of Ottawa County, Kansas (1864-1984)
The Kansas Heritage Server would like to thank Jeanne Bloom (jebloom@mcs.net) for contributing this materal.
page 21
...Our first school was located in the southwest part of the present city of Minneapolis. Our benches were made of cottonwood slabs with pegs driven in the underside for legs. We had another slab fastened to the wall beside us which we turned to when we wanted a desk. There were twelve pupils in this school. Since each pupil was supposed to contribute a certain amount for the teacher's salary, I was unable to attend very long. By I. L. Stull
Pages 29-30
We children began school in Kansas in a little one room log cabin,
built on the Levi Yockey farm near Delphos. This building was likewise
used for all community gatherings and for church services. It was a
very hard matter to obtain an education in those days in the valley.
Besides our school which was established in the winter of 1871 and 1872,
there was a school in Minneapolis. These two schools were the only
schools then in existence at that time in the valley. School books were
expensive and very scarce. Father did not have the means to properly
educate his family and after the drought, Indian troubles and the
grasshopper invasion, he was nearly destitute. I attended school until
I had successfully passed the third grade, and then following the
example of my older sisters, began working for various families in the
neighborhood in order to help father support the family at home. Our
first teacher in Kansas was Libby Needham, who taught all the children
in the vicinity of Yockey Fort. By Mrs. Olive A. Clark
Pages 115-118
These pages contain some terrific material on County Grade Schools (most
of these were one-room school houses). The two women who wrote this
article describe the school year (Christmas, Valentines, picnic time),
the school day (exercises, flag salute, singing, ciphering, spelling
bees), how children got to and from school, how boys were kept separated
from girls, as there was no running water how it was pumped and heated,
games the kids played, how permission was given to use the outhouse (or
for anything else).
Saturday, October 13, 2001 8:11 PM
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