Saying her piece

LuAnn Bartos Schrader gave her report of the Oak Grove School history as fellow organizer, Anne Hiebel Tatum listened. On the table rests the original school bell,  used for decades to summon children from the playground. It rang again to begin the reunion program.

Board of Education -- This solid 14 inch wide,

inch thick plank was saved from the school's roof 

when the building was razed. No knots, probably produced at

a nearby sawmill during the 19th century. Don Hiebel

brought it and gave it to Stan, along with some square nails.

LuAnn Bartos Schrader, one of the organizers of the recent District 24 Country School Reunion in Forada, compiled a history of the little school that educated Lake Mary Township children for 100 years. . . including six Rolfsruds.
Here's a link to a copy of her report. Click here to read it.. Interesting.
Others brought photographs, report cards, art work, records. . . and even a board cut from the roof of the old building, along with the square iron nails used to hold it in place.
The reunion program started with a Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. That's how the school day always started, then we'd sing some favorites from either the green or the yellow songbook.
Everyone said the pledge correctly at the reunion. But when we students first learned the pledge before 1954, there was no "under God" in it. Then the government mandated that insertion, causing many students to stumble while reciting the new pledge, until their minds had been regrooved.
"Na-na-na, you forgot to say 'Under God,'" a classmate would tease.
Ahh, School Days.

Student Body, 1940s

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Don't get it? 
Consult an elder, don't bother teacher
How did one teacher with six grades have time to teach first graders how to say the Pledge of Allegiance? She didn't. We simply listened to the older students as they said it and it wasn't long before we knew it too. That's how we learned just about everything. By the time you got to Grade Six, you had overheard the sixth grade math, vocabulary, history, phonics lessons for six years and it was now old school and familiar. No surprises. Thus we learned mostly from the example of our "elders," not from our own grade-level peers, textbooks or the busy, preoccupied teacher. We knew which big kid was smart and successful and which big kid was slow. And we wanted to be more like the smart kid. That kind of modeling and motivation isn't available any more. Pity.

Among the hundreds of photos was this undated shot of the south side of the schoolhouse.
The building is gone, the victim of a gas explosion that occurred
 after it had been closed and reused as a cottage.