The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Dessa Rodeffer, Quill Publisher/Owner
Above, retired teachers (left to right) Virginia Brown, Hazel Hart, and Dolores Ewing have just made ready the old one-room Graham School for the third graders from Biggsville/Union Elementary to visit.
The class was divided into four groups. Each experienced a 40-minute period learning about school in the "olden days."
The atmosphere was nostalgic as they witnessed a pot bellied coal stove, gloves and mittens hanging on top of it to dry.
Teachers said children would bring their potatoes and set them inside the door of the stove to bake for their lunch. A mouse that looked real (but wasn't) was caught in a trap underneath the stove.
The class began
by repeating the pledge of allegiance and continued with various lessons.
Mrs. Hart asked if children noticed anything different about the flag hanging
in front of the class room. There were 48 stars. Mrs. Ewing asked if they
knew which state the 48th represents:she answered Arizona.
The children knew that Alaska and Hawaii were the last two which make up the forty-ninth and fiftieth stars on today's flag.
Mrs. Hart told the children that next year, the first state quarter for Illinois would be coming out but, as yet, they haven't decided what emblem they will use on it. Maybe Lincoln's log cabin home, she said. Mrs. Hart then sat down at the piano and told them about a song of a shoemaker and some geese. He didn't have a "last" to fit their feet so how could he make them shoes?
She played it through singing the words and then everyone tried to join in singing the song.
Mrs. Brown told children about words that rhyme. She had made up a rhyme about each of the teachers, then read sentences and asked children to speak out words that rhyme.
Mrs. Ewing held up a book in the shape of Illinois and asked if they knew
what state it
was.
Then she asked why one side of the state was wavy and the other two sides were straight. They knew it was because of the Mississippi River. She asked what states bordered Illinois. They answered Iowa - Wisconsin - Indiana.
She asked what was the nickname of Illinois which threw them off a bit after just talking about "the Hosier State" of Indiana. Soon the answer came- "Land of Lincoln." "What is the state bird?" "the state flower?" Most knew it was the Cardinal, one knew the flower was a violet.
Teachers described items that were unfamiliar, such as the ink wells and the pens they used. The woodworking area where older children could go to build things when finished with their work.
The one-room Graham school tours are conducted by the Henderson County Retired Teachers organization. The school was donated by the late Russell and Lillian White in memory of his sisters Helen Miller and Blanche Whiteman. It represents an era where eight grades were in one class room, where young children learned from the older ones, and older ones learned to be mentors and tutors.
In 1939, three or four had stopped, but around 73 schools were running in the county with around 67 country one-room schools, according to Jim Cook. The Graham school was erected soon after 1890 where the original school burned.
With changing times, farms increasing in size, it became hard to have enough pupils to keep the school. Schools consolidated and country schools were closed. April 2, 1951 the school was sold at auction to Joseph White, Sr.