Christmas Greetings From The Past

A visit to Christmas past through the beauty of vintage Christmas Postcards.

All from the early 1900's.  Very different from what we have now.  All beautiful and unique.
                                                                   

Tolu's Touchstone

This past history happened in July 1983.

According to legend around Tolu, if you touch or step on a certain rock - no one seems to know for sure just where or which stone it is - that you will always come back to the small Ohio River town.

But in July 1983 some regularly attending members of the yearly Tolu School Reunion got together and had Henry and Henry Monuments create a real Tolu Touchstone.  

At this time there was a large number of the past school students and teachers who would attend these yearly gatherings at Tolu.  

The simple inscription engraved in the face of the rock, "Welcome Home," meant a lot to some of the Tolu graduates that would come from many places to visit their former friends and classmates from Tolu School.

The stone sits on a masonry foundation built by Darrell Sherer in front of the steps to the former Tolu Methodist Church site across from the old Tolu Bank building on the corner of First Street and Orchard Avenue.

The crowd this day in July 1983 gathered around the stone, some placed pennies on the stone for good luck and in hopes they would be able to return the next years for the reunion. 

When one bystander was asked if he had anything to say, he quietly answered, "Just being here is enough."  

The group slowly  made its way back up toward the school building and everyone stopped and placed their hands on the Touchstone.

Now the legend of Tolu will last as long as the stone itself.

These were wonderful times, all of these early reunion attendees are gone now, and the wonderful rural school closed its doors in 1998 to the so-called sound of progress and the students were then bused to the Elementary and Middle school at Marion. 

The Tolu community still has the annual school reunion in the summertime, I wonder now if any of these later graduates of the school know the history of the "Tolu Touchstone."

Owen School

1st row: Rodney Brown, Rawles Hodge, Eugene Guess, Bruce Hodge, Doyle Polk, Shelly Asbridge, Chastine Maxfield.

2nd row: Mildred Riley, Dorothy Brown, Mary Brown, Teacher- Mr. E. Jeffrey Travis, Billie Polk, Evalee Myers

3rd row: Mildred Hodge, Elma Brown, Georgia Polk, Nina Brown, Anna Simpkins, Margaret Polk, Fannie Simpkins, Kelly Asbridge.

4th row: Donald Kirk, Vernon Maxfield, Leroy Brasher, J. E. Asbridge, Harold Hodge, Raymond Riley.

Owen school was located on S. R. 855 N. from the community of Frances.  It was located on the same place that the Owen Cemetery is now located.

The school's time period in history was the 1800's until 1953 when many of the little one room county schools were closed and consolidated with one larger school, when it closed what few students were left were bused to the Frances Elementary  School. 

Here is parts of an essay written in 1937 by one of the students.  It was shared by Doyle Polk and was written by one of his older sisters that attended school there.

The school house is surrounded by a natural forest on all but one side.  During the hot summer days at the beginning of the school term we have shade on all sides and it is usually pleasant in the school ho use until in the late afternoon.  The noon day sun shines in the front door, and we have a mark on the floor to tell us when it is time to eat.

We are not blessed with drinking water like some schools, but have to carry our water from a spring far down in the field.  But it is fun to go after a bucket of water.

In the winter when it is cold we can run and skate on our slide as we have a pond right in the corner of our school yard.  Sometime we fall while skating, but this in only fun after it quits hurting.

There has been a school here longer than the oldest people can remember.  First it was a log house with puncheon floor, and split log seats, then a boxed house.  Then when Mr. Asel Hodge and Alvery Elder were boys, just big enough to use a hammer and saw, they built a new house, framed, with two windows to a side.  One door in the front and one window in the rear where we watched the squirrels play.  

While our school house is old and small, the water far removed, the desks worn and too few, it is still the dearest place on earth to me.  I may live long and travel far from here, my duties in the future require that I live in other communities, yet the loving friendships formed, the pleasant associations formed, the many truths taught by my teachers, all go to make "Old Owen School" a place I will always remember.

A Crittenden County Tree in Frankfort?

Crittenden Record Press, Sept. 12, 1912.
Every county is to have a different kind of tree set on Capital Square, Nov. 13, Planting Day.

H. S. Hillenmyer and Prof. Harris Garman of Lexington have reported the selection and allotment of trees to be planted on the State Capital grounds by the different counties of Kentucky.  If each county should agree, Kentucky will have a complete arboretum as a beautiful background for the new Capital.

Crittenden's tree is a Sycamore, Caldwell a Sugar Maple, Livingston a White Ash, Lyon's a Cottonwood, Webster a Shell Bark Hickory and Union County a Persimmon.

Nov. 21, 1912 - Crittenden County was well represented at the State arboretum and tree planting at the Capitol Grounds last week, by three trees of the variety chosen, Sycamore.  

Judge Blue, who was present to see the job well done, and reports that all three were planted.

As previously noted in these columns, the trees were donated by John W. Wilson, and were selected and the shipping supervised by J. F. Dodge, who is not a novice in the culture of trees and flowers.

William H. Wallace lent his friendly aid also in helping to dig the trees.

These gentlemen did what they did gratuitously and the trees should be named John, Will and Frank in their honor to ensure them living and doing well.