Oak Grove School

Although we have no pictures of the school or students that attended school here, we have some old history of the school and how school days were in the days of yesteryear, written by Maebelle Clark Kemper back in 1986

Oak Grove School was located approximately two miles west of Marion near U. S. Highway 60. The building was a big green one room schoolhouse with a door on the right for the boys and the left door for girls. The school ground was shaded by a number of large oak trees – thus the name Oak Grove. The land for the school was probably donated by a Sullenger family.

 

There was a well near the coal house but most of the time the water was unfit to drink. It actually rusted the bucket it was put in and formed an oily substance on top of the water. Most of the time we carried water from the home of Crawford Clark, Coleman Lanham or Walter Fowler. Some children had a drinking cup, others made a cup from a sheet of tablet paper and others used the community dipper. The fact that germs were on it didn't enter enter their heads, in fact most of us would not have known what a germ was.

 

Bathroom facilities consisted of two outhouses. The only equipment furnished was a Sears and Roebuck catalog if we were lucky. The boys seem to delight in throwing rocks at the girls outhouse, even if we threatened to tell the teacher.

 

There were no slides, swings, games, etc. to keep us amused. We played our own version of baseball, if anyone had a ball, using a stick or a board for a bat. We ran relays, played hide-and-seek and built leaf houses in the fall when the trees shed their leaves. A creek bordered the school yard and after a rain it was interesting to see how many time we could hop from one rock to another without falling into the creek.

 

Teachers were expected to teach eight grades if there were pupils for each grade. The hours were from 8 am. Until 3:30 or 4 p.m. With an hour for lunch and yard duty. The teachers built the fires and swept t he schoolhouse floor unless a willing student would do it for 10 or 15 cents a day.

 

The teacher rang a bell at 8 a.m. To call students to class. They lined up, hopefully without pushing and shoving, marched up the steps through the hall, where coats, overshoes and lunch boxes were lrft, and into the classroom. A big potbellied stove was in the center of the room. Two lines of desks were arranged on each side, smaller desks at the front and larger ones in the back that were reserved for the older boys and girls. Nearly everyone had a seat-mate and boys sat on the right side and girls on the left. 

 

Books, tablets and pencils were bought by the parents. Sometimes they had to sell a few chickens to supply them. Crayons were a luxury and were kept carefully and loaned only to very best friends. Most of the time we didn't have a pencil sharpener and probably would have trimmed all our pencil away just for the fun of using the crank. One of the boys usually had a knife and was always glad to sharpen the little girl's pencil, especially if she was cute. 

 

Students went to the front of the room toe “recite” lessons. They sat on a long wooden “recitation” bench with the teacher sitting in the front. One didn't look forward to this if too much time had been spent visiting with our seat-mate.

 

Lunch time was welcome, partly because there was an hour to play and partly because we were hungry. Most of us had been up since 5 a.m. Lunches were brought in lunch boxes or lard buckets, depending of the state of finances at home. Food was an odd assortment, cold fried chicken, biscuits and sausage or fried eggs, sometimes peanut butter and crackers and occasionally the treat of an apple or piece of pie or cake. It was a real disaster if ants got in out lunch box. In the summer we ate outside under a tree and in winter we ate inside. Some of the children brought a cup of sorghum molasses for desert which created an interesting diversion if some got spilled on the desk or seat. Lard buckets kept closed from early morning until noon created their own special aroma when opened.

 

School Bus? We never heard of one. We walked – through dust, rain, snow and mud. If mud was too deep in the road we went through the field. We didn't play sick very often; at our house that meant a dose of castor oil, no matter what the complaint.

In the fall of 1939 the school building burned and the men of the community constructed the present building, which is smaller in size than the older one. After the school closed addition were made to it and it was made into a dwelling occupied by James and Erma Fowler (1986).

Some of the teachers at Oak Grove were A. E. Clark in 1891, Rose Clark, Annie Clark, Bob Allen, Robert Corley, Kenneth Powell, Pearl Wa ddell, Leota Sullenger, Katie Sullenger, Maude Conger Elder, Rebecca Moore Pickens, Clessie Agee Chick, Anna Smith Collins, Regina Postlethweight, Arrie Joyce, Grace LaRue and in 1941 Katherine Swansey.

Oak Grove closed in 1958. Students bused to Marion.