ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 11, 1995 TAG: 9512120005
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
LAST Monday, when Megan Hill got ready to go to school, she put on a long dress with a white apron. She tied the strings of a big sunbonnet under her chin. She wrapped her lunch in cloth napkins, and instead of the usual peanut butter and jelly and a bag of chips, she had deer meet on a biscuit, apple pie and an apple. And for one day, she quit being 10-year-old Megan Hill and became 12-year-old Lula Duncan.
In front of Dudley Elementary School in Franklin County is a replica of a one-room schoolhouse that was built in 1881 and used until the early part of this century. (A replica is something that is made to look just like the real thing.) There, Megan and the rest of the kids in Barbara Conner's fourth-grade class from Dudley Elementary took a field trip into the past.
They spent a day learning exactly what it was like to go to school a century ago by pretending to be the kids who went to the school back then.
In 1990, the building, which was first known as Hale's Ford Academy and then was called Duncan school, was in the way of a new shopping center. Although the building had been vacant for years, the people of Franklin County didn't want to tear it down. They moved it to Dudley School, where it could be used as a living history lesson. Unfortunately, three days after it arrived, someone burned the building down.
When that happened, said principal John Hollandsworth, the children were very upset. "They felt like it was something that had been brought here for them."
No one ever caught the person who did it, but the grown-ups in the community got together and spent three years rebuilding the school. Although it is brand new, it looks almost like it did 100 years ago.
Inside, there is a fireplace at one end and a stove at the other end. In the old days, if you sat too close to them, you were too hot. If you were too far away, you were too cold, and of course, no one had ever heard of air-conditioning. There was no water either. That had to be brought in a bucket from a well or a spring. Some schools had outhouses, but in many places, the kids had to find the nearest tree or bush if they wanted to go to the bathroom. There are three rows of wooden desks with seats attached to them, and for a chalkboard, two squares of wood on the wall have been painted black.
The people who rebuilt the school put in modern heating so the kids who use it now wouldn't suffer too much. There also is a smoke detector, a burglar alarm, electric lights, and a ramp so people in wheelchairs can get in, but there is still no running water and no bathroom. Visitors have to go to the main school for those things.
In the old days, going to school was very different than it is today. Lots of kids, especially girls, didn't go to school at all. They were needed to work on the family farm, and they milked cows and fed chickens and chopped wood and planted crops from dawn to dusk, with almost no time to play.
Being able to get an education was a great opportunity, so when they were in the classroom, children had to sit still without squirming or talking. They couldn't speak until spoken to, they had to say "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am" to their teachers, and because there weren't many books, most of what they learned had to be memorized, including the times tables and long, long, poems.
Linda Cressman, Dudley's librarian, told the children that everyone brought his or her lunch to school. Because there was no packaged or prepared food, lunch was often a cold potato or cold pancakes and fruit.
Anyone who didn't follow the rules had to stay after school or stand up in front of the whole class with a silly-looking paper hat on his head, called a "dunce cap." Some teachers even made the kids kneel for a long time on a pile of dry beans, or smacked them on the hand with a ruler or hit them with a switch.
The kids probably tried pretty hard to stay out of trouble, though. Most of the schools back then had just one room, and everybody from kindergarten to eighth grade was there. People had large families so if you went to school back then most of the people in class were your brothers and sisters and cousins, and of course, they could tell on you if you were bad. Even worse, sometimes, the teacher might have been your own mother or father or older sister.
Conner's class spent a week getting ready for their trip, and most of them thought it was fun, she said.
Brandon Haymaker played the character of David Blunt, a sixth-grader. Many of the boys wore overalls and flannel shirts, but some, like Brandon, tucked their pants legs into their socks to look like the knickers boys used to wear.
The children were asked to think about what kind of people their characters were. David, Brandon said, was probably "kind of snotty." His parents were rich and wanted him to be a businessman.
Brandon said he thought the hardest thing about going to school 100 years ago was "memorizing stuff." He and Megan had to remember three paragraphs they copied from their readers. One thing he liked was when the class read from the Bible at the beginning of the day. He also liked his seat near the window because he could look out.
Megan said she liked seeing Conner all dressed up in old-fashioned clothes. Conner was playing the part of Sallie Duncan, who besides being the teacher, was the mother of Megan's character, Lula.
Lula, Megan said "was probably the best one in the class because her mother was the teacher."
MacKenzie Cain, who played first-grader Talitha Booth, said she "felt kind of funny" when Cressman told her that the real Talitha is still living and is 95 years old. "I've never known anyone that old," she said.
Megan and Brandon said they thought going to school now was more fun than going to school 100 years ago, but MacKenzie disagreed. She liked writing on a slate (there were no notebooks then), and because Talitha was in the first grade, the work was easier.
Right now, said Hollandsworth, only the fourth-graders are required to spend a day at the school, but it's there for everyone to enjoy. All of the children "look at it as a special place," he said.
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. 1. Fourth-graders fromby CNBDudley Elementary School in Franklin County spent a day role-playing
pupils from 100 years ago at Hales Ford Academy. Some of the
teachers in the classroom are Ferrum College interns studying
Education. At the back of the room, Dr. Frank Buhendwa of Ferrum
College videotapes the classroom activities. 2. A century ago, a
pupil would have copied his spelling assignment on a slate board in
a one-room schoolhouse. 3. This fourth-grader (above) from Dudley
Elementary spent the day living the life of a pupil at Hales Ford
Academy (left) in Franklin County. 4. Ashley Law, 9, plays in the
field during recess at Hale's Ford Academy. color.