Death of a schoolhouse: Onetime town of Wellington school building demolished

 

South Ridge School, date unknown. Photo courtesy of the Monroe County Local History Room. More historic photos are available at www.MCLHR.org.

 

South Ridge School students in the mid-1950s, left to right: Dennis Denter, Lorraine (Purpus) Michalski Chroninger, David Brandau, and twins Diane and Duane Switz. (Photo courtesy of Alice Brandau)

 

Students sit at their desks at the South Ridge School in the town of Wellington in the mid-1950s. Do you know the names of these children? Do you have information to share about this photo or the South Ridge School? Contact the County Line at 337-4232 or countyline@centurytel.net. (Photo courtesy of Alice Brandau)

 

South Ridge School students, 1954–55. Do you know the names of these students? Contact the County Line at 337-4232 or countyline@centurytel.net. (Photo courtesy of Alice Brandau)

By JEANN (BEIER) FARRAR

Great-granddaughter of Augustus and Augusta Beier

Aug. 18, 2020, brought the demise of a local historical landmark and the dimming of a nearly forgotten chapter in Wisconsin’s pioneer history.

Many residents of Wellington Township and Monroe County will remember the little one-room schoolhouse that sat for generations south of Wilton at the intersection of County Highway P and Z, beside St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church. It was an icon and a remnant from a bygone era. This summer, the church board determined that because the South Ridge School was old and needed continual repairs, it was no longer in the church’s best interest to maintain and preserve it. This decision, although understandable, was disappointing to those of us with lifelong memories and ties to the school.

Once nearby community members, many who had attended the little school and had a vested interest in preserving it, were the people who served on the church board. As the years passed, however, the membership at St. Matthew’s grew and people traveled further to attend. New members, who had no memory of the old school in its glory years, saw only an old building that cluttered the premises and served no actual purpose. Ravages of time and fading memories became the school’s downfall. A democratic vote from the church board to discontinue its life was inevitable, and finally materialized in 2020.

Very few people are still alive who were privileged to attend and observe first-hand the daily workings of a country school. An intriguing picture emerges when talking with the people who actually attended there as students before the South Ridge School closed in 1962 and merged with Wilton.

Scattered remnants and written memories of this history still exist, many of which have been preserved by Alice Brandau, describing her years as one-time teacher, and then neighbor to the school. I am writing to you in the hope that we can preserve even more details of this story, which can be shared and added to whatever Alice or others may already have on record.

215 years ago, in 1805, in Glasgow, Scotland, a future pioneer named William Young began his life, which would span two continents and 79 years of hard work and adventure. William and his wife Helen left Scotland with their children Thomas (born 1833) and Jenette (born 1835), possibly when the potato famine forced so many to immigrate in 1845. Eventually, they made their way to the recently surveyed frontier State of Wisconsin, and around 1855, a 22-year-old Thomas settled in the Township of Wellington, Monroe County. Records indicate his parents also lived in this area and owned land.

Monroe County hardly had been in existence for a year when, in 185,5 Thomas chose two 40-acre parcels adjacent to “The Old German Church” (not yet referred to as St. Matthew’s on maps). His selection was recorded in the “Book of Entry of Government Lands” as a cash sale. It was not an easy task to “improve” his parcels. The government required careful documentation and verification by witnesses of improvements he made to the property. Only then could he be issued a patent (or title) to it.

Thomas cleared trees, built fences, erected buildings, and did all he could to satisfy the homestead conditions set forth by the federal government. When Thomas satisfactorily fulfilled those obligations, he was issued a patent for the two parcels in 1858 and 1859 by President James Buchanan. It shows Thomas being the original owner of the land where the school was built.

Soon the Civil War began, and in the autumn of 1862, the government determined Thomas Young was “available” for service. In December 1862, Thomas married Lucretia Campfield. He was 29 years old, and she was 18.

Thomas eventually left Lucretia at home to serve in the Civil War. He is listed as being in Company 1, 49th Regiment, WI Volunteer Infantry. This unit was organized at Camp Randall between Dec. 24, 1864, and March 5, 1865. They left the state for St. Louis, Mo., on March 8, 1865, just weeks before the Civil War ended.

They went from St. Louis to Rolla, Mo., where they served garrison and guard duty until August, after which they were sent back to St. Louis before being mustered out Nov. 8, 1965. Fifty-four men from the 49th were casualties of war, all from disease. Luckily, Thomas was one of the young men who returned and took up his position as one of the founding fathers in Wellington Township. He is listed as a Civil War veteran and is buried in Monroe County.

In April 1865, a son, William Daniel, was born to Thomas and Lucretia, and a sister, Josephine, followed in 1868. The Youngs’ deed shows a mortgage loan of $270 taken in 1871. This was possibly the year the schoolhouse was built. It would have been the perfect time for them to start thinking about their children’s education. County Highway P was not yet in existence, and the main road between Kendall and Ontario was still called “The Red Trail.”

The methods of construction and materials used to build the school were similar to those used in the Youngs’ own home located just across the road. Their home was built in 1867 and was the first frame house on the ridge when others were still log cabins. Some lumber was “store bought,” but the main beams and framing materials were all hand hewn from lumber cut on their own farm.

The surrounding fields had not yet been fully cleared for farming, and huge trees still covered the area. There was a shallow “dug well” in the field adjacent to the school where water was drawn by the students for drinking. The school’s foundation was built from rocks removed when clearing the surrounding areas.

The deed shows that by 1875, the school was already fully in existence. A property sale to Louis Frisco dated 1875 references the school’s presence. The deed for the Youngs’ farm, sold to Augustus and Augusta Beier in 1900, made provisions that if the school was “no longer used for school purposes,” it would “return to the original farm from whence it came.” Even at that early date, the school’s founders recognized circumstances could change and the school might no longer be useful in its present capacity. It took years, but that day eventually came.

Several generations of students and teachers taught and learned at the little school. The Beier family was privileged to be its caretakers until it was sold to St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in 1964. When the school’s student population combined with Wilton in 1962, the school reverted back to the Beier farm, which was then owned by Percy and Doris Beier.

On behalf of the church, Frank Martalock and Bob Brandau approached the Beiers, asking to purchase the school. Because they were all three former students interested in preserving the school legacy, Percy agreed to sell, feeling the church would be in a better position to maintain the property.

He also felt more people could benefit from its use under the church’s ownership. The school was sold to the church for $200. This was paid by a donation from Bob Brandau. The property was deeded to St. Matthew’s on Oct. 9, 1964.

For the next 55 years, the church controlled the little school’s destiny. They first used it for Vacation Bible School, and then young people’s meetings, and finally only storage. Votes by the church board to maintain the school continued to pass, and it continued to stand in silent tribute to its original builders and occupants. As neighbors, our time and labor were sometimes donated towards its upkeep (as an incentive for it to be kept intact). Finally, one day there was no more Frank Martalock or Bob Brandau left (and possibly others) to vote for its preservation. The younger generation no longer remembered the history, and therefore one more link to our pioneer heritage has been removed. Gone from our sight, but hopefully not from our memories.

If anyone out there has stories, pictures, memories, or additional historical facts they can add about the South Ridge School, please share them with us via the County Line. It would be great to hear more about one-room schoolhouse life from the people who actually lived it!

When my father sold the school to the church, he trusted it would be kept and preserved; however, as John Steinbeck said, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” Things didn’t go as my father planned, and in spite of his best intentions, the school is gone, and we must move forward. Left are the memories, and in the end, just like Thomas and Lucretia themselves, their little schoolhouse has passed away to make room for progress.

The church has been a wonderful neighbor for many years, and we hope that always continues. We wish them the best of luck on construction of a new lawnmower shed and new blacktop. People say the majority is always right, so we trust they made the right decision. That’s democracy in action — the very definition of what our country was founded upon. I hope in moving forward that the lives and sacrifices of Thomas and Lucretia and the fascinating history of the school will be included and preserved as part of the church history. I hope that all of the little pieces of information, added together, will paint a stimulating and thought-provoking portrait of early Monroe County pioneer life, and that rather than being forgotten, it can be collected and preserved via scrapbook, memorial, or display for future generations. The death of the schoolhouse doesn’t have to be the death of its history.

♦ ♦ ♦

Journal Entry from Ridgeville

South Ridge School was a place for creating happy memories

By LYDA LANIER

For as long as the building was in place, it was known as South Ridge School, and Alice Brandau of rural Wilton would tell her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that for three years she was the teacher in this one-room country school.

To add to that, she would tell them that their father/grandfather Robert Brandau, who passed away in December 2019, attended all eight grades at South Ridge, the school located just down the road from the family farm.

The school, a wooden frame building with a bell tower, was built in the late 1800s on County Highway Z in the town of Wellington.  In 1961, the school was closed, with the land and the building reverting back to the Beier family. In 1964, it was sold to St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, located next door. Because it had electricity and a relatively new oil furnace, it was useful for young people’s meetings, Vacation Bible School, confirmation classes and finally storage. The playground became a parking lot. Now, 56 years later, the building too worn out to repair is scheduled to be dismantled and the parking lot expanded.

Alice is not sure she wants to let go.

A week or so ago, we drove over to the schoolhouse, which features two separate entrances into the entry hall: two doors, one for boys and one for girls. We stepped inside the classroom, cluttered now with odds and ends, light fixtures already taken down. A blackboard dominates one wall, evidence of its beginnings.

Alice looked around with the eye of someone who has done remodeling. She saw possibilities. “The windows are good,” she said, and then hesitated, not sure about the wood floor. “It needs a new roof,” she said, thinking out loud, noting places it had leaked through the ceiling, “and we could level the floor.”  She sighed, knowing the building would soon be gone.

For Alice, this is a place of happy memories. Beginning in 1952, after two years of teacher training at Juneau County Normal, Alice, 20, was the schoolteacher for three years. She was Miss Anderson then, teaching 15 pupils in one room, grades one through eight. She also supervised the hot-lunch program, which consisted of families taking turns making hot meals for the pupils and bringing it to school before noon. Food was kept warm on an apartment-size electric stove.  A favorite was Grandma Denter’s baked beans, which she brought to school in a dark blue enamel roaster.

“Sometimes I would be teaching arithmetic and stirring food at the same time,” Alice said.

She was the janitor, seeing that the floor was swept every night with sweeping compound and the erasers used on the blackboard clapped free of chalk dust. The wood-burning heater was in the basement, where on cold winter mornings, Alice built a fire. Water was carried into the school building by two of the older children who walked across the road to the nearest neighbor and filled a shotgun can with well water, stored during the day in a stone crock that kept it cool.  Other needs of the children were served by two outhouses set discreetly in the backyard, with girls to the right and boys to the left.

There was not a formal physical education program.

“The children knew what they were going to play when they went outside for recess,” Alice said, as a structured program was not so necessary when most if not all of the pupils walked country roads to and from school.

As busy as she was, there was time for romance. She and Robert Brandau, already a successful young farmer and auctioneer, began dating, which became a courtship, and the rest is history. Their first child, Gale, was in first grade at South Ridge. After consolidation, one-room country schools closed and schoolchildren were bused into town, with the Brandau children attending Wilton Grade School.

Losing schools in rural areas was in itself a traumatic experience with both the loss of local control and an important social center for the community. Once the school was closed, nothing took its place. 

For those of us who sat at those wooden desks permanently attached to the floor, used pencils to do our seatwork, and learned to read from the “Dick and Jane” books, for those like Alice who were teachers in the one-room country school, who rang the school bell to start the day, taught reading to first-graders and fractions in seventh, and directed the annual Christmas program attended by everyone in the school district, it’s more than a schoolhouse. It’s more than a building. It’s a quiet place in our hearts.

Sometimes it’s hard to let go.

There is a plan to establish a commemorative marker for the South Ridge One-Room School and display the original school bell, still in storage. 

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