As students of today look forward to a new school year, we look back — recognizing our great fortune in the recollections of those who received their education from one teacher, with siblings and neighbors, in the one room schoolhouse.

Our town was once divided into seven sections with each district responsible for its own school. According to an article by Pearl Scarpino, in 1899 a committee of members from each district was formed to determine the advisability of consolidating some schools, but it wasn’t until 1909 that “a town meeting finally voted to take over responsibility for the several school districts and assumed their indebtedness. Upkeep of the schools was left to a newly elected school committee of nine members.” Efforts to further unify the schools weren’t documented until 1927, when voters approved the following resolution:  “That we are irrevocably opposed to further consolidation of our schools whereby such consolidation means a furtherance of the whims of state paid supervisors; that it is high time that we the tax payers of the town commence to study and pay closer attention to the present conditions of our schools with the view of applying the necessary remedies for their much needed betterment from within the town, rather than to delegate our birth-right to outside influences whose own pecuniary interest, and the masters they serve, come first.”

In spite of this staunch opposition, the seven schools eventually consolidated into three – Bell School for primary grades, Center School for grades four, five and six, and Clark’s Corners for seventh and eighth graders. There’s only one person still with us who remembers a school other than these, Margaret Easton, who recalls the ABC Schoolhouse:

My first two grades were in Howard Valley School. I think all of my sisters went there, too. I had eight sisters. Viola, Amy and I were there together. There were eight grades and one teacher. There was no place to play games, no place for baseball, only room for something like jump rope. So the older kids would take us for a walk up and down the road at noon time. At Howard Valley we had to get a bucket of water from the family across the road and we all had to drink out of the ladle – dipped it in, drank from it, put it back in. Amazing we all didn’t get sick.  

One disadvantage of district schools was too few students in a given grade. In Hampton Remembers, Wendell Davis recalled:

When I was in the fourth grade at the Center School I was the fourth grade, lock, stock and barrel. So I got promoted so there were three in the fifth grade, my bother Merriam, Barney Pawlikowski and me…We had one book and w’ed open it up, y’know. Barney’d run his eyes down one page and down the other, turn to Merriam and say “Shall I turn?” and Merriam would say, “No, I’m still there,” and pretty soon he’d finish and they’d say to me “Where are you?” and I’d point at the top of the first page. So finally Barney’d say “Listen, get your heads in here, I’ll read it to ya’. Very soon I was demoted to the third grade.

One advantage of eight grades in one room was the responsibility older students assumed. In an article on “The Center School in the 1930’s”, George Howell wrote:

The furnace was a large pot belly stove. On the top of the furnace was a large pan for water. In wintry weather the pan was filled with water before we went home. The reason for a full pan of hot water in the morning was to prime the large upright hand pump outside of the school building. During the deep snow and wintry weather, this was a big chore relegated to an older boy. With coat, hat and most importantly heavy duty gloves, without which his hands would get wet and freeze to the handle, he was responsible for the only plumbing in the building …We had outhouses in the back of the school house, the girls on the right and the boys on the left. In the winter, getting there presented several problems, deep snow and snow drifts. Older students helped small children dress for the trip to the outhouse and cleared a path for them by shuffling their feet through the snow.

We usually associate the tribulations with trudging for miles through five feet of snow, neglecting the daily trials of primitive realities, like plumbing. Charlie Halbach reminded us of this in “School Days”:

The wood for heating was located on the boys’ side, so it was our job to bring it in. We were also responsible for keeping water in the water fountain, which was a three gallon crock with a spigot. We would fetch the water from the Jewett property across what is now Route 6, using a couple of pails. The method of drawing water from the well was unique. There was a wooden structure on a platform well cover. It measured about four feet high and one to two feet wide. The crankshaft had a sprocket over which a chain traveled and small buckets were attached to the chain. When the crank was turned the small buckets dipped into the well water below and were filled with water. When the buckets reached the top, they tipped releasing the water into a sluiceway and into our waiting pails. Probably 24 to 30 buckets holding about two cups each were needed to fill our pails.

Teachers were responsible for educating students in all grades and in all subjects. However, one musician started her teaching career when she was hired to provide music instruction in all of the schoolhouses, and continued to offer lessons here for the rest of her life:

Catherine Ameer Wade taught music lessons starting at the Bell School.  Ray Pawlikowski took violin lessons, so I wanted to, too. The whole class took music lessons with Catherine – there were only six kids – two boys and four girls – Joyce Mason, Joyce Pearl, Nancy Stocking and Carol Macmillan, who, like me, went on to a career in music. Later on, I took piano lessons with Catherine. She would have supper with us after the lesson. 

Paul Fitzgerald

Some students remember moving from one room schoolhouses to the consolidated school. Gloria Burell started first grade in a one room schoolhouse and transitioned to the consolidated school half way through the year. It was that experience that she, understandably, remembers. Others do as well. Kathleen Fitzgerald recalls:

I attended the Bell School for grades one through three and Clark’s Corners School for grades four and five. We moved to the new consolidated school in fifth grade. We brought our lunch to school and at recess, we played baseball. Alfred Vargas drove the school bus. My father, Ed Fitzgerald, also drove a school bus in Hampton for 18 years. Mrs. Woodward was our teacher at Bell School, and my Aunt Viola was our teacher at Clark’s Corners. Her son and daughter, my cousins Jimmy and Barbara, and my brother Paul were in school together with Viola as our teacher, so none of us could misbehave. 

Barbara Fitzgerald O’Connor doesn’t mince words in describing what it was like having her mother for a teacher:

I went to the Bell School first. It was a huge shock, coming from a parochial city school, St. Joseph’s in Willimantic. The Bell School had an outhouse and a well. There was a big stove.  If you sat close to it, you roasted. If you sat a distance from it, you froze. Our teacher, Lois Woodward, was also still “citified”, and didn’t like the antiquated set-up either. I then went to Clark’s Corners school where my mother, Viola Navin Fitzgerald, was the teacher. That was hell. I couldn’t even roll my eyes! She was afraid of showing favoritism. There was no well there, so we went to my grandmother’s house, but when Paul Navin married, Margaret didn’t want to continue that arrangement so we went across to Ambrose’s. When we ran out of cups we used arithmetic paper, and there was a way of folding it to make a flat, pointy cup. One year during the Christmas break we moved to the consolidated school.

With its completion in 1950, the consolidated school housed all students in grades one through eight, and the era of the one room schoolhouse ended:

Seventy years ago, the last six students graduated from Center School –Arthur Fitts, Jimmy Rodriguez, Herbert Kemp, Nancy and Sue Macmillan, and me. We had a ceremony at the Grange Hall. We were the last ones to use that venue for graduation. It took two men and an army to roll up the curtains on that stage.

John Russell

Their histories preserved through those who remember, one in particular was memorialized when Doris Schmeelk Buck won a national award for her poem based on the Bell School, a nostalgic retrospect of “The One Roomed School”:

I have fond memories of the one room school,

the sound of the bell in the belfry,

ringing out over the clear October air,

young arms tugging on the bell rope.

The entry ways with the pegs to hand coats and sweaters,

with shelves over head for caps, mittens and hats,

boots and rubbers lined up on the floor.

The large stove to throw warmth into the room on chilly days.

The rows of windows on each side of the building.

I sit at my desk and daydream out of the window.

The teacher calls my name, I don’t hear

doing art work, making maps.

The smell of white paste used for art,

ink wells at each desk to dip our pens in,

chalk squeaking on the blackboard,

clapping chalk erasers together outside,

watching the white dust billow and float away on the cool air.

Sounds of children’s voices playing in the school yard,

and the singing of songs in the one room,

youthful voices drifting out over the air.

Yes! I have fond memories of the one room school.

There was a closeness between the teacher and students.

Dear! Dear! One Room School.