Production costs for this program have been made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money by vote of the people, November 4th, 2008.

I felt very fortunate about being in a school here.

I had a good education here.

It was just another time, and it was a good time, you know.

Everybody was close to one another.

I think we learned pretty well, actually.

Of all the landmarks I photograph in Minnesota, it is the one that's probably disappearing the fastest.

It's our history vanishing every year in our state.

It gives us a glimpse into the past.

These are monuments on our landscape.

Universal public education has been an American value since the early 1800s and these one room schoolhouses really represented that democratic form of public schooling that anybody could come in and get an education in these little one-room schoolhouses.

These little prairie schoolhouses, these one-room schoolhouses, were usually K through 8.

Usually had classes of between 15 and 35 students.

Almost always one, maybe two teachers.

And to complicate matters, most of the public school teachers were very young women, sometimes not a lot older than the students themselves.

So I went to high school when I was 12 and graduated when I was 16, and took teacher's training one year.

And so I was teaching when I was 17.

And my oldest kids were 15 before I was 18.

I started in 1944 and I was 18 when I started but I did have a birthday shortly so I was 19.

There was no grading in a lot of rural schools.

It was basically whatever your level of proficiency was, that was where you were learning.

You'd ring the bell at 8:30.

Now why you rang the bell at 8:30 I have no idea, but it was always that you had to ring the bell at 8:30.

Apparently it was so the kids would know to walk to school.

So the kids would get there and they'd come in and you'd ring the bell at 9:00.

They'd come in and you'd stand and pledge allegiance.

For many years they sat down, and I read to them out of a good storybook.

I would have first and second and third and probably fourth grade words on the board, and each class would come up and they'd learn these new words from their story.

Then they had to sit down and study their reading.

And then you'd go into the fifth and sixth and seventh, maybe seventh and eighth together probably.

They didn't read aloud.

You just discussed the story and I had written questions to check on whether they'd read it or not.

And then you went back and you let the little people come up and they read aloud to you.

Didn't worry about whether they understood, just could they read it.

And then it would be, after that, it'd be arithmetic usually because you want to have the reading and arithmetic when they're still alert.

And so it'd be about the same thing.

Send them out for recess and I'd put little problems on the board for the little people and assignments on the board for the big people.

They'd exchange papers and you'd read the answers and they'd check each other's papers and then you go back to the little people and check their work.

And then it'd be noon and they'd eat their lunch and play kitten ball.

And then after lunch you'd have language and the little people would be reading and spelling and the bigger people would be language.

Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade would have science and that'd take care of the last two times of the day and that was about it.

In interviews that I found that were conducted with other rural school teachers, such as my grandma Beatrice, she said that she had nine boys and one girl her first year.

As a rule I had them have something to do.

They had to prepare lessons for the next day.

Or sometimes I had the older ones help the little ones.

Another thing that they talked about was keeping the fire going too keep the school warm in the winter.

My grandma said I learned how to stoke it and set it up so the next morning it was still warm and ready to go.

You learned how to fix it so that it's kept fire overnight.

Carried in a bucket of water and put it in a big jug on a stand.

And then it could run water out of that into a cup when they wanted a drink.

And the teacher was in charge of a lot.

She had to do the cleanup.

She had to make sure everything was prepared before the kids came in the morning.

And sometimes even the fathers came and started the fire, too.

To me it must have been chaos but I'm sure she was able to control as much as she could and some teachers were better than others.

You didn't sit down at all.

It was noted that discipline was rarely needed.

She said that the one time she had to keep a student after school that was it.

She just kept him after school.

When I was going to school if somebody was whispering or whatever they'd sit the kid in the waste basket.

That was cruel.

Even standing in the corner was embarrassing.

I never used this but the teacher would put a circle on the blackboard, just a little bit below, so you had to go down like this.

That was uncomfortable.

In third and fourth grade different times I'd give a kid a swat on the butt.

It didn't hurt.

It got their attention and so on, but mostly I talked to them.

I think it was very fun listening to my grandma's interview, and another lady, her name was Pearl Christensen.

But you could just hear the twinkle in their eye when they talked about being a teacher and the students and how I think it probably gave them a sense of being important and they really enjoyed their students and teaching them and helping them in that part of their growth.

My name is Doug Ohman and I'm a Minnesota historian, photographer, and storyteller.

A few years ago I was contracted by the Minnesota Historical Society to do a book series called Minnesota Byways, and in that series one of my favorite subjects was the book I did called Schoolhouses of Minnesota.

I believe the subject schoolhouses is so incredibly important, and the reason I believe that is because of all the landmarks I photograph in Minnesota, it is the one that's probably disappearing the fastest.

It's our history vanishing every year in our state.

So important to capture not only the photography, but the stories and the memories that these places hold.

When I drive around Minnesota and I see these country schoolhouses kind of forlorn out on the prairie or on a hillside or tucked back in the woods, I think about the history.

There's a school up in Ottertail County that I drove by for years and that school sits out wide open, and you'll find that quite a bit out in the prairies of Minnesota.

This one is iconic.

It's that typical shape that we all recognize: the windows, that it's one floor, the chimney, the place where the bell was.

It was school district number 54.

That school was opened in 1886.

They started out with just 32 students, which I say just but today that's a large class.

And then imagining that it's 32 students and they're in grades one through eight.

As one of the students that went to this school said not every student came speaking English, so for a number of students this is where they are going to be learning English and then maybe also passing that information on to their parents.

There's another one down by Rothsay and the reason I like that one, it's not wood, it's made of brick, and you don't always typically find brick country schoolhouses.

It's located in section 8 of Oscar Township and it was organized in 1880.

It closed in the spring of 1944, so it was closed during World War II, and then with the baby boom, post-World War II, it was reopened in 1953.

It's had the name Hillside School, but also the Wigdahl School.

I think my great grandfather donated the land here.

I'm not 100 percent sure.

I grew up quarter mile down the road here when I was going to school, so.

I had four in my class and I think the most kids I can remember in the school was 13.

In the front of the building here that was the library, down the basement we had a kitchen and a play area, so yeah it was fun.

I went here for five years, my brother and sister went eight years.

After my fifth grade year it closed, so we went to town school in Rothsay.

In 1966 it was closed.

We do have a number of brick schoolhouses in Ottertail County that are still standing, and many of them are an iconic yellow.

And this is because we had brick factories here in Ottertail County.

So there's a brick school north of Pelican Rapids and east in Lida Township and it is a very unusual shape.

So not only is it unusual because it's built out of yellow local brick, but it's also a hexagon shape and it is still being used for 4-H and a horse riding club, and then it was a farmers club.

And so it's called the tri-club building.

Hannah Kemper was a immigrant girl from Norway.

She came here with her foster family when she was six years old and started at a country school to learn English.

Her family were farmers, not very successful, but Hannah decided at a young age that she would be a teacher.

She attended normal school and then she started teaching in country schools herself.

And when women were allowed to vote, I mean she had a number of accomplishments in the county and people recognized her leadership skills, and she was the first woman from rural Minnesota elected to the Minnesota Legislature.

And the school where she taught has been preserved and it is a restaurant.

My great grandfather, after the Civil War, homesteaded this.

He was always for education, of course, so he gave an acre of land back in I think it was about 1883 so that they could have a schoolhouse here.

So they built a schoolhouse.

When I did go, my mom went to school here, my dad, all my great aunts and uncles, grandparents.

Of course in my class there was three of us, that's all, a girl and myself and another boy.

And so I always tell my kids I was third in my class.

We would have our own duties or responsibilities in the school.

We would sweep and clean it, we would rake leaves, dust erasers, a lot of those little duties like that.

But it taught you how to take care of stuff.

We were kind of our own little little village I guess I'd call it.

I don't know I still, the classmates and people that went here that are still in the area, it's just fun to visit with them about it.

My youngest brother was one of the last ones to go in about the mid 70s.

You know there's another school over in Crow Wing County north of Brainerd, and I believe it's Timothy Township.

And the reason I like that school is because they could have torn it down, but they saved it and converted it into a township hall, which is a great way to save these landmarks.

Yes it has a handicap ramp on it now and things like that, but it is an old-fashioned school that has another life.

In 1904, School District 81 was organized, although the petition for this district was granted in 1902.

That year school was held for one month in the James Hardy home with his daughter Mrs Ann L Scott as the teacher.

The present school building was not erected until 1905.

Yeah I started in 1945, in first grade, and I went until 1950.

And then I went to Pine River High School in seventh grade.

For first grade my uncle was the school teacher.

I lived a quarter mile from the school so I'd get up in the morning and do chores and then my mother would pack a lunch and we'd go to school and I had a sister ahead of me in school two years and a brother four years ahead of me at the same school.

My class was usually about two or three.

The class ahead of me was quite a lot larger.

I would say we kind of fluctuated between about 19 and 26 students while I was there.

I think we learned pretty well actually.

And I can remember we'd always have everybody behaved and stuff but that the teacher would always read to us at some point during the day and, of course, we had outdoor biffies, you know, and then a pump out front, you know.

So that'd be another job for one of the kids to go out and fill up the water jug.

Oh yeah, that was an interesting time I guess, you know, for all of us.

And the war was on and my dad was gone in the Army and so it was just a kind of a fascinating time as I think back on it.

In Pope County there's another wonderful school.

It's south of the town of Starbuck and this sits up on the hill and what I liked about that school, it's pretty worn, but it had a tower.

Unfortunately the bell is gone, but that, there used to be a school bell there.

And imagine how that sound echoed across the prairie.

The district was organized on March 13th of 1902.

The first teacher was Julia Stenson from Starbuck.

Ollie Samuelson from Starbuck was the first recorded salary at forty dollars per month, and that was in 1906.

The highest recorded salary per month was 90 dollars and that was a year where there was two teachers, Miliana England and Olive Barsness.

Olaf Haugen provided a boarding place for many of the teachers over the years.

He was also the chairman and treasurer for various years.

The bell tower was leaning quite a bit and was removed between 2006 and 2007.

Now there's a school in Hennepin County, out in Western Hennepin County, that really is a neat, neat school.

It's called the Birchville School and it was built back in the 1890s, if I recall.

Now Hennepin County we typically think is a county of Minneapolis and it is, it's the largest populated county in Minnesota, but in Western Hennepin County it feels like you're in rural America.

And this little schoolhouse, it's one of the few left in Hennepin County, and what the community out here has done, that is what is special about this school, they have maintained it.

They have kept it as a country school.

It doesn't run as a country school, but it's a museum school and that is really great because what they do out here is they bring school kids to experience what country school was like.

It's an educational piece of our history that has continued life.

When I first saw it, it was red.

They've repainted it white.

Apparently white was the original color.

When you walk in here, the desks and some of the accoutrements of the school are still here as if they were teaching school yesterday.

And that's what I love about this place.

It's a step back in the history, but it doesn't feel remote, it feels like the kids are out at recess and I'm in the school waiting for them to come back.

We're in a one-room school.

It's called the Burschville School, No.

107.

It's been here since 1894.

Peter Weinen was the farmer that had this corner area.

He was pretty much a statesman.

He believed in education, and he donated an acre of land for the school to be built on.

I think they built it for like 670 dollars, and it was for the community.

He had a lot of children and then there were a lot of farm children that could go to it so they could walk to the school from their homes and their farms.

It was predominantly a German settlement.

It serviced, at one time they had 67 children enrolled at the school, 40 at one time, too.

But they were different style desks; they were longer so you could fit more children on a desk, but then it finally dwindled down over the years as those children grew up and moved away.

I went to eight year school here from 1933 to 1941.

I had five teachers over the eight years that I was here.

I did little things here to help school out, hauled the wood in and helped get water for the school here.

All the way from the first grade to the eighth grade we had about five kids working together.

I felt very fortunate about being in school here.

I had a good education here.

I had good teachers here.

Most of us took and walked into school here.

I milked about four cows myself just about every day, and then I was off to school.

In 1949 they had a referendum, because they were telling all the one room schools they must close, and so the people here in this area decided they weren't going to vote yes, they wanted to keep their one-room school.

So it continued until they were told in '63 that you're going to have to close and join a school that has higher education and can't be a common school anymore.

They closed for about three years and then the school started up again and it actually had to close in 1967.

I think there might have been about seven pupils at that time.

We lived right across the road.

That's my parents' farm.

I milked cows too, more than four, before I went because my dad drove truck.

Mrs Tripto was our teacher, and I had her for all the grades I was here.

She was from the town of Corcoran.

There was pretty much four or five boys, maybe at the most 12, 13 kids here in the entirety of all seven, eight grades and maybe four or five boys.

We were always outnumbered by the girls, but the boys would go get up to my grandpa's, whose farm was right here, and get the water.

Two of us would go to help balance the bike.

We put them on the handlebars and I had a toboggan in the winter time we'd use that.

One would pull and the other one hold the cans.

Well one thing bad about living close like this, especially when you'd see all the kids out for recess at noon after you ate, I had to go home and push hay over to the cows.

You can ask anybody from the country, it was a different world.

Like Howard said, the education and stuff, that was different too.

It was a good time, you know.

Everybody was close to one another You know I think one of the things that makes it so exciting is last summer I had a group of preschoolers come to the school and they got off the bus and I rang the school bell and they came running and they were so excited.

I even had kids from down the street come over to find out what was going on.

Oh, this is what it looks like in a storybook.

This is the real thing.

It's the people that come in and go I went to a school just like this but it was in Kansas or it was in Iowa or it wasn't here but oh it looked just like this.

To see their faces and their expressions when they tell you their stories, it's just awesome.

So it makes it worthwhile.

Well it's history.

It's the beginning of education for most of the people in the county.

It was just a very different way to teach the students, but it was just as important, if not more important maybe back then.

These are monuments on our landscape.

A monument doesn't have to be a huge statue of somebody.

A monument can be a school that people in a community came together to build.

These landmarks are disappearing and we need to hold on to those memories so generations from now won't have to just see them through a book, but they'll be able to go out and see them in person.

Production costs for this program have been made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money by vote of the people, November 4th, 2008.