The Wright Country School

In 1935, my mother was 6 years old and a student at The Wright Country School in Gratiot County, Michigan. The building still sits at the corner of Winans and Monroe Roads, a half-mile from where she grew up and from where I live now. Over the course of my lifetime, she shared stories of her school days, painting vivid pictures of teachers, students, and education in a one-room schoolhouse. Her parents were involved in overseeing the operations of the school for a time, my grandfather holding the position of school board president while my grandmother served on numerous school committees. During this time, the school teacher boarded with my grandparents. Miss Crispell was ‘Bill’ to my mother, who wasn’t able to pronounce her full name when calling her from the bottom of the stairs every morning for breakfast.  

My mother often talked about the events, holiday parties, plays, and programs that were held at The Wright School. In many ways, the building served as a community space that brought multiple generations of neighbors together. Among the papers left behind in my mother’s house, there were hand-written scripts for skits that my grandmother performed with some of the other local women. Considering that prohibition had recently been repealed, the humorous dialogue about a mix-up with the contents of some brown jugs probably left the audience laughing harder than it might today. World War 2 was still four years away and my mother, with her glossy, jet-black ringlets, was still safe from the bitter realities that would permanently alter her world.

I remember her stories about Christmas parties at the schoolhouse and discovering with great disappointment that it was one of their neighbors, old Mr. Raycraft, under the Santa beard. She told me about the games they played at recess, Eeny-I-Over being one of her favorites. I wonder if children today would find as much excitement as students did back then in watching the roofline intently for a ball to come flying over and then running to be the one to catch it before it hit the ground. One early spring afternoon, she sat huddled on the concrete stoop of the schoolhouse. She had come down with the measles and despite the warm sunshine, she was feverish and shivering as she waited to go home. “I don’t remember ever feeling so miserable as I did that day,” she said.

In her later years, her stories continued and she frequently referenced things from her youth that were now stored in our attic. With six children, she found it unnecessary to climb into the attic herself. The shiver-inducing stretch and snap of spider webs as you slowly opened the door had us begging not to have to go in there, but our pleas fell on deaf ears. My mother had no fear of spiders and thought all of us were ridiculous to carry on about climbing in there to retrieve whatever she needed. We girls would wrap our heads in bandanas and the boys would put on baseball caps as we mustered our courage and faced whatever awaited us.  It was the sort of attic that you had to crawl through, forward to get in and backwards to get out, severely limiting our ability to run from the huge spiders that dangled just above our heads and scurried around our fingers without warning.

Eventually I grew up and for some unknown reason, the spiders all moved on to other places, allowing curiosity to overcome the residual fear that still lingered whenever I turned the handle on the door. Now, it had become a place where a century’s worth of memorabilia rested between layers of yellowed newspaper and waited inside huge, turquoise-colored lard tins. Only limited by what I could slide, drag, or carry while crawling backwards, bits of my ancestors lives slowly made their way downstairs to where my mother was waiting.

I don’t remember when I discovered the dark green box in her attic. It had been repurposed, originally having held ladies’ undergarments. It was tied shut, a grosgrain ribbon holding all four sides down tightly. I untied it for her and lifted the lid off the box, her eyes warming at the sight of what was inside. Valentines from 1935, 1936, and 1937 were neatly stacked and wrapped in tissue paper, appearing as if they had been placed there only weeks ago. She took them out one by one, turning them over as she had done when she first received them, the names of the senders eliciting various expressions and responses. There was something so endearing about the carefully written signatures on the backs. Penmanship had clearly been a point of pride for the senders. Most of the valentines my mother received were commercially made, capturing the era with their high-gloss finishes and vibrant colors. The verses and movable mechanisms were sweet and creative, but the valentines that touched my heart the most were the ones that were edged with pinking shears and colored with heavy, red wax crayons. Embellishments of tiny, cut out hearts made from floral wallpaper scraps were glued to the front of one valentine. Works of art and heart. We sorted them into two piles as we went through them – one pile for the ones that were from relatives, and a second pile for the ones that were from classmates and teachers at the one-room schoolhouse. I was so engrossed in the Valentines themselves that I never asked her if there had been a party or how these paper treasures were distributed. Years later, I am left to imagine cut-glass punch bowls, construction paper chains strung above blackboards, and pink frosted sugar cookies in the shape of hearts.

As my mom read the names on the back of each one, I noticed that one name reappeared  numerous times. A boy named Merlyn must have used up half a box of valentines on my mom. “He always liked me,” my mom said, smiling. The same Merlyn wasted no time after my father passed away to invite my mother out to dinner. My mother accepted his invitation, but wasted no time informing Merlyn as they left Red Lobster that dinner entitled him to the pleasure of her company and nothing more. It was their one and only date.

Not too long after my husband and I bought the farm where my mother grew up, the schoolhouse on the corner and the lot that it sat on came up for sale. An open house was held and anyone interested in the property was allowed to go through the building one last time before the sale. Being inside this building felt surreal, stories and place intersecting in a way that made me feel that I had been there for it all. I stood outside the schoolhouse and looked up at the roofline. My mother had stood right here watching it, too. There have been a handful of moments in my life when I could feel time evaporating, and this was one of them.

After the new owners took possession of both the property and the house that sat on the same acreage, we approached them about buying the schoolhouse and having it moved down the road to our farm. They were more than happy to have it moved and said they would give it to us as they had no use for it. We would only need to pay for the building to be moved. I don’t think I have ever wanted something so bad in my adult life. We contacted a building mover, hopeful and optimistic in the way that 30-year-olds are who have no idea what is involved in moving a building. How much could it cost? Afterall, it was only a half of a mile. The bid came back at a staggering $40,000 just to move it.  Pouring concrete for the base or doing any of the necessary repairs to preserve it would be extra.

The schoolhouse remains on the same corner - the intersection of Winans and Monroe Roads in Gratiot County.  I pass this building every day, still enchanted by the stories that have worked their way into my own memories. Somehow they have become as much a part of my own history as they were my mother’s. The space has always felt sacred in a way that defies explanation. Foolishly perhaps, I still think about that building and about the possibility of moving the schoolhouse to our farm. It’s unrealistic and unreasonable, but knowing that doesn’t quiet the voices of the past that I imagine when I drive by this historic building. The ball comes flying over the peak, hitting the roof twice before it’s caught by a little girl with jet-black ringlets. She’s faster than any of the boys, and she’s laughing. Always and forever laughing.