Foursquare

FOURSQUARE

Years ago I used to work at a job that required me to travel quite a distance on a particular state highway to get to work. That highway led me past an old brick schoolhouse. When I began making that trip, twenty-six years or so ago, that old schoolhouse was in sad, sad shape. As I mentioned before it was made of brick, the clay of which was probably dug, mixed and fired not very far away from where she now stands. As I would drive by I could see cracks on the walls of the old building where some of those homemade bricks were beginning to crumble and fail. The old wooden bell tower was half in ruin and the little wood roof over the entrance door was completely gone. Weeds had overtaken the lot growing tall and rank, creeper vines were covering most of the south side and there was an melancholy air of ruin enveloping the building. It was a sad thing, to my eyes at least, to watch this relic, this old lady from the past slowly crumbling. I traveled that road a decade or more, going to the big city and back on my daily trek, and once in a while, I would glance at the old schoolhouse sitting on the corner lot out in the country all by herself. And I'd wonder about its history.

The old schoolhouse had to have been built a hundred to a hundred and twenty years ago or maybe even longer, judging by its architecture. Probably somewhere around the era of Presidents Benjamin Harrison or Grover Cleveland. Or maybe even back to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War days. I envisioned the children who used to attend the old school. This part of Ohio is mostly agricultural now, with corn fields and feed lots for miles in most directions. This was even more the case in the countryside back then. The students were farm kids who attended, mostly in the winter and when the needs of their families and the farms allowed them to attend. They probably arrived mostly by foot, some walking several miles to get there. Possibly there were some who came by horseback or in carriages. Those that attended in the summer would have been roasted by the summer heat baking the brick building. All the windows would have been open in those days to catch any stray breeze and the students would have fanned themselves to keep cool and to keep their minds alert to the schoolwork. In the winter the pot-bellied stove would have been glowing and its frugal heat would have tried its best to keep the children warm. There would have been a big wood pile outside the building and one of the children's chores would have been to bring in the wood for the stove. In later years it would have been coal. The premises still would have been chilly at best during those long cold Ohio winters. Insulation was far in the future. Learning would have been a difficult task in the little schoolhouse. But generations of kids would have gone through her over the years and numbers of them would have done quite well in life. Some would have gone on to schools of higher learning, colleges and universities, and would have become businessmen, clergy, lawyers, shopkeepers and politicians. A lot would have returned to the farms and continued the cultivation of crops and the growing of livestock. This country had produced many presidents who started out their educations in schoolhouses very similar to this one.

So I was sad to think that this building which had nurtured generations of Ohio youngsters and gave them a leg up on their educations, this schoolhouse which had stood foursquare to the years was slowly falling to ruin.

One day, a number of years after I had got the other job and was still traveling the highway where the school sat, I happened to notice some of the weeds around the old building were gone. I wondered at this, guessing that perhaps the last days of the schoolhouse were drawing to an end and the bulldozer would be coming soon. But why clear out the weeds first? It seemed odd. I began to dread my daily drive, thinking that one day soon I'd see a pile of old brick where the schoolhouse once stood, then a hole where a house would soon be erected.

Some days later I was surprised to notice that a section of the brick wall where the most damage was evident had been partially removed. And maybe a week or so after that you could see where new brick had been cemented into the wall. Then, slowly, after weeks had passed, it was the property that was beginning to show signs of change, as the scrub brush and weeds had been cleared out and a small dirt parking lot had been dozed and graveled south of the building. Then the roof began showing signs of repair. Then a small new roof was erected over the front door, along with a new porch and entrance steps. If you looked closely you could also see that the windows had been reglazed and washed. All this repair took place over a period of a year or more. The old girl was beginning to look sharp!

I had a lot of questions in my mind pertaining to the repair of the old school as I made my daily drive and noticed the renovations that had occurred to the old building. Soon a sign appeared on one of her walls, answering my questions by advertising that the schoolhouse was now available for get togethers, reunions, meetings and other activities. It was alive again and open for business! It wasn't teaching the youngsters of the area anymore, but the old girl was awake again, visibly happy to be alive and open for whatever the years wanted to bequeath her.

So, on my now infrequent travels on that state highway, I take notice of that old brick schoolhouse, her windows clean, her brickwork again plumb, level and strong, her woodwork replaced, painted and fresh. She stands once again foursquare to the world and ready for her new life.

If you're curious, she sits proudly on the southeastern corner of Ohio State Highway 585 and Benner Road in Wayne County, Ohio. Give her a wave as you drive by.