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Erected in 1929 and located on the upper end of Martin Co., Ky, this one-room school has seen several students and teachers pass through it's door.  It was built on an 80' square parcel of land purchased from John Greene Taylor who agreed to the sale in order for their grandson to be able to receive his schooling closer to home.  Before this, children had to walk to school at Whitepost, KY.  The school was one-room, with outhouses out back and a hand-dug well in front.  It contained grades 1-8.  John G. Taylor also bought and donated the school house bell. 

A Board of Trustees was established consisting of three local men.  Wayne Taylor, Keene Taylor, and Joe Marcum.  These men were responsible for the hiring of teachers, keeping in coal for the pot-bellied stove, and general upkeep of the school.  Keene Taylor also built the teachers desk, which was autographed inside the drawer by each successive teacher.

In later years, the school was wired for electricity by Raymond Taylor, Wayne's son, and in 1961, Mrs. Pearl Hensley, who was the last teacher, initiated a hot lunch program.  Using a two-burner hot plate, refrigerator, and commodities provided by the Martin Co. Board of Education, she served children who otherwise may not have gotten a well balanced meal.

The school was also used as a Sunday School, Church  and voting poll.  Around 1939, the Presbyterian Church set up an outpost Sunday School there.  A Mr. Donaldson from Pikeville, KY was the first teacher.  This program was continued for around 14 years.  Some of those attending and teaching included: W. L. Goodmna, Dr. Doggett, June Gentile, Dr. Brown, Ammars, Persingers, Dr. Patterson, Flippens, Dr. Banks, Dr. Quincy, Nancy Slaven, Ann Athy, Bermans, and Alberts, among others.

It was later used as the Taylor Mission Church.  It remained standing through the '77 Flood until the construction of Corridor G buy-outs, as a reminder  of a soon-to-be-forgotten era.

Donna Taylor Goble
kmag21@hotmail.com

Herbert Adams
herb@cybrtown.com

When I started to school in 1936, we went to a little one room school for 8 grades on top of a fairly tall hill. It had one big room and two very small rooms that we called cloak  rooms (for coats) Our teacher Miss Edith always got there early and had a warm fire going in the big coal stove. She was the kindest lady  I have ever met,  she took care of all of us as if we were her own children. Our next teacher after her was a man Mr. Yarnell. He did go early and had the fire going too,  but we missed the tenderness of the lady teacher before him.The last teacher was a young Miss Edyth and our school was her first to teach. She never arrived early and many times we huddled in the open foyer to keep warm during cold days and snow storms. Some of the children walked 2-3 miles The school house would be so very cold and by the time she got the fire going we were chilled to the bone. I can remember several crying when they got so cold. Even the "big" kids would cover the smaller cold ones with their coats or bodies. There were 6 of us who walked 2 miles along a highway with little cold wind protection. I would never went to relive those days again. I used to get angry with some of my children for not being outside when the bus came and told them so many times of how I had to walk to school that they had the story memorized LOL

Lois Caywood Guffy
Byron Oklahoma.
THE GUFFY FAMILY WEB PAGE

cmark@socencom.net

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My mother, Edith Hess Kitchen, was the 10th child born into a family of 13  children. The first child was born in 1900 and the 13th child was born in 1924. The Hess children attended Clearwater School, District No. 102, Frontier County, Nebraska. It was a one-room school that was located in the corner of  Clearwater Precinct. There were five students in the school in 1929 and three 
of those students were Hess children; Edith, Martin, and Hazel. Their  teacher's name was Vilda Anderson and their father, Alexander, was the  Treasurer of the School Board. First through eighth grades were all conducted in the one room with the  recitation bench in the front near the teacher's desk. The subjects taught  were reading, penmanship, arithmetic, physiology, American history, world  geography, grammar, and spelling. Geography of Nebraska and mental arithmetic was taught, too. Part of the younger pupils' education was listening to the  older ones recite responses to questions covering their assignments. In the  rural school discipline was a very important part of the overall teaching process. Methods of discipline varied with teachers but there were times when 
pupils had to stand in the corner with one's nose in a chalk circle drawn on  the blackboard. 
The school day started at 9:00 a.m. and ended about 4:00 p.m. The Hess children walked to and from school. It would take them about 45 minutes to walk 1 1/4 miles each way.  All of the Hess children attended school through the eighth grade. It would have been necessary to travel into town to attend high school and that was too far to travel every day. 

 "Many mornings the family ate homemade bread and seperated milk gravy before my brother and I would either walk or ride a horse 2 miles to school. Our school lunch consisted, most of the time, of choke cherry or wild plum jelly or jam on homemade bread, either cookies or cake and an apple. We went to school from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. In the winter, Dad took us to school with a lumber wagon and horses. He would put straw on the bottom of the wagon and Mom would heat bricks in the oven and wrap them in newspaper. Dad put them on the straw to keep us warm. We had what was called a "bear blanket" the one side was like the black fur on a bear and Dad would wrap it around us to keep us warm. She remembers they had a beautiful big one-room school house with a basement and a furnace. The men would go down into the basement to warm up before going back home with their teams and wagons. It was so cold that even if they could start the car, the radiator probably would freeze; even when hot water was put in it. They would cover the radiator with cardboard or a blanket to keep the water in the radiator hot while the car was warming up."