The wheels of the prairie schooners had scarcely stopped rolling before the thoughts of the settlers turned to schools and churches. There were trees to fell, cabins to build, and prairie to break -- enough to keep the entire family busy -- but church meetings were held whenever the circuit riders came and schools were build as soon as possible. In some communities, Sunday Schools and Methodist classes were organized, though money was scarce.

Before the Civil War, few groups could erect even humble churches. In 1853, when there were only a few families in the norther part of Ringgold County, Reverend W. C. WILLIAMS of Lorimor preached a sermon in the timber in Jefferson Township. The next year, in October, a Reverend Mr. BELL, known as an "Iron Jacket Baptist", rode up from Fairview (Denver), Missouri, to conduct a service at the house of Henry MILLER. About a year later, Mr. and Mrs. Luke SHAY found a Catholic priest waiting for them in their cabin when they returned from an expedition of settlers who, in their spring wagons, had driven a band of Indians back along the Dragoon Trace to their reservation in Kansas. This priest said the first mass in the county in the SHAY cabin.

In 1854 only one school was reported, but there may have been others held in the cabins of the settlers. According to V. G. [Valentine G.] RUBY, the first school built in the county was a log cabin with a clapboard roff, erected in 1854 on section five in Jeffersons Township. Miss Orcelia KIRKHAM, later Mrs. George ARGABRIGHT, was the teacher. Others say that the log house about 100 yards west of the TIMBY home (then SCHOOLER'S land) and less than one mile from the Missouri line was the first school, and that John CUNNINGHAM was the teacher. There is no date for this school, however. It was is certain that schools were started in a number of localities during 1855 and 1865.

Mount Ayr's first school consisted of a subscription term of two months held in the fall of 1855 in a house belonging to Judge HAGANS. The next year Ith BEALL taught for three months in a school built by Judge HAGANS and Barton DUNNING.

Mount Ayr followed the common practice of hiring a man for the winter term when the bigger boys were in school, and a woman for the spring and summer term. Charlotte SWAN taught the spring term, following Mr. BEALL, and these two continued to teach until they were married and gave up the work. Soon after their marriage, BEALL was made deputy recorder. Later he established the Ringgold Record.

Other schools held during 1856 were the summer classes that A. FOSTER taught in a log house on Silas TEDROW'S land in Lotts Creek Township, and the term held at Marshalltown in Washington Township. The following year there were a few families in other parts of the county, and a summer term was taught by Isabell POOR in an old log house in Clinton Township. Miss Sophia ROBINSON taught in the eastern part of the county in one half of Jacob SMITH'S log cabin, near John ARCHIBALD'S (sic, should be ARCHBOLD) home. In the summer of 1858 "Mother" TALLEY (Mrs. ADAM) taught 12 children in the first school in Grant Township, in a log house on her husband's land, and received a salary of $10 a month. In 1859, after the Luke SHAYS had moved into a frame house, SHAY donated his first log home to the district for a school.

Irish Catholics in the neighborhood of Maloy used the parlor of the SHAY home for a chapel until, in 1875, one [Saint Mary's] was built a fourth of a mile north of Maloy. SHAY donated the cost of erecting it.

In the winter of 1868, Rollie K. BROOKS, a returned soldier, taught the Clipper school in Middle Fork Township. School was lively and had its humorous side while BROOKS taught. One day, curiosity getting the best of them, the pupils asked him what the treat was to be on closing day at the end of the term. BROOKS told them without ceremony that he had no intention of treating them. The next morning he found himself locked out of school with the treat that he'd not get in until he agreed to treat. When BROOKS pretended to go home, the boys opened the door and ran out. Then, turning quickly, he got in. The boys waylaid him on the way home, however, and threatened to duck him in the creek if he did not promise to treat them. The creek was very cold, and BROOKS promised.

School was held under all sorts of conditions during 1869 and 1870. Thomas A. STEVENSON began teaching in the fall of 1869, in a log shanty at Eugene, part of which was used as a granary. Among his 13 pupils was a former Negro slave, past 21, who wanted to learn to read. As was often the case, STEVENSON used teaching as a stepping stone to gain a foothold in the county. He later purchased a farm and bred Chester White hogs. He served as county supervisor from 1881 to 1883, then was postmaster at Eugene for five years.

Folks in Liberty Township decided to erect a church 1874 on a site donated by the heirs of the James A. DRAKE estate. Building material had to be hauled long distance, and little money was available. The people, however, gathered large boulders for the foundation and donated timber for the foundation sills. A widow, a Mrs. CALFEE, gave an oak tree that made a 40-foot sill. Those who could not give money or material hauled logs to the sawmill, lime from a kiln in Decatur County, or shingles and lumber for the building from Leon. Others hammered and sawed and helped to put up the structure. When the little church on the hill was completed it was free of debt, and Elder TODD dedicated it High Point Methodist Church. For years this little church in the grove was open during wintry blasts and and summer head for church and Sunday School. S. L. THOMPSON, in the Mount Ayr Record News, April 21, 1914, said, "Those of us who were boys when the church was being built are now men with silvery hair. . . ." High Point Church "has now become one of the old landmarks of the early settlement of Ringgold County . . . The church stands as a monument ot the memory of the loyal, hardy settlers of the surrounding country."

Another early church was the Palestine United Brethren Church erected three miles south of Delphos. This was one of the rural churches that did not long survive the coming of the automobile. The church was closed in 1918 and the members transferred to the Redding Church.

Many of the churches depended entirely on circuit riding clergymen for their services. These men sought out the settlements, following faint trails across the prairie to reach their scattered congregations.

Camp meetings thrived in the southern part of the county from the 1870's until about 1910, and the fervor and excitement of these meetings made a welcome break in the humdrum of farm life. According to J. E. HOLDEN, the meetings were held annually in the pasture of the Isaac MARSHALL farm in Middle Fork Township from 1872 to 1875. Tent meetings drew large crowds and raised religious fervor to a high point. The stronger the evangelist's oratory, the larger, of course, were his crowds. In later years, tent meetings were held on the Luther DENNIS farm. One of these, recalled by old timers in Middle Fork Township, was held in 1901 on a beautiful 40-acre tract of ground bought by John BUSH for religious purposes, but used also for grazing. Large walnut and other native trees grew in this grove along Middle Fork Creek, and here Mrs. Anna DAVIS, evangelist of the Evangelical church, conducted tent meetings in August. The attendance and conversions prompted a similar series the following summer, but these were held across the river on a hillside. The singing of hymns could be heard two miles away.

Four churches had been erected at Mount Ayr before most of the villages in the county existed. The Methodists built the first church [Mt. Zion Methodist Espicopal Church] there in 1869, and they were followed by the United Presbyterians in 1870, the Baptists in 1873, the Old Presbyterians in 1875, and the Christians in 1882.

In 1895 there were 25 churches in the county but some of the smaller rural churches had already been absorbed into others. Of the newer towns, Kellerton held services in a schoolhouse. The Christian church at Tingley, built in 1882, was the first in the groups of towns platted on sites along the railroad. In the following year the Baptists built a church at Delphos, the Catholics at Kellerton, the United Brethren at Beaconsfield, and the Evangelists at Wirt (Ellston).

In 1875 Reverend William BROWN, pastor of the United Presbyterian church at Mount Ayr, established a mission church at Eugene. In the succeeding years others erected churches in the villages, and by 1895 each village had two or three churches. The evangelistic spirit abroad in the county prompted four young women to dedicate their lives to missionary service in foregin countries. Josephine STAHL went to Darjeeling, India, Helen GALLOWAY to Chung King, China, Lydia WILKINSON to Foo Chow, China, and Fannie PERKINS to Rangoon, Burma.

During the 1870's some of the pupils who had finished their schooling began to teach in the rural schools. Rachel BARCHUS, who returned from Mount Ayr to her fahter's farm in Benton Township when she had completed her school work, heard of a vacany in a school six miles from her home. Her father had no horses, but his oxen were trained to the saddle. So she saddled an ox and set out to interview the school director. As she rode along, harveters in the fields whooped and shouted and waved at her so much that she stopped on the way at a neighbor's, reluctant to go on. The neighbor, a Mrs. PROCTOR, then saddled a horse for her. Rachel got the school, but the story of her ox ride was published in the Mount Ayr Record and several other newspapers. She made a success of her teaching job, however, and never had any trouble in getting another school.

There were nine rural schools in Middle Fork Township in 1872. The first in the township was probably organized soon after June 6, 1861, when the first school levy was made on the county. One of the early schools mentioned is at Gill, but perhaps the best known in the township as Rose Hill, built in 1872, in which religious services were held for more than a dozen years.

Before 1872, when county superintendent of schools R. E. [Robert F.] ASKREN called the teachers in the county together for the first county institute, each was practically a law unto himself as far as cirriculum and grading were concerned. ASKREN asked those attending the institute to bring slates, pencils, and McGuffey's Fifth Reader. Less than 50 teachers attended the session, conducted by Professor PIPER, superintendent of Delaware County Schools, but this was the beginning of improvement.

A few years later this institute developed into an annual four-week summer Normal which continued until 1900. During the year following the first institute, there were 2,301 pupils enrolled in the 90 schools, only one of which was a log building. Eleven years before, only 36 school buildings had been reported, and ten of those were of logs.

The school was the social center of the community from the beginning, and in the latter 1890's the debates were held in schoolhouses drew crowds who willingly listened, often until nearly midnight, while the neighbors who had worked with them in the fields during the day debated such questions as: "Resolved, that our Government is in more danger of of dissolution from political than religious cause." Do-re-mi singing schools attracted the younger crowds, who needed only the correct pitch of a tuning fork to set them off on a round of old favorites.

Sometimes there were tragic happenings in the rural schools. School was in session at Mogul school in 1887 when lightning struck it, killing one of the Mogul girls instantly and injuring another, Cora EPHLAND, and the teacher, Mercy CALFEE. The injured were taken to their homes immediately and a neighbor started to Mount Ayr for Dr. MERRILL. By the time the doctor was ready to leave Mount Ayr it was so dark the man who had come for him rode on horseback just ahead of his team, carrying a lantern to show the way. In spite of the doctor's efforts, Cora EPHLAND died during the night. Miss CALFEE was permanently deafened.

School directors, teachers, pupils, and parents over the county were stirred in 1880 and 1881 when the salesmen of the Appleton texts made Ringgold County a battlefield in the effort to persuade various townships school boards to replace the McGuffey Readers, used since the first schools had been established. McGuffey salesmen battled to hold their ground.

Kyle JONES, in his thesis, The History of Education in Ringgold County, says, "The contest became very spirited. The Appleton men had been at work in the county for several months during the fall of 1880 and had succeeded in getting their books adopted in several townships. During the winter of 1880 the feud smoldered and burst into flame again in the spring of 1881. The entire county seems to have split into two factions over the question, which was put to a general vote in several of the districts. Rumors were rampant, and each side marshalled its supporters as for a matter of major importance . . . On good authority, according to the newspaper articles, it was said that Appleton agents offered 50 cents each for votes. In the Mount Ayr district McGuffey won the day by a vote of 182 to 57 for Appleton. In January 1881 the Ringgold Record thought the school war had ended, with the result that Appleton's had succeeded in getting their books introducted in all except four townships. It stated, though, "The Record has no choice, but believes that one kind ought to be in use all over the county, as the teachers shift about from one district to another, and could do better work if they were not compelled to teach from different authors." In March, however, the Record reported, "The school war is revived again. It appeared to be about like the stock market in Wall Street, first one side up to the top, and then the other. Now, the McGuffey men are ahead."

At a township meeting at the Maloy schoolhouse, only those who resided in the district were allowed to speak concerning the matter of textbooks, and McGuffey won. At a general vote, the people in Benton Township voted for McGuffey's although Appleton and Company held a contract with the township to furnish them books for three years. According to reports in the series of contests, McGuffey remained supreme.

In 1884, 100 rural schools were reported in the county, and 33 independent districts. Of these only nine were graded schools, however. One of the early pupils remarked in later years, "You graduated into the grammar school when you wore long pants." Grading was one of the county superintendent's problems during the 1890's and early 1900's. In 1884 only 1,616 out of 4,917 children of school age attended. The schoolhouses were valued at $55,980. Two hundred ninteen men and women were teaching, but salaries averaged only $34.35 for men and $26.35 for women. Usually county schools appeared before the towns were founded, and town children attended them until they were so run down and crowded that others had to be built.

Rural schools were located practically within the village sites at Kellerton and Tingley. The Kellerton district, about 1894, bonded itself for $1,700 to build a new school, and this, which had been district number one, was at once called the Kellerton school although it was never officially named. The Tingley Center School at the east edge of the village continued until 1885. Then the school board put up a new building which, according to J. L. GALLOWAY, had such fine proportions that it was used as a model for several other school buildings. Redding school was opened in a rented building, but a building was erected for it in 1887, and two years later a two-story, three-room schoolhouse was built on the same site and served until 1915.

One of the first schools to establish a substantial library was at Knowlton. This little villiage had its greatest period of affluence from 1900 to 1910.

Especially during the 1890's and 1900's, box socials, held in the schoolhouses all over the county, were popular not only as entertainment but as a means of raising money to buy globes, charts, blackboards, or maps for the schools. Box socials brought in an atonishing revenue at times especially if two contenders for the favor of one young lady's lucheon box were bidding against each other. At a "social" held at Elwood school in 1907, one young man, the victor in such a contest, paid $46.00 for a cake!

The name "box social" comes, of course, from the prepartation of box lunches by the school girls or young ladies of the town, each box to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Crowds of people would attend to participate in the fun, or watch the good-natured local rivalry among the bidders who were expected to eat the contents of the box in the company with the girl who had prepared it.

In spite of the saying, "Fancy box, plain girl", and "Too much time spent on the outside, not enough on the inside", great care was taken in fixing and wrapping the lunches. Crepe paper, streamers, or ribbons in every color of the rainbow were tied and looped attractively to entice the masculine eye, for each donor hoped that her box would sell for a record sum. Nor did the contents leave much to be desired. Inside would be browned pieces of tender fried chicken or thick slices of meat loaf or home-cured, hickory-smoked ham, generous bread and butter sandsiches, hard-boiled or deviled eggs, candy, fruit, and enormous slices of cake topped with toothsome white or chocolate icing.

The crowds on the evening of the "social" would rather impatiently take part in the preliminary entertainment -- singing, home talent shows -- or a spelldown. The high pitch of excitement was reached when the auctioneer mounted his block with a choice box in his hand.

"All right, gentlemen, what am I bid for this box?" he would shout. "Don't forget it may belong to the prettiest girl in the house. Ep-ep, no signalling, please! Who'll bid 50 cents to start?" The contest was on, and although the name of the owner of each box was supposed to be a secret, those secrets were not always well-kept. When a girl's best beau started bidding, the other men took delight in bidding against him, and in that way the final sum was often run up to $10 or $15. Even so, the $46 paid by the young man at Elwood school was a record to beat anywhere.

During the second decade of the 1900's some school communities first considered the idea of consolidation. Redding voted for it in 1913, but the vote was invalid on a technicality and was cast out. In 1914 Redding erected a new school and the next year the communities concerned again voted to consolidate. In 1917 a large addition, equal to and matching the first unit, was built to provide room for the increased number of pupils.

Other consolidated schools were voted at Delphos in 1915, at Maloy in 1917, and at Beaconsfield in 1920. Ellston voted consolidation but the vote was annulled when the bonding company found a technical error in that the election had been advertised only by public notices and not in the newspapers. Consolidation lost on the second vote.

In the course of years Mount Ayr enrolled the number of pupils in the county. In 1938 this was about one-fifth of the school population. This school, however, was well started when the other village schools were just beginning Lora E. LAUGHLIN, the first graduate of the high school, later Lora LAUGHLIN RICHARDSON, was the first woman to hold the office of Ringgold County superintendent of schools.

One of the principals of the school who had much to do with the building of the school program at an early date was J. W. [John W.] WILKERSON, principal from 1886 to 1895. His influence, it is said, extended far beyond the classroom. Pupils who attended the school during that period reported that they were often deterred from mischievous plans because they remembered that WILKERSON wouldn't approve. Another person who strongly influenced the school was Adam PICKETT, principal from 1900 to 1908. Steadily growing in prominence Mount Ayr came to assume a big brotherly attitude toward the smaller high schools in the county, refusing to join an athletic league of larger schools because it would force them to give up games with other towns in the county, which were not eligible for league membership.

In 1928 the Schoolmen's Club of Ringgold County was organized. This was an outgrowth of some of the preceding countywide teachers' organizations which existed as early as 1877, and became the policy maker of the county's cooperative school affairs. In addition to its regular monthly programs, the club undertook the guidance of the county basketball tournament, county baseball tournament, county youth conference, county elementary reading and spelling contests, Iowa silent reading tests, and the county music festival.

The music fesitval was introduced to give school not large enough to enter music contests a chance to present their talents. Perhaps the germ of the idea originated in the State Music Festival first held at the University of Iowa at Iowa City in 1926. The first Ringgold County festival was held at Mount Ayr Aprill 22, 1936, in the Methodist Church. Two hundred and twenty-five musicians from the ten high schools of the county took part in the boys' glee club, girls' club, and mixed chorus singing. Guest directors conducted the choruses. In 1936, when 500 pupils took part, the county grade school chorus, the juniro band, and the advanced all-county band were introduced.

The rural grade school chorus was trained according to Dr. C. A. FULLERTON'S plan, nationally known as the "Iowa Plan." Dr. FULLERTON, of Iowa State Teachers College, devised this means of teaching music to the children in rural schools through the use of phonograph records. Professor FULLERTON first collected the songs from all parts of the world and then had nationally known musicians record them. The children learned them from listening to the records, and each child above the third grade was tested with the phonograph. When he could sing the ten songs selected by his county, he became a member of the county chorus. In Ringgold County in 1937, 300 grade school children sang under Professor FULLERTON'S personal direction.

At Beaconsfield the school sponsored a ten-cent weekly movie throughout the vacation period, a highly successful ventur. The county fans have always followed their basketball teams with pride. In 1930 the "Irish" at Maloy won their way to the State basketball tournament at Des Moines, and in 1938 the Diagonal team, with "Pop" VARNER as coach, were State champions. For seven out of eight years this team represented its section in the State tournament at Des Moines.

Back to Ringgold County History, 1942 Index

Ringgold County Iowa History The Iowa Writers' Program
Of the Work Projects Administration. Pp. 17-25. 1942.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, January of 2011