Warner School Was in Operation from 1881 Until 1942
Chillicothe Constitution Tribune, January 4, 1955.

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Warner School Was in Operation from 1881 Until 1942

Earlier It Was Yahns School in Another Part of District 85.

by Mrs. Luther Boone, Wheeling, Missouri

reprinted with the permission of the Chillicothe Constitution Tribune

The first school in District 85 of Monroe township was called the Yahns school.  It was located in the eastern part of the district, north and east of the present site.

The last three teachers at the Yahns school were Betty (Smith) Wells, Lewis Chapman and Dick Morgan.

The school site was moved to the Henry Wagner farm in 1881 that it might be more centrally located.  Mr. Warner came from Indiana in 1869 and settled on the 160 acres of land in District 85.  He gave the acre of land for the school site which was named for him.  His two eldest children, Dan and Minnie, attended the Yahns school.  The four younger children, Noah, Frank, Daisy and Luna, attended Warner.  His son, Frank, now lives on the home place, across the road west from the schoolhouse.  It was he, who furnished the information for the Warner school history.  Its earliest records were burned in a fire which destroyed the home of John Robinson, then clerk of the district.

The school house, which still stands, is two miles west and one-fourth mile north of Ludlow, in Monroe township, Section 17--District 85.

Frank Warner started to Warner school in 1881, at the age of 6, having previously attended one-half term at Yahns.  Mr. Warner and his brother, Noah, are the oldest living pupils of the school.

Salaries of the school's early teachers were around $35 per month.  The school year was divided into five months of winter and three months of spring.

The schoolhouse is a frame building facing the west with two main entrance doors and three windows on both the north and south sides.  In the early years, it was heated by a box-type wood-burning stove.  Coal oil lamps were used for light.  Water was carried from a spring nearby.

Games played included blackman, handy-over, dare base and wood tag.

Slates, paper, pen and pencils were used exclusively for written work, since there were no blackboards.

The school's first teacher was Dick Morgan.  Other teachers named were Loll Morgan, Emma Dietrich, Perry Borders, Cora (Shuman) Skinner, and Delbert Culling.  Around 40 pupils were enrolled during the early years of the school.

Two of the directors serving the year the school house was built were Alec Beamer and Alfred Hamblin.

Some of the early patrons of the school were August Yahns, David Wilson, Alec Beamer, Alfred Hamblin, Sam Burry, Henry Warner, Jess Adams, Billy Dale and John Jarvis.

Community activities at the school included basketball dinners, literary and debating societies, spelling matches, church and Sunday school services.

Mrs. Delber Else of Ludlow, who started to Warner in 1903, gave some information about the school's later history.  She was Miss Levah Hatchitt.  Her first teacher was Inez Miller.  Other teachers she recalled were John Davis, Hazel Kapley and Trixie Marker.

Games played when she attended included baseball, darebase, black man, drop-the-handkerchief, post office, fox and Geese.

She studied Jones' Readers, Milne's arithmetic, Reed & Kellog's grammar, spelling, history, physiology and geography.

There are seven trees on the school ground, and there were two barns for horses, one barn for the boys and one for the girls, and a coal house, which was used as a playhouse in the spring.

After attending Warner for five terms, Mrs. Else finished her schooling at Ludlow, graduating from high school there, then attending Kidder Institute.

Hours which she attained at the University of Chicago were later transferred to the Chicago School of Massage.  She was graduated from the latter institution Jan 6, 1948.  In addition she has 250 hours of credit in practical nursing from Research hospital in Kansas City.  Mrs. Else is now a practitioner in her home at Ludlow.

She remembers, at one close-of-school entertainment, having recited with Elsie Fitzpatrick the following poem, "Children's Heads Are Hollow:"  It was said as fast as the child could possibly pronounce it:

Ram it in, cram it in, children's heads are hollow;

Slam it in, jam it in, still there's more to follow;

Hygiene and History, Astronomic Mystery,

Algebra, Histology, Latin, Etymology, Botany, Geometry, Greek and Trigonometry,

Ram it in, cram it in, children's heads are hollow;

Rap it in, tap it in, what are teachers paid for?

Bang it in, slam it in, what are children made for?

Ancient Archeology, Aryan Philography,

Prosidies, Zoology, Physics, Clinictology, Calculus, Mathematics, Rhetoric and Hydrostatics,

Hoax it in, coax it in, children's heads are hollow.

Scold it in, mold it in, all that they can swallow;

Fold it in, hold it in, still there's more to follow;

Faces pinched and sad and pale, 

Tell the same undying tale.

Tell of moments robbed from sleep,

Meals untasted, studys deep;

Those who've passed the furnace through,

With aching brow will tell to you,

How the teacher crammed it in, rammed it in, jammed it in,

Crunched it in, punched it in, rubbed it in, slapped it in,

Pressed it in, caressed it in, rapped it in, slapped it in,

When children's heads were hollow.

 

Warner school closed in 1942.  The last teacher was Ethyline Morse.  She lived in Ludlow and drove to school.  Her salary was $50 per month.  Directors at that time were Elmer Cruse, Charles Cromack, Fred Wilson, clerk, and Clinton Warner.

Names of the pupils attending the last term of school were Grace Marie Cruse, Donnie Cruse, Charles Lee Cromack, Lucille Cox, Glennie Silkwood and Jackie Silkwood.

 

 

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