Stewart Wade, who will turn 102 in a few
months, was born before commercial airline travel existed, but in
September he’ll board a jet for a trip back into his past.
Wade
plans to fly from his home in Hawaii to Sonoma County to mark the
planned completion of a restoration effort for a one-room schoolhouse in
the hills west of Healdsburg that he attended in the 1920s.
“It’s a big thing for me to think my school is still there,” Wade said last week by telephone from Kailua, Oahu.
The
133-year-old Daniels School on Mill Creek Road has slowly been restored
over the past 15 years with the help of volunteers and donations,
although there is still plenty of work to be done prior to the Sept. 17
dedication.
But the end is in sight.
“At
last we can see the end to this restoration project and we are really
looking forward to a big celebration and this open house to honor former
students and people who were so generous with donations and their
time,” said Bonnie Cussins Pitkin, 72, an alumna who spearheaded the
restoration.
One-room
schoolhouses once were common in rural areas across the country,
including Sonoma County, where a survey a century ago counted 120 of
them. Today only a handful survive.
At
Daniels School, which was built in 1883, one teacher taught academic
basics to boys and girls in grades one through eight, the typical
arrangement.
Children came
from miles around on foot or horseback, from surrounding countryside
that was successively logged for giant redwoods and mined for magnesite
before a tanbark industry took hold, along with vineyards, and prune and
apple orchards.
Former
students remember the pot belly stove they used for warmth on rainy days
and the water bucket filled from a nearby stream they all shared
because there was no running water.
They staged plays in a meadow, and their playground was in the road, because there were so few vehicles.
Wade,
a sharp-minded centenarian who still works part time as a real estate
agent and swims three times a week in the ocean, recalls how he and
other boys trapped raccoons near the school and sold them for $3 per
pelt.
Sometimes they caught skunks and
“the school stunk from that,” he said. “Kids would take guns to
school,” part of a hunting culture when it wasn’t out of the ordinary to
carry a .22 rifle in the woods. Wade went through all eight grades, from 1921 to 1929, and later graduated from Healdsburg High in 1933.
He credits his longevity to “exercise and attitude.”
“He
doesn’t let anything bother him. He’s not a Type A person,” said his
wife, Ceci, who also will attend the rededication of the school.
Pitkin attended Daniels School as a first-grader just before it closed in 1951.
She
wants local schoolchildren to take field trips to Daniels School and
learn what it was like to attend there, with refurbished desks, a piano,
even the school’s 45-star American flag which has been housed at the
Healdsburg Museum.
Pikin’s
family owned the school until donating the 16-by-26-foot building and a
half-acre around it to the Venado Historical Society, which draws its
name from the surrounding community established in the early 1900s.
In the late 1990s, efforts were launched to rehabilitate the old schoolhouse.
The
foundation, porch and awning were rebuilt, but things stalled when one
of the main organizers, the late Flora May Cootes-Caletti, began to
suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
Last year, restoration efforts
regained momentum with a $14,500 grant from the Sonoma County Landmarks
Commission, coupled with donations and volunteer work.
A new roof and windows were installed. Now cedar siding donated by Healdsburg Lumber Co. is being put up.
Mark Rogers, a Santa Rosa contractor who is donating his time on the
project, said he can use help. Skilled or semi-skilled help would be
great, but he is willing to train anyone who wants to assist.
“If
they can hold the end of a board or tape measure, or they have skills
with painting — any level of knowledge — if they want to learn, come out
and do that,” he said.
He said the building still needs to be weather-proofed, along with electrical work, insulation and dry wall.
Regardless of whether all the work gets completed by then, Pitkin vowed the Sept. 17 celebration will go on.
“We will have the opening, whether it’s finished or not,” she said.
More information on how to volunteer or donate to the project is available at danielsschool.blogspot.com.
Link to original article in the Press Democrat:
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/5800198-181/restoration-celebration-nears-for-one-room?artslide=0
CLARK MASON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | July 3, 2016
