Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
CLAYPOOL - The Frantz family moved to rural Clay Township on March 6, 1919, when Vern Frantz decided to become a farmer after running a hardware store in town.
His son, Earl, now 91, began school at the West Wayne school, where Washington Elementary stands today. In the fall of 1919, the first West Wayne school burned. Students were transferred to a college building in Winona Lake or other facilities.
Earl attended the Wilson-Deaton one-room school, which still stands today at the corner of County Farm Road and CR 700S in Clay Township's Section 8. As a second-grader, Earl attended the brick schoolhouse, built in 1881, from Oct. 27 until the end of the 1919-1920 school season, April 3.
He is the last surviving former student to attend the structure recently resurrected by Dan and Eileen Ransbottom.
Their father took Earl, his brother, Floyd, and two other students from their CR 400S farm to school each day in a 1912 Model T Ford.
"I was an average student," Earl says of those days, "second in my class."
There were two children in second grade that year.
Class records in the Kosciusko County Historical Society reference library list Earl, then 7, as an A/B student. He studied spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic. He was marked as absent three days in February 1920.
His teacher, Sherman Deaton, also instructed three first-graders: Ilean Claise, Arshal Linton and Ethel Heazy; second-graders Earl and Paul Scott; third-grader William Blalock; fifth-grader Leroy Linton; four sixth-graders: Floyd Frantz, Harold Scott, Veryl Snoke and Dortha Kimes; and five eighth-graders: Helen Schultz, Irene Linton, Cloice Metgzer, George Kimes and Arthur Kinsey.
Of those days 84 years ago, Earl remembers that the stove was fed by coal and drinking and washing water was brought from a nearby house. The boys' outhouse was on the east side of the schoolhouse with the girls' on the west side.
The original brick boys' outhouse still stands. The Ransbottoms plan to rebuild the girls' privy.
Besides readin', writin' and 'rithmatic, Earl remembers possibly studying geography and history. He may have been absorbing the older students' lessons.
Geography and grammar were added to the third-grade curriculum, physiology was added in the fifth, history for sixth-graders, and eighth-grade boys studied agriculture. The students also were graded on deportment.
The Frantz boys returned to the rebuilt West Ward School in fall 1920.
Even on a cloudy day, the Wilson-Deaton schoolhouse interior is bright with light streaming in the building's eight tall windows. No electricity was ever provided to the building.
Earl recalls paper wads on the ceiling as clinging evidence of misbehavior. He didn't mention launching any himself.
Recess was taken outdoors on a playground devoid of equipment. Students made up their own games.
An average of 14 students attended the school during the 1919-1920 school year, probably the last year the building was used as a school, as no further records exist for the school.
Robert and Eleanor Scott purchased the property from Clay Township in 1965. During that time, an overhead door was installed at the entrance and buses were stored inside.
The Ransbottoms purchased the property from the Scott estate in 2001. It took a year to restore the building. There is a new roof. Bricks were tuck-pointed and the window panes were replaced. The original wood floor, in bad shape, was ripped out and replaced.
Larry Veasey rebuilt the entrance door from old photographs. He added a cloakroom just beyond the entrance.
The original cherry, walnut and maple wainscotting can be seen in the cloakroom. New wainscotting in that alternating trio of woods runs around the interior of the old school. A painted blackboard wraps around the walls.
Period school books lay ready for study on two rows of linked wooden desks. The teacher's desk is at the northern end of the building. In the middle of the room is a refurbished Round Oak pot-bellied stove.
White cone-shaped dunce caps occupy little chairs in a corner - just in case someone doesn't pay attention.
Prior to a 1906 county school consolidation, there were 118 one-room school houses dotting the countryside. When that consolidation was complete, there were 50 one-room school buildings still offering lessons.
A 1918 census shows four schools in Clay Township, with 291 students and 12 teachers.
The Ransbottoms had been in contact with the late Marjorie Cauffman-Mann, who also was a former Wilson-Deaton school student. At 100 she had quite a few memories of her "Golden Rule" days. She passed away a week before the Sept. 13 Historical Home Tour, when the school was a featured site.
Earl Frantz greeted visitors on that day, however. He went on to attend the original Claypool School in sixth grade. He graduated from there with his future wife, Ruth.
Earl farmed the same ground as his father. His son, Robert, lives on and works that farm today. Earl lives on a farm to the south.
In addition to Robert, the Frantzes have two daughters: Beth Murray, of Pennsylvania, and Alice Bryant, who lives in France.
Bringing the Wilson-Deaton school back to its original state was accomplished with a lot of help by Ransbottom family and friends.
Eileen Ransbottom credits her sister, Leasa Decker, with many layers of paint. Their son-in-law, Randy Johnson (married to Deb) provided a lot of elbow grease and shows a great interest in the history of the building and the community because the Wilson-Deaton school house is, really, still teaching today.
