The Devasher School, A One Room School of Allen County Kentucky’s Past
By Susan Orange with James Stewart, Scottsville KY
On a road through the Kentucky countryside, a one room school stood on hill almost imperceptible along the tree lined background. A water pump stands guard outside and a stray hen, escaped from some anonymous coop, pecks excitedly on the grassy surface of the schoolhouse lawn. Once upon a time, the one room schoolhouse dotted rural America every few miles. They were usually the result of the community desiring a place to educate their children and a farmer donating a piece of unused and infertile land. The school was supported through tuition and was usually no more than a mile from the child’s home.
One of those schoolhouses was the Devasher School. The Devasher school stood on a country road in Allen County until the Retired Teachers Association had it moved to a permanent location next to the Allen County Middle School. I found out about this one room schoolhouse from a friend who works there, and I visited it in the springtime of this year. The door was unlocked and inside file cabinets, likely the overflow from the Middle School, filled the room pushing the antique desks and chairs into a pile at the front of the room. Vintage schoolbooks, used to teach modern children about methods of education in the past, lay on the floor collecting dust and spider eggs.
I had to do some detective work at the time to find out anything about the school. Most of my information eventually came from inquiries I posted on a Scottsville Facebook page where helpful and nostalgic members recounted memories of their parents and grandparents’ attendance, not only at the Devasher School, but of other one room schools that were prevalent not so long ago. I was even given a link to a home movie saved on YouTube that was taken when the Devasher School reopened as a living history museum in the hope that future generations would learn about the way education was experienced in the past. However, I was treated to a first-hand account of Devasher schooldays by a gentleman who attended the Devasher School and was willing to help me paint a picture of what it was like to go to a one room school in order for others to understand the formidable education children once had. Mr. James Stewart was born in Allen County Kentucky. The Stewart family were farmers who lived near the Barren River until 1962 when they had to move, and the Walnut Creek Boat Dock and Park replaced the homestead. He started attending the Devasher School when his family lived near the river and told me that he had to walk “a mile up a private road that was not in very good condition.” Stewart remembers that his teacher’s name was Miss Anna Whitney who taught him the entire seven years he went to the Devasher School. “Reading in the school was done by going up front to the little bench, called the recitation bench,” recalled Mr. Stewart, “where I and the other boys and girls would read aloud from our readers. Every morning,” he continued, “Miss Anna would start the day by reading from the Bible and then would have the children recite the Pledge of Allegiance. It seems I have no bad memories of Devasher School.” Stewart recalls his favorite subject being Arithmetic but really “enjoyed them all.” The one thing he did not like was lining up with the other students for the district nurse to give them a shot in the arm, presumably a vaccine.
Many of the games played at Devasher were the same played at other schools. There was Red Rover where you would draw a line with one group of kids on opposite sides. The children would link arms, and someone called out “Red Rover, come over” and then he would say a name out loud. That person had to try to break through the line and come over. The aim of this game was to have the most people in your line. Another popular school yard game was having teams on opposite sides of the schoolhouse. A ball is then thrown over the schoolhouse and the opposing team has to try to catch it on the fly. If they missed, they would have to take the ball around the building and try to tag someone out. Softball was also played almost every day, often cutting through woods and fields (according to James) to another school in order to have those children join in the game. Usually that school was the Cedar Springs School, about a mile from Devasher. This occurred only on Fridays when the day’s activities seemed a bit more relaxed. Rainy days were spent indoors playing musical chairs, blind man’s bluff, and drop the handkerchief. Fridays were not only spent in softball competitions but in what Mr. Stewart called a“ciphering contest.” This was an arithmetic competition between different schools. The problems varied according to age and were a real challenge.
A fond memory Mr. Stewart related to me was about his little dog who came to school with him nearly every year he attended Devasher. “My little dog came with me in all kinds of weather and if it were cold outside, he would beat his little tail on the door of the school and Miss Anna would let him in where he would lie by the coal stove all day long. “
School in those days saw ice cream suppers and cake walks. There were Box Socials where the girls would raise money for the school by selling lunches that were boxed. When the lunch sold, the girl would eat with the person who bought it. Miss Anna took her class grape hunting in the autumn through the woods around the school. As winter drew closer, big boys would scavenge for sticks to pile beside the coal stove so that Miss Anna would have something to start the fires with. Sticks also served another purpose at Devasher. Older boys often got into trouble as they are wont to do, and Mr. Stewart remembered a time when Miss Anna instructed a boy to go get himself a good switch, which he obediently did, and she artfully used on him! Stewart recalled “a Thanksgiving program we put on for our parents. It was about the first Thanksgiving with the Native American Indians. Miss Anna let three of the older boys make a bow and arrow and let us shoot those arrows for the stage out the front door! We didn’t hit anyone though.”
Considering the self-conscious and secular nature of public education today, it is a wonder when we learn that in Kentucky, seventy odd years ago, whole schools attended Revival services at local churches. In the Allen County area, according to Mr. Stewart, they always came in early October. He remembers that the entire school went to the day service of the Revival where they would walk about a mile and a half and then back again in time for the one fellow in class who had to catch the school bus home.
When I asked Mr. Stewart if the Devasher School prepared him for high school and life beyond schooling, he responded, “Yes, I do feel like Devasher School helped to prepare me to be an adult. It helped teach me morals and respect for others and how to get along with everyone and to work for what I wanted out of life… I believe those times were the best to grow up in and start a family.”
The Devasher School was re-opened as a learning center in the mid 1990’s with much celebration and optimism in the hope that it would endure as such for posterity. It is hard to watch that video where 90-year-old teachers and their aging students gathered to laud the school and share fond memories and see today how neglect and time have worn it away. The old school needs to live again, as a public museum and as a place of education, fulfilling the promise the retired teachers made all those years ago to the people of Allen County to provide a window into the past and give guidance to the future.
In 1930, a little-known newspaper was published “for and in the interest of the rural schools, entitled, The Little Red Schoolhouse. It was edited by the Rural School Improvement Society of New York State during a time when there was a growing fear that consolidation of public schools in the United States was on the verge of threatening to make the one room school obsolete. Because of this, condemnation of consolidation was widespread among country school advocates. Concerns arose that the virtues of thrift and industry, which had so hallmarked the one room school, would be lost to a “leisure class” who would pull children into a world devoid of ethics and the will of the family. Although education has opened doors for many Kentucky sons and daughters, the legacy of the Devasher School and others like it is important to remember and embrace for the future of our country. One day we may depend on the lessons of community and the Godliness once taught there. As James Stewart asserted in his conversation with me, “I wouldn’t trade my days in a one room school for any of the schools today. Devasher School taught me more than the three R’s. I could not have had a better life than the one I had with Ann (his late wife), my boys and our church family worshiping God.” Now that is a legacy worth getting to know.
