The one room schoolhouse represents the roots of education in America, where scores of leaders learned their three Rs and in which many of "America's greatest generation" were schooled not only in academics but in the Roosevelt era topics of hygiene, nutrition, and health. For many successful souls, graduation from the first-through-eighth grade institutions marked the end of formal education and the beginning of a life as a wage earner and responsible citizen.

Too often, as the buildings were abandoned when students began being bused to city schools, they fell slowly into decay and oblivion, much like the majestic barns that once dotted the rural landscape.

Luckily for the Hardy Road neighborhood in rural Henry, off Highway 140 between McKenzie and Como, renovation of the Liberty IV School was recently completed and is being bequeathed to the community on behalf of its grateful owners, Tammy and Phillip Pilcher.

The restored school retains most of its original wood siding and one original window.

"We are giving the school and two acres to the Liberty IV community," announces Tammy, sitting with Phillip and construction manager Butch Parkins at a long table, draped in a red tablecloth, that sits along one side of the sparkling new classroom. The Pilchers will be trustees with an elected board of directors while they and Butch will manage the facility.

For years, Tammy had looked with vicarious longing at the stalwart shell of the former "Liberty IV" schoolhouse that lay just around the corner from her and Phillip's rural abode. Long used as a barn where hay was stored, its foundations were slowly buckling from the weight of time and neglect. For the former city-folks, previously from Nashville, the loss of so much Americana was too much to bear.

When the land came up for sale, the Pilchers jumped at the opportunity. Then, with the help of many in the community, they buckled down to restore the little schoolhouse as a monument to those who educated and taught there. Their plan: to give the schoolhouse back to the neighborhood that had welcomed them with open arms when they joined it in 1997.

Butch Parkins and Tammy and Phillip Pilcher are managers of the facility which will be used as a community center.

"We were accepted immediately by the community, we never felt like an outsider," says Tammy. "We wanted the community to know we very much appreciated everything they had done for us and thought this building might be a nice gathering place for family and class reunions parties; and there are a lot less than there used to be, unfortunately."

Butch, head of Parkins Construction Company in Gleason, and Rusty Reed began the reconstruction with a new roof laid on top of the original tin roof.

Early on, James Dale, whose grandfather attended the school, donated the use of his dump truck to the effort--"along with the knowledge to start it," quips Tammy, going on to say, "He was so excited and had so many ideas."

Last winter, workers tore what was left of the floor out, beginning a sporadic year of work on the building.

"The floor was pretty much just dirt and straw," says Butch, noting the only boards that had remained were the section near the walls, the middle portion having long since rotted away.

The original stage and blackboard area are focal points of the facility.

The building was leaning three feet to right and close to a foot low on the right front corner, a situation Butch corrected by tying the frame to a truck and pulling it up to level, then tying it to a tree while new beams and floor joists were installed and the front wall rebuilt.

Everything that could be salvaged--including one window frame and almost all of the original wood--was restored, rather than replaced, in order to maintain the integrity of the historical building.

As construction escalated, so did the excitement within the community.

"Each student that came by has a different memory of how it was arranged," says Tammy. The building itself yielded clues to its former construction: the wall was unpainted behind a cabinet where students once stored lunch buckets; walls bore indications of where periodic struts had created borders dividing the long room into four sections.

The schoolhouse today looks much like it did in years long past, a stage the width of the building being the focal point of the room. Two bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and a single outlet beneath the blackboard that stretches wall to wall at the back of the stage bear testimony to the advent of electricity in the area just a year or so before the school closed.

Two small, decorative stoves lend warmth and a homey appeal to the school's interior, albeit not in the same location as the original coal/wood burning stoves, which were located on a central plane at the two ends of the building, minus the stage.

By most accounts, the teachers desk was positioned beside the stove nearest the front door, and to the right of the entry was the cloakroom where an average of 34 students hung their coats after many walked up to a mile and a half or so to arrive at the school or were ferried there by horse or mule drawn wagon by their fathers. Teachers often lived with nearby families, going home only on the weekend.

As interest in the renovation grew, the schoolhouse became a mini-museum as former students and their family members donated school books used at the school, photographs, news clippings, award certificates and perfect attendance records.

Found items, like door pulls, an old bottle, and stove implements from the old school are also displayed along with period items, such as lunch tins and pails, that Tammy picked up at various sales.

One of the larger items is Learnie B. McClure's school desk, donated by her son, John Matt Baucum, as well as her ink quill and a beautifully ornate five-act play booklet entitled, "The Red-Headed Stepchild" by Charles George, with the names of which children played each role indicated in longhand beside each character's name.

Mrs. James Dale, who lives nearby, donated an old friendship quilt bearing the embroidered names of neighborhood women who made the quilt when their neighbor's home was lost in a fire.

New is the kitchen and restroom facilities added off "stage right", allowing the schoolhouse to be more readily used as a community center, and the red gingham curtains that decorate each window.

Outdoors, the boys' outhouse is still in existence as well as the cistern that lies across the road from the school.

Doyle and Odean Scott

Odean and Doyle Scott enjoy reminiscing about their old school days.

Odean Scott says he attended the school, when he was in the first through third grades, about the time a hand pump was installed, doing away with the need to draw water from the cistern.

Odean, now 62 years old, and his brother, Doyle, 68, reminisce from the "Odean Scott's Custom Cabinets" shop on Highway 140. Their teacher Miss Francis Kirkland, used to stay over at the home of Doyle's wife, Helen Owens Scott's parents, who were Estell and Roy Owens.

"I went there 'til the year before it closed," says Doyle, who transferred to Tumbling Creek School after Miss Kirkland left. He had earned a nickel a day at Liberty IV to come in early and build a fire in the old coal stoves.

"That was big money for a kid back then," he grins, enjoying his memories.

By that time, lunch pails had given way to paper bags though lunches remained as country as the boys' farm family: fried country ham, egg, and biscuit and a jar of fresh milk that the students buried in the shade behind the school every morning so it would still be cool at lunchtime.

"And I'm not talking about store bought milk," says Odean, recalling the milk could taste like wild onions or honeysuckle, depending upon what the cow had eaten.

Each grade made up a row of seats with no partitions between them, the brothers recall, allowing the teacher to watch the entire roomful of students even as she taught one class at a time throughout the day.

"And believe me, she could catch you, and she could get your attention!" declares Doyle recalling the smarting smack of her yardstick. Dean remembers Miss Kirkland used to tape the students mouths shut if they were inclined to talk. Paddles were reserved for more severe offenses.

The boys especially were given to mischief. Barefoot all summer, one boy reached through the open window while painting and painted a classmate's foot that was propped up on the desk in front of him.

The brothers and other friends worked hard over several months building a "house" of sage grass and sticks at the back of the lot before accidentally burning it down while hiding out to smoke grapevine.

"We had a heck of a fire, too," grins Doyle. "We knew we was in trouble."

That was almost as bad, and could have been worse, than the time, Dean recalls, the boys went possum hunting and brought the possum to school the next days, intending to cook it during recess. That's when they discovered the coon was still alive.

"We got into trouble more than once that day," Doyle says, having their parents to answer to when they got home. Despite their antics, he says, "We learned more than they do now."

In the winter months, it was often dark when students headed out to school in the morning and dark again by the time they got home.

School let out for two weeks every year for cotton picking and also let out for snow. Doyle recalls one year when, after a big snow, school was out for nearly a month. That's when neighborhood boys and girls rolled up one end of a big piece of tin to fashion a homemade sled. One of their number would pull riders on the sled by horse.

"When the horses got to running real good we'd unsnap the rope," says Doyle, wondering how they hadn't killed themselves as they rode over small pines.

Just before Christmas, the students would put on a play for neighborhood guests. The school would be decorated with a cedar tree harvested nearby and decorated with popcorn balls and other ornaments handcrafted at school.

Owen Baucum
 

Owen Baucum's favorite school memory is his mama's fried chocolate pies.

Liberty IV History

W.J. Hilliard and wife, Carrow, deeded the land for the school to the Henry Board of Education on October 10, 1917, apparently after the original school burned down, allowing it to be rebuilt at its present site. It is speculated that the "IV" attached to the name of the school refers to the fourth civil district of Henry County.

The board sold the property to Roy and Estell Owen for $250 on April 5, 1957, from whom it was purchased by Tammy and Phillip Pilcher.

Subjects taught, according to Tammy's research, included history, art, geography, arithmetic, health, English, writing, literature, spelling, forestry, story hour, and music. Handwashing time took 10 to 15 minutes just prior to the 20-minute lunch period. Devotional, Bible reading and singing were performed first thing every morning. The students and PTA raised money by staging plays and ice cream suppers.

Discipline included the wearing of a dunce cap as well as standing with the nose placed in the center of a circle drawn on the blackboard, in addition to corporal punishment.

In 1924, local men dug a well for the school and sometime in the 1940s a water fountain was provided by the county.

According to teachers' records, at one time the inventory included 32 double desks, one bell, one globe, one dipper, one shovel, and two maps. The treasury at the end of each year typically ranged between six and fifteen dollars.

Former Teachers During Liberty IV's Latter Years

• Mary Doran 1937-39
• Ruth Butler 1939-41
• Mary Elizabeth Travillion 1941-43
• Mary Lou Travis 1943-44
• Uva Perry 1944-45
• Elinor Hansle 1945-46
• Jewel Holland 1946-47
• Mary Lou Travis 1947-48
• Francis Kirkland 1948-50
• Edra Smith Derrington 1950-51

Restoration Crew

Members of the restoration crew included Tammy and Phillip Pilcher, Butch Parkins, Rusty Reed, David Arnold, Audrey Hiatt, Jacob Lampkins, John Moore, Timothy Gearin, Jason Hill, Barbara Moore, Alice Smith, and Sheila Stone. Tammy gives special thanks to James Dale for the use of his dump truck; Russell and Rex of Campbell's Well Drilling who provided running water to the facility; Keith Robertson and J.R. McClerkin of Backhow Services, Inc. who installed a modern septic system; Larry York and Don York of Larry York's Plumbing, who performed the indoor plumbing "so we didn't have to rebuild the outhouses," Tammy jokes; Darrell Bell and Associates of Bell Masonry, who were able to match the unevenly laid brick of the original structure; Jerry and Margie Moody of Como General Store; and Gleason Lumber Company for donating windows so, Tammy says, "we could trap most of the wasps, hornets and ladybugs inside."

Tammy also thanks neighborhood residents for their support, encouragement, family heirlooms. Many, she said, thought the building could never be restored. For more information, call Tammy at 731-243-4788.

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