The One-Room Schoolhouse at Meister and Leavitt – Part 4

So when was the Black River Township schoolhouse torn down?

An obituary for Mrs. Martha Opfer that appeared on the front page of the Lorain Journal on August 4, 1941 provided an answer.

With the heading “LORAIN PIONEER RESIDENT DIES,” the obituary noted, “Mrs. Martha Opfer, 90, a lifelong resident of Lorain and a member of one of the city’s oldest families died at 2:30 a. m. today at her home, 936 Reid-av, after an illness of one month.

“Death came to Mrs. Opfer in the house where she had lived for the last 50 years. She was born in 1851 in a log cabin on Leavitt-rd in the village then known as Charleston and attended school in the little red building at the intersection of Leavitt and Meister-rds, recently razed.

It’s impossible to know if the reporter defined ‘recently’ to be during the last few days, months or years. I meticulously checked the microfilm several times, going back to March 1941 and was unable to find any mention of the school being demolished; I did it again the other night in a last-ditch effort to find some mention of it.  At least we know that as of the beginning of August 1941, the school was gone.

Next: Is it the same school?