Building Red Brick Schoolhouses

The construction of the little red brick schoolhouses in Lorain County was handled pretty much like it is now, with the first step being the solicitation of bids from contractors.

Below are several clippings inviting contractors to submit proposals for the building of brick school houses in Lorain County. The first two listings are from July 1873, for the building of a school in Sub District 3 and Sub District 6 in Sheffield Township.

From the Elyria Independent Democrat, July 9, 1873

From the Elyria Independent Democrat, July 30, 1873

This listing from August 21, 1879 is also for Sheffield Township. This school was to be built in Sub District No. 7.

Elyria Republican, August 21, 1879

On the 1896 Sheffield Township map below, I've indicated where a single school was located in each of the three Sub Districts mentioned in the ads. 

And finally, here is an ad that ran in the Elyria Republican on June 24, 1886 soliciting proposals for the building of a brick schoolhouse in Sub-District No. 7 in Carlisle Township.

Two Little Red Brick Schoolhouse Teachers Retire – 1950s

That's Mrs. Eppley in the back row on the far right, in front of the old
red brick schoolhouse that stood on the NE corner of Meister and Leavitt Roads.

Near the bottom of yesterday's blog post about Amherst Township one-room schoolhouses, guest blogger Rick Kurish made an interesting observation. 

"Not that I’m old or anything," he noted, "but I remember Mrs. Eppley, the teacher shown in your photo of the old Meister Road school. When I was in grade school in Amherst, she was still teaching at the old Central School that I attended!"

Mrs. Eppley's teaching career started at that one-room red brick schoolhouse. (I did a 5-part series on it starting back here.)

The red-brick schoolhouse at Meister and Leavitt Ads

A nice profile of her that appeared in the Lorain Journal on May 12, 1955 near the time of her retirement tells the story.

The article noted, "Mrs. Eppley started her career in January 1910 in the little red brick schoolhouse where the black river fire station now stands. It had been closed 11 years and had become a wildlife habitat, including plenty of snakes. Snakes and children are intimately associated in her memory with the two and one half years she spent there."

The article also mentions two other one-room schools at which she taught, "the school at Foster Park, now remodeled into the Old Stone Villa," and one at Ormsby's Corners in Amherst Township, which was "in the shadow of the new turnpike" and "is now a dwelling."

Mrs. Eppley also made the front page of the Amherst News -Times on May 13, 1955. The story provides a much more detailed account of her life and career.

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Meanwhile, Avon Lake also bid farewell to a longtime teacher who also taught in a little red brick schoolhouse. The January 11, 1952 Lorain Journal had the story of Mrs. Edith Diedrich, who taught at the one-room school located at the corner of Lake and Moore Roads. The article also notes, "At that time there were three other red brick school buildings in the village – one at Walker and Avon Belden Roads, one on Walker Road east of Lear Road and now occupied by the local American Legion Post and the other on Lake Road opposite Jaycox Road."

Both Mrs. Eppley and Mrs. Diedrich were dedicated teachers with careers bridging two very different eras of public education. They had a unique ringside seat for the evolution of the modern school.

Will a longtime teacher retiring today wax nostalgic about teaching in the pre-internet and pre-cell phone era?

Rick Kurish Looks at Amherst Twp. Schoolhouses

I have a few posts scheduled for this week dealing with one-room schoolhouses, and I thought I'd lead off with a post that is – to put it in school terms – tardy.

Longtime blog contributor Rick Kurish sent me this reminisce eight years ago. It's a look at a few of the well-known former one-room schoolhouses that had served Amherst Township. As he notes, the photos are courtesy of two publications: Amherst Reflections and Quarry Town. 

(I'd been saving Rick's material to use as part of a multi-post series on one-room schoolhouses that I never got around to researching. But like many a teacher said: "Time's up!" So I'm posting it now and asking Rick's forgiveness for the delay.)

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Amherst Township Schoolhouses

By Rick Kurish

Ever since I was a kid in Amherst I have been intrigued by the old township schoolhouses scattered around Amherst Township. 

I don’t know if it was part of the requirement for contractors building the schools in Amherst Township or not, but the schools in Amherst Township all seem to be of sandstone construction. As a consequence, the buildings were extremely sturdy, and somewhat esthetically appealing. This combination of factors probably accounts for the continued existence of many of the buildings today. 

I have attached a few pictures from the publications “Amherst Reflections” and "Quarry Town” which are rather typical representations of the buildings. 

The first two photos show an old schoolhouse located on Milan Avenue. 

During my childhood, the building served as the Hickory Tree Grange, and the building is shown as it existed in the 1950s and 1960s. The second photo shows the building, restored as an historical schoolhouse at the Amherst Sandstone Museum Center. The building still sits where it was originally built. 

The next two photos show a schoolhouse that was originally located on Spring Street in Amherst. 

The first photo shows it had been converted into a home and it was still on Spring Street. The Amherst hospital bought the land to expand their parking lot so the building was moved to the Sandstone museum Center where it was again made into a chapel (as shown in the second photo). 

I have also included a photo of the old schoolhouse at Whiskeyville, which I believe was demolished or removed when Rt. 58 was widened around 1960. 

There are at least three other old sandstone schools still standing in Amherst Township that I am aware of. Two are residences: one at the corner of Rt. 113 and Bechtel Road, and the other on Middle Ridge Road between Rt. 58 and Pyle - South Amherst Road. 

Former school at 113 and Bechtel Road

Former school on Middle Ridge

An additional old sandstone school, also on Middle Ridge Road is familiar as the home of the Workshop Players. 

Interestingly, I have somewhere a picture of the older wooden schoolhouse that stood on that site, When the sandstone structure was built, the wooden structure was moved to a farm a few hundred feet west, where I believe it still exists. 

Things I haven’t thought about for a long time that were triggered by your blog. By the way, not that I’m old or anything, but I remember Mrs. Eppley, the teacher shown in your photo of the old Meister Road school. When I was in grade school in Amherst she was still teaching at the old Central School that I attended!

Kmart's Raccoon Mascot - Sept. 1975

Did you know that Kmart once had a cartoon raccoon mascot for their 'Building Materials' advertisements?

I didn't either. But there he was, wearing a painters cap emblazoned with a large 'K,' in several Kmart ads during the summer of 1975. 

July 10, 1975

August 7, 1975

Sept. 4, 1975

Why a raccoon and not a beaver – nature's bucktoothed construction expert? I have no idea.

Nevertheless, I was curious how long this ring-tailed varmint was used by Kmart in its ads. So I did a Google search – only to be told by Google's AI Overview that I was apparently cracking up. Read what it said for yourself.

"The raccoon mascot and connection to Kmart is a widespread misconception, and the two are not related," it says. Widespread indeed.

"The idea of a Kmart raccoon mascot is an example of a '"mandela effect," where a large number of people collectively misremember the same fact," it says.

A large number of people? I'm probably the only person on Planet Earth thinking about this.

Harrumph.

9/11 Anniversary

For today, the 24th anniversary of September 11th, I decided to post some front pages from the day after the horrific event.

It's a sad reminder of the terror we all felt that day, and the days that followed.

A few of us at work were looking back on the day it happened, and where we were and what we were doing.

I remember listening to the Cleveland big band radio station at work, and the announcer cutting in to say that a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers. That's about all he said, and it was stated so matter-of-factly that I thought that it had been just someone in a Cessna or something. An accident.

When the second plane struck, and the announcement (without details) came over the radio, then we knew something was going on – and proceeded to the company's hospitality room, where there was a working TV. Everyone was in shock at what they saw.

After a little while, I decided to call my parents, just to check on them. When Mom answered, I remarked as to how it was all so unbelievable what was happening, and asked her what she thought was going on.

Mom answered, "What are you talking about?" Mom and Dad didn't have their TV on. They had no idea what was unfolding in New York, Washington D. C. or Pennsylvania. I told her to turn on her TV, and to be ready for a shock.

My employer at that time let all the employees out early that day, and I remember driving home nervously. It was a very unsettling feeling for a few days until it was apparent that the attacks had concluded.

Since it was more than 20 years ago, 9/11 often seems to have lost its significance to many. It seems so long ago; a whole generation has grown up that weren't even born yet when it happened. 

It's probably like my hearing about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor when I was a kid. It seemed like ancient history; after all, Pearl Harbor happened 18 years before I was born.

Now I know otherwise. 

I hope we never forget the people who lost their lives on 9/11, and how – for a little while at least – we were united as a country.

On Area Movie Screens – Sept. 7, 1955

Seventy years ago this was the movie and entertainment page of the Lorain Journal on September 7, 1955. It's an odd assortment, that's for sure. 

Of course, the movie that leaps out at you is No Greater Sin (1941), showing at the Tower Drive-In on Lake Avenue. While the ad layout reminds me of one of those Dr. Silkini horror shows, the movie was apparently a drama about the dangers of venereal disease – hardly the kind of jolly drive-in movie fare that I'd like to see. 

No Greater Sin was coupled with a film showing triplets being born, so I probably would have put down my box of Sno-Caps and reached for a barf bag.

Another disappointment on the movie page: no Bowery Boys! Instead, we get Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in You're Never Too Young. 

I was born too late to see Martin & Lewis as a team, but I remember that Jerry Lewis epitomized comedy to many of us growing up in the 1960s. But one of the few Jerry Lewis flicks I remember seeing at the movies was The Nutty Professor (at the Lorain Drive-in).

There's not too many Westerns on the page. One good one is James Stewart in Bend of the River at the Grove Theater. 

It's one of Stewart's collaborations with director Anthony Mann, so you know it's good. But poor Arthur Kennedy once again has to play a wretched, weaselly jerk – his trademark role. (Watch for a young Harry Morgan – Dragnet's Officer Bill Gannon – in the trailer, playing a roughneck, about 56 seconds in.

Another good Western playing on the screen at that time was Randolph Scott in Ten Wanted Men. 

I've come to appreciate Randolph Scott as a Western star, since his movies seem to play all the time on GRIT and OUTLAW. He's kind of funny in that his cowboy hat always has that little chin strap. But he's in one of my favorite movies, Ride the High Country with Joel McCrea.

Elsewhere on that Journal page, we get ads for Musicarnival, Tedders Grill, Ben Hart's Show Bar and the Fifth Annual Lorain Home and Better Living Show at the Lorain Arena.

We also get a little cheesecake photo. I remember a Mad Magazine reprint paperback from the 1950s, in which they did a parody of a typical newspaper. Their parody page included a photo of a gal in a swimsuit sitting by a dock (very much like the one shown here), with the photo caption acknowledging that she really wasn't doing anything newsworthy but the newspaper included it anyway.

Reddy's "Growing With Lorain" Ads – 1945

Back in the summer of 1945 – with the war winding down – the Ohio Public Service Company launched an interesting little series of ads. Entitled "Growing With Lorain," the ads provided a historical perspective of how the electric utility was there to share in Lorain's growth and progress.

The campaign apparently ran from July to September and shined the spotlight specifically on Broadway lighting, the YMCA, Lorain's bridges and streetcars & buses. The last ad notes, "By looking ahead and anticipating the needs of the community, The Ohio Public Service Co. is ready today to meet a steadily increasing use of electric power and light in the post war era into which we are now entering.”

I've done a few posts about Lorain's YMCA – the one that opened in 1925 and the one that replaced it on Tower Boulevard.

Gray Drug Ad – Sept. 1955

Although Top Value Stamps haven't existed since the company went out of business in the early 1980s, there are plenty of Baby Boomers who remember them. Krogers seems to have been the store that many of us remember as giving them out with purchase. 

Well, Gray Drug Stores did too. The nearly full page above from the Lorain Journal of Sept. 15, 1955 makes the announcement. At that time, there was just the Gray Drug store at the relatively new O'Neil - Sheffield Shopping Center.

Here's a copy of the 1955 catalog shown in the ad (poached from eBay).

What's interesting to me (since I'm a big fan of classic ad mascots) is the image of Toppie the Elephant in the ad. He seemed to debut in the local ads in 1955, so this is an early version of him. He's kind of bulky.

Within a year or so, Toppie would get re-designed to be a little cuter, with a more clearly defined head. Here's a detail from a 1956 ad.

And here's a magazine ad from 1960 with the Toppie design we all remember.

I'll never forget that elephant (so to speak). We had a Top Values Stamp lunch box and thermos with Toppie on it. A few years ago, a set just like ours was selling on an online auction website for $6,000.

Anyway, the page from the Lorain Journal includes an article about a neat arrangement in which students from the M. B Johnson School of Nursing (where a girl I dated in high school got her nursing degree) attended some classes at Oberlin College.

With its closing in 1987, M. B. Johnson School of Nursing joins Gray Drug Stores and Top Value Stamps as local institutions shown on this page of the Journal that aren't around any more.

Protect the School Children – 1946

School's back in session so it's a good time to post a few vintage safety ads. 

Below is one of those full-page ads with sponsors that the Lorain Journal used to run around holidays. This one appeared on August 31, 1946. 

It's pretty quaint, with well-dressed children walking to school and being protected by a friendly policeman. It reminds me of my old schoolbook On Cherry Street (which I wrote about here and here).

What's odd is that the ad only has four sponsors: three of them public utilities (gas, electric and telephone) and the other one Lake Erie Oil.

But while the ad is focused on keeping kids safe while they walk to school, another ad using the same illustration has a different message: keep the kids safe by making them ride the bus! Here's the ad for Employee Transit Lines that ran in the same edition of the Journal as the other ad.

Today, most kids ride the bus (assuming their school district has enough drivers). But I'm glad I lived in the era where, at least in Lorain, we could walk with our siblings and/or friends to a school that was strategically located only a few blocks away.

Never did see a policeman, though – just ornery patrol boys that were drunk (so to speak) with power and ready to run us in for jaywalking! Yes, it did happen.