OCR Text |
Show Fnday, December ."- ; 4'. :. .v., "V - v. 17. 1976, THE HEIJALl), Provo. L'Uh-f- 23 Vs .... At - - .s;.4 fcfo-j- i - ' " ...r i: .? " . : ..... Jvw'.y'- oVAVvyfe- 'Nftvw-A'- i i.. 1... r ' I" - .' 1 THIS WATER COLOR version of the "New Oakland School" was painted by Hannah Phillips in 1916 when she was a second year student of art at Brigham Young University. This building housed the school from 1907 until it was disbanded in 1917 because of dwindling enrollment and the Nebo School flowers and branches of shrubs. Parents attended the festivities. The building was used for both church and school functions. Ultimately the schol moved into the new structure shown at right. STUDENTS FOSE in front of the old log school house which housed the Oakland School in Hobble Creek Canyon from 1892 to 1807. The youngsters, taught by Lizzie Elder, display May Day festoons made of wild i r': fe'aw.iwtsr.r.:;Tv?5 District's consolidation policy. The Springville Board furnished the lumber for the frame school. Labor was volunteered by residents of t!?e Hobble Creek area, mainly the Anderson, Barker, Phillips, and Mower families. The nearby coal and wood shed at left was made from scrap materials. one-roo- Oakland School in Hobble Creek Canyon volume uetails History of Py N. L. CHRISTENSEN Ever hear of the Oakland School in Hobble Creek the first period of struggle by the canyon homesteaders for formal education for their children. The "Log House Era" was ushered in when the The "Pioneer Era" began in the winter of 1886 Oakland people built a log structure on the foothill when Hannah Friel Davis taught school in one room among the scrub oak about midway between the home. A floor Clark and Kendall (Gallup) homes. This was used for of the Erastus Z. Clark three-roowas built later in the Clark granary where Mrs.' church and recreation in addition to school purposes. Davis taught in the summer of 1887 and winter of Subjects stressed were reading, penmanship, . 1888. arithmetic, geography, history, writing of short Mamie Kelly, daughter of Elizabeth Kelly, a compositions, and spelling. A "spelling bee" was .homesteader, rode horseback from the Kelly Ranch held on Fridays. to teach in 1889. Some teachers made special effort to enrich the When fire destroyed the Clark home, the family of curriculum. One, Mima Hales, states Miss Phillips,, necessity moved into the granary. Thus a school was gave emphasis to choice gems of philosophy or organized, with Mary Cox Whiting as teacher, in one poetry and "and to this day those gems are room of the Kendall home atx t a mile farther north repeated by students of that yesterday." in the canyon. In lfter years, this became known as Teaching all subjects in each grade, first through the Sadie Gallup (Mrs. William Gallup) place. About eighth, made the teacher's task exceedingly 1903 Jonah Thomas Phillips bought the place. complicated. the older and Mary Cox Whiting, wife of Edwin Whiting, taught Recreation involved everyone in 1891 at this site. Mamie Kelly, later Mrs. Nett and the teacher. A homemade ball, pupils younger were Crandail, returned and taught, 1891-9closing out board whittled into a bat, nd a "gmnie-peg- " the stock of equipment. Winter sports included rolling snow into a fort, piling up snowballs for ammunition, then staging a battle between the "North and the South." In periods of deep snow, pupils from Bartholomew Canyon usually came to school in a cutter that the Barker boys - Jesse, John, and Alma created. Jonah Thomas FMliips naa a dod sieign. "TtraLiicis arid tUDiii (.ro'nuCu into uiCc vc and listened to the sleigh bells on the harnesses as the horses plunged through snowdrifts, often as high e fences." as The homesteaders got used to snowslides. Sarah Barker Allan told of her family ber.g snowbound in Bartholomew Cnayon for weeit&. Sne remembered 32 slides from the peaks into the valley. Heat for the log school house was provided by a " stove, and Miss Phillips noted lightly 1 that a woodpile back of the building "provided fuel, 1 punishment, and recreation." The author divides the Oakland School story into the Log House three eras: the Pioneer, and the "New School House" era: 1886-189- Canyon? Since time has a way of dimming memory and obliterating facts, the story of this "one-rooschool" might have been lost to the public were it not for a small volume edited and authored by Lucy A. Phillips of Springville. The school named "Oakland" for the abundance of oak brush in the canyon operated between 1886 of and 1917. Initiated by the homesteader-pioneer- s the Hobble Creek area, it functioned independently e tenure, then for a short period in its under the Springville and Utah County school systems before the Nebo School District was established in 1915. never more than could be Its students accommodated in one room ranged through the elementary grades. They came from families over a geographical area from Kelly's Ranch (site of the present Hobble Creek golf course) north to include the left hand fork of Hobble Creek Canyon together with Pole Haven and Bartholomew Canyon. Miss Phillips, retired professor of Snow College (Ephraim), has written the history in a concise three-decad- manner yet with a warm and intimate style that captures the flavor of the times and the problems school. She could do this with unique to the both authenticity and understanding because she herself was a pupil of the school in girlhood. Her research included interviews with teacher and tiiHfnf survivor oM poriis of fTlily b!C'"nj'h!;Sl diaries and other available records. The difficulty of the research task is indicated in this sentence by the editor-autho- r early the history: "Like many other pioneers, these families were so one-roo- Note: Lucy A. Phillips received her bachelo and master' degrees at BYU. She has been a recipient of an honorary doctor's degree at Utah State Univfrsity and a distinguished service award at BYU. Snow College, where she taught many years, named a new library for her. 1907-121- 1892-190- 2, The beginning of the "New School House Era" came in the summer of 1907 when Jonah T. Phillips and his wife Rachel donated a site near Bartholomew Creek, and the Springville School District provided some, materials for a new school house. Hobble Creek residents contributed the labor. This building, "a palace by frontier standards," functioned until 1917 when the last classes of the Oakland School were held. Some phases of the curriculum were modernized and the recreation fare expanded, but few 1 .1 hook, with a limited number of copies published, is multililhed and packaged attractively ui a hardback cover. Printing and layout, under the direction of Joseph W. Crane, was accomplished at the Snow College Graphic Arts Department. Homesteading of Hobble Creek Canyon's left fork. Miss Phillips notes, was facilitated by the Homestead Act passed by Congress in 1861. The act granted ownership of a plot of 160 acres to the head of a household after he had cleared and improved the land and maintained a residence on it for Jive years. Colonization of the area comprises a chapter in the volume, which also includes several photographs, a lis! of the Oakland School teachers, "probable roster of students," remnants of class programs, census and Sunday recollections by fonnt'i School records, etc The illustrations include photon of the two school houses, a few student groups, and Uie old school bell wnich summoned students to the classroom. The bronze bell, whose clapper was lost at one point and replaced about 1902 by an iron washer suspended on slilf. heavy wire, is a valued mememto in the ,."T IT.iIIts family. r.ii nm'.i iwwm tin ni.npi ii mug 771 in the log school house and the new between life were noted. "Outstanding replacement was the one THE OLD BELL, with its original clapper lost and replaced by an iron washer, is a valued momento in the Phillips home. For years it was used to iumnion student to class in the Oakland j ... i.vT M4 I rn " n DSWrfiOWH ri r , Lp-.- il r" Hli L'i i .... r Y" - j, . " - A- -, 1 -- Jf . i i ' ... 9 nti- i.iu'M.,'it J r- 1 - . - t 5 f t V J rSx, ) O' BRIENS KEITH v i:-'- DoC " t . f. I r. V Dec. 20th, k ... 1.4. ,t.(, . k !r p-f-ei 1 - jujj!ujcri?Xu4t-'-..- a - 3-- fj p.m. 5 J I r t'SN ' '0 ,m .i;r-- 6 Jul .X - ' Sod . II- - V "jih, IT"""1'' , I i.i.......... .j. 1,,. J f ' J"'r ? .," ? 1 1 1 " .. - t it! fi ii " .. ' laht I.II.I..I.UI liiii.i-1- uueVrr i 1 . w" t h I . rrrZT..!! ... - j-- 1 rrT" . I - J ,, . ' r If II 411 r'n' - 1 - 1 '! iii. t , z r 1-E- - Py Z'j-- . nrs.- - 1. .i.'y "M' x? il.. ,v ."..- r : v .Jt Ik t ) 4 ''' w . tiOnrt J 1 1 ii " r i. A;V ZZZT - t -- ' -J - C!whi,'Di"i full Cy'e 'Hc';' . ? uomon . A.1il.lt- divn! . Sir.iiH ncrn 1 I 0 S ' , w4 V Tep Of The lino ' 1 fivt. ai. Ujin 5 13C0 South, Orem d U 1 , "Jj,; Dishwasher n Artton N'U t . . N 70 Built-i- 24 nn Igth td rz$ :jT. ! JLiUTW XUi' .. FOR THE KIDS j !tT KitchPnAid "' Sau'rdv r:-- " J ' - t J vi t. rH'it j W: x b - iw il'J H . homesteading era with the present, and closing with this nostalgic note by the author - editor: "The old tin tub, the wood - box, the water bucket are history. The call of 'the bell' is heard no more." Store Only) STGEE (Frovo t H f i ,:r-.- ' ? . " f; i r-- Ar r 1 the contrasting EE AT 0! Villi A ! II r School. SAHTA ' Lv Soak Cycle 1 pioneering for education changed as did the society that had been," recorded Miss Phillips. A concluding chapter tells of life style changes, one-roo- slates of paper and wrapping paper," Miss Phillips noted. "More with r - away; the story of and homesteading lengths. Sharing of the sparse supply of school books was a necessity, with several grades each year and one to three children in a grade. Each teacher brought something new to the school. For example Ada Brennan provided the first two books to be used for enrichment reading: Webster's "Reply to Hayne" and "Hugh Wynne" by Mitchell. And Frankie Nagle was notable in her stress of music. She also taught knitting of slippers to the girls as a rest break. The knell for Oakland School sounded in the spring of 1917 because of small enrollment and the Nebo District policy of closing schools. fJi LtJJ notable differences , . "Children had grown up, families had moved "pot-bellied- The L sleeves were clean because they were no longer used as slate rags. The scratch of graphite on the slate less often pierced the silence." Coal became a fuel for Uie stove and a coal shed and bucket became new additions to the scene, lessening the use of the ax for cutting wood into stove five-wir- engrossed with the struggle for living and so undervalued the importance of their achievements that they preserved little or no iormal wrilien record tut rioneenrtg era Koom school in I -- - & fi't" ii v'" -t - - tw i ' i ' j I - ...4 , ,,,,,, 4 ... S ; v. -- i " J l ' I ;r. 1; t s |