Pleasant Plain School, No. 51

Submitted By Helen Mann Clausen, Teacher, 1929-1932

(also known as Haseltine School) Carr Creek Township, Mitchell County, Kansas

An acre of ground was deeded for Pleasant Plain School 5-1/2 miles south of Cawker City, Kansas, by J. H. Haseltine, and the first session of school was taught by Mr. Haseltine in their log home. The first schoolhouse was made of prairie sod blocks. The frame building was constructed in 1879 or 1880 on land adjacent to the Haseltine log home which was just south of the school site.

I began teaching in the Pleasant Plain School District No. 51 in the fall of 1929. I had a Normal Training Certificate good for two years. I had a wonderful school board. William (Bill) Haseltine was one member and a descendant of the original family. My salary the first term was $75 and $80 the last two, one of the highest in the county and considered very good money then.

By 1929 the Haseltine home was now a large cement block building and the home of Mrs. Laura Haseltine and her three sons, Don, Cliff, and Bill. They let me room and board in their home during the week, and I spent weekends with my family in Cawker City who brought me back and forth. I walked across a field every morning to get to the school.

Many of the rural schools were constructed much the same. The Pleasant Plain schoolhouse faced west with four windows on the north and south sides. The original entry room had a bench, a stone water container and wall hooks for wraps. A new entry room had been added to the building during the summer of 1929. One side as for coal, the other side for coats, overshoes, and lunch pails. Syrup tins were commonly used for lunch pails. There were several blackboards around the room. Most all the children walked to school. The family living farthest away was two miles.

The largest number of students I had was 14, but there were not always students in every grade. One year I didn't have any in first grade and only one in eighth grade. The desks were different sizes, and some were double desks seating two, others were triple for three.

We had no electricity at the school during my teaching years there and used we gasoline and kerosene lamps with mantles when necessary, but we did have a telephone. In later years when the REA (Rural Electrification Administration) came, electricity was brought into the building.

A short distance in back of the building were two outhouse toilets and an old shed that was used for coal. There was a merry-go-round on the south side of the schoolhouse. The older boys pushed and then hopped on for a fun ride for all. It was in constant need of repair and finally discarded. There was a belfry on the building my first year, but it had been removed when the 1930 term began.

In nice weather the pupils played outside. The boys played marbles sometimes and all played baseball. The older boys would bat balls and the younger children would run bases.

A late model brown enamel coal-burning stove located in the back of the room was used for heat, and it was great. Before leaving for the night I put in a bucket of coal briquettes, closed the draft, and the school room would be warm the next morning. Monday mornings, though, were a different story. I came from home earlier on Sunday and started a fire in the stove to warm the room. In cold weather I turned the top piece on the stove to the side and put on a large pan of water to heat and students put their jars of soup or vegetables on to heat for lunch. Drinking water came from a cistern, the bucket pump operated by turning the handle which brought up cups of water.

Every year in August all teachers went to Beloit, Kansas, the county seat, for a week of Teachers Institute. There were speakers and meetings for us to learn new methods and we got supplies and books for the new term.

The school day started at nine o'clock with the Pledge of Allegiance. Opening exercises were usually my reading books that I would get from the Cawker City Library. The younger ones liked "Billy Whiskers" books and all enjoyed "Heidi" and short stories. "Billy Whiskers" books were a series about a goat who traveled and the students learned geography from these stories.

The second year I taught, 1930-1931, we had a box social. The children put on a program and we made enough to buy a little phonograph and some records, a volleyball and net. The phonograph was really enjoyed and on stormy days we played marches and the children marched around the room during noon time or recess. The next summer the school was broken into and our phonograph and volleyball and net were stolen.

My third term at Pleasant Plain, 1931-1932, started out cold and damp. I started a fire in the heating stove and soon all was back to normal. I had gone to summer school at Fort Hays Teachers College and renewed my teacher's certificate for another two years. The children had grown so much over the summer and several had graduated and were starting high school. A single large graduation ceremony was held each spring in Beloit for all the county rural schools.

Friday after recess was fun time if "make-up work" was done. Some Fridays we had drawing lessons. One time we cut small pieces of colored slick pictures from magazines and pasted them on small jars for their mothers. Sometimes we played a contest game of "What and Where." I would give the name of a city, lake or place, and the students would call out the answers. The younger children learned from the answers, too.

The last day of school was a fun day. Parents brought baskets of food for lunch and report cards were given out. This was in April as rural schools had just eight months of school because the parents needed the older children to help with spring planting and other work on the farms. One year I had the mumps, so no last day of fun or dinner.

My last year at Pleasant Plain I was engaged to be married the following August, and I became a pupil learning to be a farmer's wife. The last day the parents came with the usual well-filled baskets and my mother also came as she usually did, and we all had a nice visit. This ended my teaching career.

In 1940 the school had 19 pupils and was the largest school in rural Mitchell County and other years as well it had one of the largest enrollments in the county. 211 students have been recorded as having attended Pleasant Plain. Mrs. Margaret LaDow was the last teacher in 1942-1943.

Parents were very supportive of the school, their children were always clean and neat, and I had no discipline problems.

On June 15, 1992, the school building was destroyed by a tornado just prior to being moved to Waconda Heritage Village.

Wier School - Dist. 69

Submitted by Mike Sellers

My mother and several of her brothers and sisters attended the Dist. 69 school in Mitchell Co. Her father (my grandfather - John Peters) also attended this school. Most accounts simply refer to this school as "Dist. 69 or No. 69". However, it was also known as the Wier School as the Wier family had a large ranch on whose property the school wa located. This school was located in the Saltville Township and was approximately 12 miles south of Beloit. My grandfather puchased the school and other associated out buildings after the local school district unified. In approximately 1963, my grandfather had moved all of the buildings to his farm which is 1/2 mile west and 1/2 mile north of the school's original location. Since moved in 1963, this old school has served as a garage.

Even as a garage, the school had retained a black board which entertained several of us grandchildren. My mother managed to get two of the original desks from this school. I now have one of them which my own 5th grader uses.