In April 1880, when B. S. Gitchel and his wife Mary took their homestead in Buckeye Valley, there was a school, taught by Wm. McCaig, but no school house in their district. The Gitchels were, in that, a step ahead of the District. Their homestead was a pre-emption and already had a small house, a barn and a well. But within the year District 49 had its school house. The 1881 report stated: "Value of school site - $10.00. Value of school house - $200." The school house was located one and one-half miles from the Gitchel residence, a long walk for little children. So Ann was taught at home and did not start to school until the fall of 1885 when S. L. (Levi) was also ready for school.
Sixty years later, in 1945, Ann wrote: "I did not go to school until Levi was old enough to go also. However, I was ready for second grade as Mother had taught me. I can very well remember the dinner pails we had. Father had put bails on tin cans, one for each."
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S. L.'s memory of his first year of school is of sliding on ice on a small pond near the school house: "Seeing the older children run and slide, I tried it. My feet went from under me and I fell forward on my face. Gus Trivelpiece, who was older and who accompanied Ann and me to school, got me onto my feet and into the school house for the teacher, Effie Scott, to take care of my bleeding nose. With a pan of cold water and her handkerchief she got me fixed up. It was a hard fall and I suffered all afternoon, and was particularly glad to get home that night."
Ann further relates: "We had one and one-half miles to school, but for only one-half mile did we go alone; an older boy, Gus (Trivelpiece) went the rest of the way with us. We could go another way and have the company of a large number of children, two of whom were of our own age. One evening we came that way, but when we were late getting home, we were reminded to come with "Gus".
Fortunately the long way to school was not a problem after the first year. December 31, 1885, my mother wrote to relatives in Michigan: "We have a new district formed. The new school house will be only one-half mile from here. Expect school in it next summer." The new school was District 97. Of the new school, Jay Gitchel wrote in 1967 in Where the Buffalo Roamed:One of the first things that I recall is trudging by my father's side as he went from our home located in the beautiful Buckeye Valley to the location where he was the carpenter building the new frame school house about one-fourth mile south and one-half mile west of our farm buildings.Ann Gitchel, who had started to school in that school house in 1885 had her first year of teaching in the same school house in 1896, but at the new location one mile farther from home. She rode one of the farm horses.
School had been held for some few years in a small building one mile farther north in the valley. There my sister Ann and my brother S. L. had begun their schooling. Sometime after the new school house was built, this small building was moved one mile farther north and again used as a school house. The two schools were thus two miles apart. Our school was known as the Buckeye School, while the other was called the Upper Buckeye School.
Jay further reminisced:At the time the new school house was being built in 1886, I was just four years old....I remember playing about the newly placed foundation, sills and floor joists, as Father worked, and a little later watching entranced as the workmen slacked lime for the plaster in a shallow pit in front of the building, and of watching the mason deftly apply the mortar....And still later, when school was keeping; of how we boys made countless darts from the waste shingles and shot them way up, clear out of sight, and even imagined we would like to wing a wild goose, if some would go honking over.The encircling prairie dominated the scene. A few houses must have been in sight from the school house, but they were small, low, unpainted, nestled into the fold of the hills. At least one was a sod house. What one saw was the sweep of the hills, and the sky, with maybe a circling hawk, or in the spring, the wild geese flying over.
...Sometimes in springtime great long strings of cattle were driven up the valley right past our school house, perhaps on their way to the Loup Valley Country, or to the Sandhill grazing country....
Nine families with eighteen children of school age were reported in the first school census from District 97, two of them being Ann and S. L. Gitchel. The school did not start during the summer as Mother had expected the previous year. On October 22, 1886, she wrote again: "Ann and S. L. will start to school the first of November." From that 1886 opening of the school until 1900, when the family moved from the district, there were from two up to five Gitchel children enrolled in the Buckeye Valley School, District 97.
Mother wrote on January 14, 1893: "The five oldest children go to school. Ann is taller than I. The teacher says she can get a certificate to teach school after this term." Ann, however, did not try to teach in 1894, but went to high school in Gibbon.
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The five Gitchell children going to school in 1893 were Ann, S. L., J. W., Alberta and Leroy. Emma started in 1894, the year Ann left for high school. There were still five in country school until 1896 when S. L. also left for high school, and Chloe was not ready for school until 1898. There may have then again been five Gitchels in District 97 school, but in 1899 J. W. and Alberta left for high school in Kearney, leaving only three, Emma, Leroy and Chloe in Buckeye Valley School. Ann had returned as teacher, in District 49 in 1896, and in District 97 in 1897. S. L. also taught in the home school in 1899. The two youngest children, Clinton and I, were too young for school in 1900 when the family moved from the district. We never went to school in District 97, but with all those "old grads" in the family, we grew up on stories of Buckeye Valley and its school.
Mother told a story of S. L. when quite a little fellow, perhaps in his first year in school. One evening he came swaggering home from school boasting, "Ma, the teacher licked me today but it didn't hurt a bit," Mother's reply was, "No? But weren't you ashamed?" That deflated the young rebel. He burst into tears.
Ann told her own story. There was open prairie all about the school and in spring, clumps of wild garlic. One recess the children took to digging and eating. When the bell rang and the children re-assembled in the school house, their combined breath was overwhelming. The teacher flung open door and windows and forbade any more gourmet foraging.
By Emma's time the school had become so large that the children were crowded, three to the old-fashioned double desks. Being the youngest of her trio, Emma was consigned to the middle position. Her seat partners marked out the boundaries, and woe to Emma if her slate or even a finger got out of the bounds. Emma was as good as the boys at "Skinning-the-cat" at the hitching rack.
In the early days school enrollments were large; the terms were short. In Where the Buffalo Roamed, E. S. Hill said of the Riverdale School, District 15, founded in 1871: "At first school was held for only a few months each year. They would hire a teacher and hold school until the tax money ran out. One year they failed to levy a tax and that year there was no school." I do not believe District 97, founded fifteen years later, ever suffered such an embarrassment, but terms were short, held mostly in winter months.
Ann wrote: "March 6, 1888. ...Our school is out and the teacher gave us all presents, and we had speaking but there was not a very large crowd there." And on December 27, 1889: "S. L., J. W., Alberta and I are going to school. It was opened (for) four weeks.
From a letter of my mother's dated November 1, 1891: "School will not begin until the seventh of December so the boys can help pick the corn...."
My father, B. S. Gitchel, on February 3, 1898, wrote: "Ann is teaching. She taught a three-months term twelve miles from home. (Fort Island School, District 40). Will go back in the spring and teach another three months. She is teaching in our district this winter."
Of the teachers at District 97, Jay Gitchel wrote: "A Mrs. Willis was my first teacher. Others who taught there later were Effie Scott, Mamie Robb, Mr. Tucker, Mr. Pigman." Others still later were Ann Gitchel, George Webster and S. L. Gitchel. Frequently in the family letters the Gitchel children claim to have a good school. Mrs. Willis especially was praised as a teacher. Jay Gitchel remembered:Mrs. Willis opened school with the Lord's Prayer and short Bible readings. Sometimes she took the children to her home, one-fourth mile away, to practice singing while she played the organ. One song, "Yield Not to Temptation," made a deep impression on all of us. Mrs. Willis also drilled us all in speaking. Later when Frank (Willis) and I were in Kearney High School together, Frank won first in an oratorical contest when he spoke, "Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua."And I can remember Jay at home reciting Thanatopsis as he started out to do chores, and of his improvising a dramatization of Barbara Fritchie after he was past eighty.
Perhaps the quality of the school is best revealed in contemporary remarks of the children in letters to their grandparents in Michigan:
March 6, 1888: S. L., J., and I went to school every day this winter, but it was very cold going to school. - Ann Ette Gitchel.
March 6, 1888: It is very cold and there is snow on the ground. We try to learn very fast at school. - S. L. Gitchel.
December 22, 1889: S. L., J., Alberta and I are going to school. It has opened four weeks. Our teacher's name is Mrs. Willis. S. L. studies arithmetic, language and spelling and reads in the third reader. J. studies arithmetic, language and spelling and reads in the second reader. Alberta reads in the first reader. I study geography, language, arithmetic, spelling and read in the fourth reader. - Ann E. Gitchel.
October 15, 1894: I herd the cattle every other afternoon and Jay herds them the other forenoons. That gives each 3/4 of the time in school....We have a good school. One of our neighbor boys never went to any other school and he is now teaching school on a second grade certificate for $40.00 per month. I am going to be janitor this winter for our school and get $1.25 per month. - S. L. Gitchel.
The school house also served as community center with meetings of the Literary Society and Grange. In writing to my grandfather on February 10, 1888, my father said: "Well, Father, we are going to have a discussion on the tariff issue tonight. The admission of lumber, wool, coal and sugar and all other necessities of life is growing in favor of this western country. The people are becoming awake to the issues of the day." In 1896 the Grange built its own hall. A Methodist and a United Brethren congregation each had their own church building. There was also a store. This rural community in Buckeye Valley was known as Butler and had its own post office located in the store.
My inheritance of memories and stories of the Buckeye Valley School is of only the earliest period of the district, from its founding in 1885 until 1900 when the Gitchel family moved away. However, in 1967, in writing of the Buckeye Valley Grange for Where the Buffalo Roamed, Levi Gitchel gave the following finale to the story of District 97: "Old District 97 school house was purchased by Valley Township and used as a township hall. Only three families live in District 97 now, and their children attend other schools. When George Webster taught District 97 about 1898, there were sixty pupils enrolled."
Gitchell family letters and stories, some previously published in Where the Buffalo Roamed and Buffalo Tales, November-December 1980.
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