Manitowoc County WI Archives History - Schools .....Eaton Jt. 1 - George Washington ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/wi/wifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 30, 2007, 8:35 pm EATON JT. 1 —GEORGE WASHINGTON Norman Wernecke The name George Washington school was given to the Eaton joint 1 school in honor of our first American president. Residents in this and nearby communities refer to it as the St. Nazianz public school. The Eaton assessment roll for 1857 shows that a school district No. 6 was already in existence. This Eaton school district No. 6 was an area of land extending across sections 22, 23, 24, and the north halves of sections 25, 26, and 27. It embraced the area owned by the Roman Catholic Religious Association at that time. By 1864, according to the assessment roll of that year, this area became Eaton district No. 5. About 1870, several pieces of land in Liberty were attached to the district and then it became Eaton joint district No. 1, joint with Liberty. When Eaton school district No. 4 was organized in 1894, much of the western part of Eaton Jt. 1 was detached to become a part of the newly created district. Since the St. Nazianz community was settled by a religious organization, it is only natural to conclude that the first school was conducted by those connected with the organization. Written records for this district can not be found. A diamond jubilee historical pamphlet issued in 1929 gives pertinent school facts about this community. The readers of that pamphlet are made aware of the fact that the public and parochial educational systems were pretty much in the hands of the religious leaders of this village. St. Nazianz was settled in 1854 by Father Ambrose Oschwald and his band of followers who came from Germany. The first parochial school, a two-story log building, was erected about 1856. The Holy Ghost Convent (the Pink Convent) was built in 1858 and still stands. A district school was said to have been built about 1862 to 1865. In this public school English and German were taught. (Only German had been taught in the parochial schools). The district school, as a rule, was taught by Sisters. They taught Catechism and Bible History in addition to reading, spelling, arithmetic, history, and geography. There are no records to verify this, but it is thought that the first public school was located on Lot 3, Block 1, village of St. Nazianz, the present location of the John Miller hardware store. It is officially known that that lot was sold to Eaton Jt. 1 school district by the Roman Catholic Religious Association on December 21, 1893 for $25. Anton Kaltenbrun, an old resident, recalls attending the public school in what is now the Miller hardware store in the 1870's. He stated that even at the time that he attended that the school was not new. Evidently, then, the public school erected about 1862-5 was the Miller building of today. The religious association must have set aside the site for school purposes until it was sold in 1893. Former pupils remember the school before it was remodeled into a store as being a frame building about 24 x 36 feet with no cloakroom. An entrance door led directly into a schoolroom lit by windows on the long sides. Home-made, seats and desks, one row on each side of the room, as well as the usual boxstove, teacher's desk, wood-box, and pail and dipper made up the schoolroom furniture and equipment. Blackboards were truly "black" boards. Town elections were said to have been held in this building. Anton Kaltenbrun remembers one of the teachers going next door each school day to get a cigar to smoke during school hours. On April 12, 1894, the schoolboard composed of clerk Jos. Gutman, director John F. Koeck, and treasurer Franz Noworatszky sold Lot 3 in Block 1 to Peter Endries for $160. He in turn sold it to John Miller, Sr. at a later date. The sale price must have included the building for on August 23, 1893, the Roman Catholic Religious Association sold to school district joint 1, Eaton, the present site of 1.01 acres. The deed describes this property as: Commencing 59 rods, 10 links west of the S. E. corner of the SE 1/4 of the SE 1/4, thence E. 9 rods, N. 13 rods, W. 15 rods, and S. E. 15 rods, 4 links to the beginning. The price paid was $301. The present schoolhouse was built in 1893 on the site purchased for $300. It is a one-story building about 26 x 38 feet with a full-sized basement and cost $1,800. A small entrance shed faces the south. A door from this shed leads directly into a small hall from which doors lead to the basement and to the two cloakrooms — one on each side of the front of the building. The cloakrooms are connected to the main classroom by open-arched doorways. Between these two open arches, a well built, enclosed library and cupboard houses the hundreds of library and text books. Double desks are still in use except for the primary children. The classroom is supplied liberally with blackboards between the windows and along the north wall. A teacher's platform extends across the front of the classroom. Modern recitation chairs, a piano, radio, and sandtable, and a teacher's desk make up the balance of the classroom furniture. Four windows on each long side cause cross-lighting. The basement is poorly lighted and houses a combination fuel, furnace, and playroom. Electric service was installed in the school in the 1930's. The playground has some playground equipment to the front of the yard and large outdoor toilets located to the rear. Contrary to expectations in a community settled by a religious order, the enrollment in the public school, as shown by the town, clerk's reports to the county superintendents, was about as great as for any of the larger schools of the county until the early 1900's. In 1870, the records show that a total of 147 pupils out of 218 on the school census attended. Since there was evidently a divided term at that time, the figure, of 147 pupils may have been the sum total of the two terms. Then, too, in 1870, both public and parochial children attended the one school. The average enrollment during the latter 1800's was between 65 and 100 pupils. It was not until about 1910 that only 15 to 25 pupils attended yearly out of an average census of 150 to 200. Parochial school attendance after 1900 had cut deeply into the public school enrollment. Today about 20 pupils out of a school census of about 125 children attend the public school. That attendance figure includes children who attend this school from the suspended school district Eaton Jt. 8. In reality only about 8 or 10 district children attend this public school. The only records of school officers for Eaton Jt. 1 prior to 1906 are those on file in the county office. These records list these names of residents serving the community on the schoolboard: Chas. Boettcher 1870-3; John Roemer 1874-80's, and Jos. Gutman 1894-1906 as clerks; and John F. Koeck, F. X. Eberle, Franz Noworatsky, and Jos. Mallmann as other board members. Those serving after 1906 are listed in the county school annuals. Before 1870, the public school was often taught by a member of the religious order. County records show that the term of school ranged from 5 months in the 1870's to 10 months in 1894. The wages paid teachers were usually much higher than the average. In 1878, for instance, Theo. Wolf was paid a salary of $60 monthly when the rest of the districts in Eaton were paying $40 and less per month .Teachers usually stayed for several terms because the salary was attractive. The county records list these teachers for St. Nazianz prior to 1906: C. D. Bon 1872, Victoria Sonner 1873, Theo. Wolf 1874-80's, Jerome Craite 1894-5, E. Crowe 1896-7, Wm. Birkle 1898-1900 and again 1905-08, and Emily Rauch 1902-04. Records also reveal the fact that Theo. Wolf, the teacher in the 1870's, was town clerk of Eaton from 1877 to 1887. The St. Nazianz public school served as an examination, center for eighth graders writing for a diploma during the early 1900's. It now has one of the largest collection of library books of the county rural schools, an indication that the school census has always been very large, for the amount of money allotted for library books for a school is determined by the number of school age children residing in the district. These books are being used by both the public and parochial school pupils. Because of its limited enrollment during the years of town and county contests, this school had few prize winners, although the pupils always took an active part. Today Eaton Jt. 1 faces the possibility of becoming a center school for the communities using St. Nazianz as a business, religious, and social center, or of having its public educational system going the way of Eaton 4 and Eaton Jt. 8. Additional Comments: Extracted from: 1848 - 1948 CENTENNIAL HISTORY of the Manitowoc County School Districts and Public School System EDITED BY JOS. J. RAPPEL, COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 1948 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wi/manitowoc/history/schools/eatonjt1117gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/wifiles/ File size: 9.4 Kb