Bygone memories of Pleasant Peak School

  • Pleasant Peak Consolidated #2 during the 1939-40 school year. This two-room schoolhouse was near Clifton and was a consolidation of the Dales Peak and Pleasant Valley schoolhouses.
    Pleasant Peak Consolidated #2 during the 1939-40 school year. This two-room schoolhouse was near Clifton and was a consolidation of the Dales Peak and Pleasant Valley schoolhouses.
  • Pleasant Peak School students in the 1939-40 school year, included, front row, from left, Margaret Dallen, Jr. Johnson, Harlan Black, Virgil Rogge, Willis Winter; middle, Mary Anderson, Leona Dallen, Dorothy Jackson, Helen Winter, Earl Dean Black, Dwight, Beeson, Dean Winter, Gerald LeCuyer; back, Barbara Anderson, Winona Beeson, Elfrida Winter, Elnora Johnson, Olen Rogge, Darrell Marshall. (I apologize for any misspellings. – Dan.)
    Pleasant Peak School students in the 1939-40 school year, included, front row, from left, Margaret Dallen, Jr. Johnson, Harlan Black, Virgil Rogge, Willis Winter; middle, Mary Anderson, Leona Dallen, Dorothy Jackson, Helen Winter, Earl Dean Black, Dwight, Beeson, Dean Winter, Gerald LeCuyer; back, Barbara Anderson, Winona Beeson, Elfrida Winter, Elnora Johnson, Olen Rogge, Darrell Marshall. (I apologize for any misspellings. – Dan.)

The dreary turn of the calendar from January to February allows time to sit and reminisce about days gone by. The following memories of a set of country schoolhouses near Clifton were submitted by Barbara Lachman, including Pleasant Peak School, which was consolidated from two other schools early in the 20th century.

Dales Peak #64 and Pleasant Valley #136 consolidated in 1919 to form Pleasant Peak Consolidated #2.

Lachman remembers there were two rooms when she started school in 1935, with two teachers in the rooms in 1937-38 but just one room in 1938-39.

Pleasant Peak later consolidated with Clifton on Aug. 4, 1952, on a vote of 21 for and nine against. Don Wurtz was the last teacher in 1952. Lachman said the school bus came for her brother Milton on Sept. 2, 1952.

An auction was to be held on July 30, 1953 for the Pleasant Peak School and Chester School buildings, and the school supplies.

“We lived one mile north of the school as the crow flies, but one mile and a half for a human walking the road,” said Lachman. “My sis and I had lots of that. Usually it rained the first day of school and Dad took us. Oh those ‘lovely’ muddy roads. I went to school as I was the oldest and my first day wasn’t a good start – I bawled, as I didn’t want to leave the sand table. I hung onto the door frame.”

Lachman recalls playing the usual games of softball, fox and geese, handy over the school house, blackman.

“I don’t remember what else,” said Lachman. “When we couldn’t be outside, we played Simon Says and ball with a fluffy ball int eh basement.

She remembers drying underwear legs and stockings over the furnace – “I hated those things.”

“Someone brought a long sled and we had fun with it,” said Lachman.

Lachman remembered some of the teachers at the school and the years they served:

Grade 3 – Helen Caldwell Rundle (1936-1938)

Grade 5 – Mildred Williams Andrewson (1938- 39)

Grade 6 – Marcine Morsch Wurtz (1939-40)

Grade 7 – Ruth Alwin, Donald Fairbanks, Marjorie Marshall Allen (1940- 41)

Grade 8 – Lucille McCauley (Ended April 27, 1943)

“Margaret Thomas also taught, but not a full term,” recalled Lachman. “Margaret Tillinghast… don’t know when she taught.”

As she continued her education, Lachman remembers having to go to Washington to take a test to pass on to high school.

In July 1997, plans were made to tear down the school, but it was still there in August. From Lachman’s diary “It looks so forlorn and shabby.”

Then from her July 23, 2000 diary entry – “It’s gone. Land covered over as pasture. School out of its misery.”