Which Brookfield School?

All sorts of confusion can occur when there are two towns with the same name in a state. Take Ohio and the Brookfield Townships: there is one in Trumbull County, and another in Noble County. So when a vintage photo shows up of the 1st and 2nd grades from Brookfield, which one is it?

The original photo is extremely faded, this is an enhanced version.

Burning Down the School

In June 1907, the Fort Dodge, Iowa High School, caught fire. The building was ten years old, and was able to be restored. Our photo is printed on the popular postcard paper format, and was actually sent, being postmarked on June 20, 1907. A greedy stamp collector tore the hole in the photo.

The building was badly damaged, with the roof and part of at least one wall collapsing (This website has a version of our photo, plus one taken a bit later during the fire, and the wall collapse is evident). Surprisingly, though, enough of the stone structure was left that the school was rebuilt, although the appearance was a bit different. While researching this fire, I found that a colorized postcard show what the school looked like was for sale on eBay, so I bought it; the card is shown below.

There are several other photos of the school out on the web. Grinnell College's digital collection has the photo on the right, which shows the school before the fire.

The New Farm School

This class photo is quite likely the first to be taken at this farming community school, judging by how new the building looks.

Rich School, Poor School

In the same antiques store, on the same day, I found these two mounted photographs, which from the clothing appear to come from about the same time period, but which show quite a contrast. First, the poor school:

And now the rich school. Everything from the quality of the clothes and the shoes (or lack thereof!) to the children's expressions, to the backing board that the photos are mounted on highlight the class disparity. Unfortunately, I have no information on where these schools were, nor any of the names of the children.

On the off-chance that some reader might recognize an ancestor, here are higher resolution crops of all the faces.

Miss Howarth's North Side Grade 4 Class

I hate it when valuable bits of family history get separated from their families. This class photo, picked up in an antique store in a Chicago suburb, is worn and faded, but two things help: the photographer notated the class and teacher on the negative, and the sister of two of the students pictured wrote names on the back. This is presumably North Side school, grade 4, with a Miss Howarth as the teacher. The photograph itself is typical of the 1890s.
On the back has been written "George Hasel, Margaret (Meg) Hasel, bro & sister of Ann (Hasel) Gourley".

Contrast enhanced and tone mapped in order to bring out faded details. Presumably that's the principal or headmaster at the far right.

So here are the results of my short bit of research (for the benefit of anyone doing genealogy research on these names) who these folks were: Findagrave.com has an entry for an Anna Hasel Gourley, born June 25, 1891 in Fairbury, Livingston Co. Illinois. The site also has an entry for Margaret G. Hasel, born 1888 (and listed on the site as Anna's sister); while nothing is said of the location of her birth, her grave is in Fairbury, Livingston Co. Ill. Since most fourth graders are nine or ten years old, that would put this photo at 1897 or 1898, consistent with the physical characteristics of the print.

Information on George Hasel is much more tenuous. Findagrave has several by that name, but none buried in Illinois, and only one, George Frank Hasel, who was born in the right date range (June 3, 1887); he is buried in California, so he might be the brother...or his birth date might be just a coincidence.

Geni.com has an entry for Simon J Hasel who lived (and died) in Fairbury and had eight children, three of which are Anna B. Gourley, Margaret G. and George Frank, which to me confirms that this is the correct family matching the photo. If anyone is doing research on this family and has thoughts on these kids, please leave a comment below!

As for Miss Howarth, Findagrave has an entry for a Alice Hindle Howarth, also buried in Fairbury, Illinois. She was born April 6, 1849, so if this photo was taken in 1898, that would make her 49 years old, consistent with her appearance in the photo. As for her being referenced as "Miss" when Howarth is her married name, that is still today a common practice for teachers (my wife is one).

Fairbury is a small town in north-central Illinois, about 80 miles as the crow flies from Elk Grove Village, where the antique store is that had this photo. The population of Fairbury in 2000 was 3,968 and in 1900 was 2,187.

The two Hasel children are marked with blue pen X's.

Yawning in the School Photo

As a professional photographer, I can attest to the fact that almost invariably, there is one kid in every crowd that will do his utmost to ensure that he leaves a unique mark on the group photo he's a part of. This school crowd is no different: look in the front row, far right, and you'll find a kid who just had to pick the moment when the shutter tripped to yawn. Shows what he thought of this whole exercise.

The name of the school is written in stone above the main entrance, but despite a high-resolution of the scan, the original image is note quite clear enough for me to discern the name. First four letters appear to be S-T-E-N..... The second word is possibly "TRADES" or "GRADES" (although plural doesn't make much sense.

Yawn...

Belle Scofield's Grade II Class

This is one of my favorite classroom photos currently in the Archive's collection. Belle C. Scofield did us the wonderful service of writing her name on the chalk board, which gives a great jumping-off point for researching this photo. Maybe one reason I like this photo is because so many that I come across will forever remain anonymous mysteries, and this one has an identifiable person in it; it's like restoring her memory to the world.

Now, one can never be sure, but a search at Findagrave.com turned up only one Belle C. Scofield (click for their entry), born January 16, 1874 in Bristol, Wisconsin (in Kenosha Co.) and died June 5, 1964 in Oshkosh; she is buried in Bristol. If this photo was about the turn of the century, that would put Belle in her late 20s, consistent with the woman we see in the image. Presumably, then, this school would be in either Bristol or Oshkosh.

Further searching found that (from Ancestry.com) Belle's middle name is Calista. She was one of six children born to Chester and Frances Amelia (Young) Scofield. It doesn't appear that Belle ever married or had children of her own, but given this photo, she contributed a lot to the lives of other children, and a whole lot of Wisconsinites are richer for her life.

Little (School) House on the Prairie

The next time your kids complain about the school they have to go to - and how they have to get there - show them this photo from the early 1900s:

I have absolutely no information on where this photo was taken. Maybe that's a good thing, in a way, because it makes the wondering about the scene and about the lives of these children even more intriguing.

Grammar School

For the second #TBT in each month, we feature a school or class photo. Do you have any relatives here?

There are a lot of old school photos floating around, having survived, but this one almost didn't, and it struck me as a bit unusual. First, there's the architecture. Second, the list of names on the back. I have no information about where this was, or when it was taken, but there are some clues if someone wants to pursue it.

From the clothing styles, I'd guess 1920s to early 1930s. I've blown up the faces and split the class into two halves so that you can see them better, and maybe recognize someone.

There's a fairly extensive list of names on the back, and I've enhanced to photo below in order to see the penciled writing clearer. I searched for some of the more unusual names at Findagrave.com, in hopes of seeing some location correlation, but I couldn't distinguish any (there were hits with some of the names, including Erwin C. Bathke, born in 1895, a date that might fit). Given the time period, it's likely that many of the young men saw service during World War II and died overseas.

For the purposes of genealogy researchers using Google searches, here's the list of names as best as I can make them out:

Left column:

• Frederick Schwarz
• Anna Marie Adkison
• Thelma Rensli
• Dora Whittlesey
• Ruth Rawlands
• Ansel Campbell
• Gertrude Carico
• Melvin Niel (or Neel)
• Effie Jane Cowles
• Margaret N....a
• Ternici (?) Neagles
• Sam Chenalt
• Carter Miller
• Lucile Denny
• Beatrice Chase
• Ailene Horst
• Virginia White
• Brown (?) Thompson

Right column:

• Abe Polesky
• Gladys Davis
• Roger Enders
• Gil Brown
• Kenneth Mulligan
• Maxine Stout
• Coleman Stoat
• Lula Hammond
• Velma Bainum
• Orlando Wilson
• Edward DuMond
• Anna Graham
• Helen Kline
• Erwin C. Bathke
• Umau Kline
• Arlene Benning, Log Cabin Tr.
• Elsie Brown