Hanchett School Reunion

Reunion 2011.

 

Old Hanchett School

This article appeared in

The North Press

Tuesday, May 26, 1987

Of old Hanchett School,

box socials, a windmill

and ‘Duck on a Rock’

 

John M. Malepaard

Grand Rapids Press

 

The old one-room schoolhouse has been wrenched from its moorings as the ground it had sheltered was dug into.  Then the structure was planted again at a right angle to its original location, and now stands with its ridge north-south.

 

But it hasn’t been abused; the changes were just part of actions that should help assure its future.

 

It is the old Hanchett School on the southeast corner of 88th Avenue and Cleveland Street in Ottawa County’s Polkton Township.

 

Lyle Hanchett of 16670 88th Avenue, just south of the school building, said that he bought it in 1961 as an investment.  Another important reason for buying it was to help preserve it.

 

“A lot of these old school buildings, if you don’t do something with them, they go to rot.”

 

So he and his wife, Helen, bought it shortly after the school was closed, while area rural schools were being annexed into the Coopersville school system.

 

Land for the school had been leased from Lyle’s grandfather, Ruben Hanchett.  When the lease ran out, Homer Hanchett (Lyle’s father) did something that indicated he also cared something about the state of the school’s housing.

 

When Homer was asked whether he would renew the lease, he responded, “No. . . but I’ll give you the land if you get rid of that old building and build a new one.”

 

The new one was subsequently erected in 1900, and the old building, built “probably (in) the late 1870s or early ‘80s,” was removed and used as a barn at the farm to the east.  However, it isn’t there anymore,. said Lyle.

 

Because a new building was erected in 1900, “it’s in better shape than most others.”

 

Possible Lyle had another reason for buying the place: he graduated from the k-8 school in 1920: while in grades 4-8, “I did the janitorial work — swept the floor and  kept the fire going.

 

I was paid 25 cents an hour and was satisfied with it: “It looked like quite a bit of money.  Kids didn’t have much money in those days; no allowance either.  We had to earn our money.”

 

He speaks well of the quality of education there, provided the teacher was good, and Lyle said most were: “They got down to business and did a good job.

 

As for the style of education, “They called up classes one at a time.  They usually had some seats (in front) where they came to recite their lessons.”

 

“Sometimes there’d be four or five in a class, or as many as seven, or as few as two,” said Marian Veldman (class of ‘24 or ‘25) of Coopersville.

 

And being anyone but the first person in line was an advantage.  Hanchett said, “It (the reciting) was all in the open; (students waiting to recite) could hear it.”

 

Veldman said that although each student in the class being quizzed was presented different problems (math problems or sentences to be diagrammed), younger children studying while older children were being quizzed could listen in if they could spare the time from the study of their own lessons, and learn ahead of their grade.

 

Hanchett added that when he advanced a grade, he often knew many of the lessons already.

 

Then there was play time: “They had lots of games.”

 

Among them was Pom Pom Pull-Away, in which two teams would be chosen; the team members would join hands and stand in a line of defense—a line ideally invincible, because a member from the opposing team would be chosen, and that child would have to try to break a link in the human chain opposite or be caught into being a member of that team.

 

And there was Duck On A Rock.

 

“That was a little rough,” Hanchett said.  “Just the boys did that.”

 

A rock would be placed on top of a larger one.  Then children would try to knock the “duck” of the rock by throwing stones “big enough to throw.”

 

The hazard was that one never knew how the would-be duckward-bound stones would glance off the bigger rock if one’s aim wasn’t true; shins’ and other parts of the anatomy were in jeopardy.

 

Other games included softball, hopscotch, and skating and hockey on a sort of pond that resulted from flooding nearby Brandy Creek.

 

Kids also slid down a hill onto 88th Avenue.  Later, Lyle said, a kind of gully back of the schoolhouse was rendered worthy of sliding when concerned adults “sloped it with a dozer” so kids were “sliding into field, not into road.”

 

Hanchett said the school contributed to community cohesiveness.

 

“The old country school was a neighborhood getting-together place.  You got to know your neighbors—a whole lot better than now.

 

“Christmas time they usually put on a big program . . . the kids all had a dialogue or speech.”

 

Another community event, the so-called box socials, helped raise money for the school’s library, said Veldman.  They also caused a pleasurable nervousness—”suspense all the way around.”

 

“Girls would bring boxes of food, fixed up kind of fancy, and the guys would bid on them (as the auctioneer auctioned them off),” Hanchett said.  The purchasers would then “sit and eat and visit with the girl they bought it from.”

 

The bidders “usually didn’t know who they were buying it from.  It got interesting.”

 

Though the old building doesn’t look a lot like a one-room schoolhouse anymore, Hanchett said, “It’s basically the same building.”

 

The direction the long, narrow structure faces was changed because “we determined it would look better from (88th Avenue) with the long side facing the road.”

 

And the old windmill once at the site is no longer there.  It was installed in 1917, said Veldman, and provided the students a luxury that other school kids didn’t experience for a while: flush toilets.

 

A large tank was suspended from the southeast corner of the ceiling and “the windmill pumped water to it.”

 

The windmill was taken down after pressure tanks came into use.

 

Another memory comes from Alice Kruiterman, now living near Ravenna, who said that in 1931, on a “cold and terrible blizzardy day about 2:30 p.m., we were getting ready for our Christmas program.  Our stage was up.

 

“Three men going east on old US16 went over the embankment by the bridge which is by the road that went past the schoolhouse.  They got the men out of the car, carried them up to the schoolhouse and laid them on the stage to work on them.  There were no survivors.

 

“Teacher kept the children behind the stage curtains so they couldn’t see what was going on.  Lucky for me, I wasn’t in school that day.”

 

Though Lyle Hanchett sold the building to George and Maxine Whipple in 1974, one piece of the old school still rings back memories all his own—the bell installed in the belfry around 1900.

 

When the school was in operation, the bell hung in the now absent belfry.  It was placed above the teacher’s desk so the rope came down beside that desk.  It now hangs from a post out back.

 

“The bell’s still good.  Once in a while somebody rings it and I recognize the old tone right away.”

Press Photo of the bell by Marvin J. Laninga

 

The old bell still stands, or rather, hangs, at the rear of the old school now converted to the home of George and Maxine Whipple.

Class photo courtesy of Albert Venema

 

Students who attended the old Hanchett School two miles west of Coopersville stand at its southeast corner about 1923-24.  From left are: in front row, Leonard Knapp, Richard Mergener, unidentified, James Busman, Wayne Ruster, Bobby Knapp, Harold Ruster, John Veeneman, Harold Busman; second row, unidentified, Elizabeth Evanzo, Marian Culligan, Cora Westrate, Irene Busman, Harriet Veeneman, unidentified, Alta Haystead, Ida Ruster, unidentified; third row, Julia Evanzo, Edna Haystead, Viola Mergener, unidentified, Marian Busman, Esther Haystead, Rose Mergener, William Mergener, Albert Venema, unidentified; fourth row, the teacher, Miss Mulder, unidentified, and Jim Evanzo, William Westrate, uinidenified, Bernard Culligan, Louis Busman, Howard Ruster, Clarence Venema

Schoolhouse sketch by Kerry Kubacki

 

Sketch made from an aerial view of the school in the 1950s, showing the belfry, vertical side windows, restroom at rear, and storage shed to the right.