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Calvary Schoolhouse


I’m not certain when the school was first built. The Baptist church across the road was built about 1914, and shortly afterwards the surrounding area took on a new name, Calvary Community.

I grew up a mile west on Old Robinson Road. My grandmother, Corrie Bennett Algood, lived about a quarter mile south of where the school and church were built. When she was a little girl the area was known as Colter Community, then came the church and with it a new name.

Grandmother grew up, and at one point she taught at the school. As time progressed my uncle, father and many of their cousins attended that one room schoolhouse.

One of the cousins, Wilma Clark Sanders, once told me that when she attended there she had a young friend,a boy, that came to school one day and showed her something he pulled from his coat pocket. She said that it was the largest bullet she had ever seen. Astounded by its size, she asked him what on earth was he going to do with such a big bullet as that. He whispered, “Watch.”

When the teacher rang her handbell for recess the kid winked at her. As they walked passed the large wood stove in the center of the classroom he tossed the bullet in. Wilma said about the moment they reached the front door the bullet exploded. When it did it rattled the heater so badly that the chimney flu fell from the ceiling, and the front of the heater blew open. Of course the teacher was livid and wanted to know who blew up her heater. Wilma was in her upper nineties when she shared this story with me. She laughed and said she kept the little boy’s secret for a long time before she felt safe telling it.

In the late thirties the schoolhouse closed and the children attending there were sent to town to finish their education. My father was among them.

After the closure, the community used the old building for neighborhood gatherings and a place to vote for a while. It was in that schoolhouse I voted for the first time. It was the year Richard Nixon ran against George McGovern for president. That November day it was unusually cool, and the poll workers had fired up the old wood stove to take the chill off the room.

If you’re familiar with old buildings you probably know what happens when heat is introduced. As warm air rises it tends to awaken the hibernating creatures in all of the nooks and crannies. Thus it was for the wasps in the old schoolhouse. As we came to vote and make check marks by our chosen candidate, we had to dodge the wasps that had been awakened from their slumber.

I’m not certain if the old school is still standing. The last time I saw it time had taken its toll. The women who taught there are long gone. My father, uncle, and their cousins would be well over a hundred now.

We are left with only stories and memories of this old building. And we are lucky to be the children of a generation of men and women who were part of its history.

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Rick Algood
December 6, 2020

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