Iowa One Room Schools: Liberty #1, Sunnyside/Sunnyview School

ORIGINS

I grew up in a small Ohio town and I rode the school bus from 1st through 12th grades. My bus ride always included a country road on which every school day we saw a one-room brick school house. (SW corner of Stine Rd and Enon-Xenia Pike). As the years went by I watched this wonderful, familiar friend fall apart. After I married the school really began to deteriorate. Every time we visited the area I would want to take a photo of the school but never did. Finally, when we went specifically for the task, the school was gone. It was a huge loss for me and, since that time, whenever we pass a one-room school it is a joy to stop to take a picture or two. Thus, our collection here and the blog with schools in other states. Jill :oD

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Liberty #1, Sunnyside/Sunnyview School

On 480th Street at the west end, north side of the road. 480th used to continue east but is now cut off by US218. According to the 1912 school map, the building appears to have been moved east from it’s original location; the person telling me about the school, Jessica Issen Miller, who visited this house once, said she thought it may have been. Jessica gave this information:

“They put a little addition on one end and made a bedroom and a bathroom. Then at the back of the school they put a kitchen along the wall and built a loft over the kitchen for a second bedroom. It’s an open loft…. The wood stove is toward the front of the building up on a platform where the teacher would have had her desk. And I am pretty sure there were still chalkboards.”

This first photo is of the west side: