School has a rich history

  Atop a steep bluff overlooking 24th Street and Hardy Avenue stands a brick building, though when I graduated in 1938, there was no Hardy Avenue extending southward. There were no houses to the south, just pastures and remnants of previous settlers, such as an open well with a concrete surround. A friend of mine broke off one of my front teeth on that surround a few years earlier, with permanent results. He had thought to scare me, he succeeded!

  The history of Rock Creek School is full of colorful and exciting legends which date back to before the Civil War. If only the old creek which flows by the school could tell some of the interesting tales which are locked in its memories, we could be even more proud of our heritage.

  The oldest bit of information we have comes from the family of William Rutledge Moore. It seems that his grandfather, Robert taught there in 1826. Mr. Moore reportedly came from Tennessee. One of his descendants reportedly has in their possession an old home-made arithmetic book written in long-hand by him with the date of February 6, 1826 on the cover. He must have been one of our very first teachers.

  To give you an idea of the period of time this took place, John Quincy Adams was the President of the United States, there were only 24 states in the Union; Missouri itself had just joined in 1821.

There are two deeds on file in the office of the Recorder of Deeds in Independence. One was dated in 1840 and the other in 1843. The first deed was conveyed by Henry Noland for a sum of $10 to a group of trustees for a neighborhood school. The second deed, in April of 1843, was made over to another group of trustees for the use of a common school. Both deeds state that a school house was already in existence on the property.

  In 1937, Rock Creek celebrated its 100 year Centennial. The two oldest alumni present were Mrs. Letha Lane, formerly Oldham, and Dr. Sheley. Both were 83 years old. They attended the school in 1861 and were full of tales of adventures during Civil War times. They described the building at that time to be a large one-room frame house, the exterior being logs, with a big iron heating stove in the center of the room. The school  was considered quite up-to-date because it had folding seats.

Mrs. Letha. Lane tells of hearing her uncle, Ed Hickman who taught at Rock Creek in the 1840’s, tell about an old log house with a large fireplace as being a former school building. He used to tell her about a bunch of boys who poured a batch of pepper down the chimney and held a blanket over the top so it would blow back into the room. Mrs. Lane said that their only athletics were climbing over rail fences on the way to school. When she and Dr. Sheley attended there were about 40 pupils in the school.

  During the Civil War the school was in the thick of several skirmishes; the battles of Rock Creek and Westport being the main ones. Mrs. Lane recalls one battle where five pieces of Southern artillery were placed between the school and her home. Col. Holliway was training and drilling his men in Mr. Albert Oldhams pasture when several Union soldiers under Captain D.S. Stanley came on the scene. They called a truce and Col. Holliway and Capt. Stanley, being old friends before the war, met in the middle to discuss matters when firing broke out and Col. Holliway was fatally wounded. He was carried into the Oldham house where be later died.

When Sterling Price made his raid through Missouri, among his officers was an uncle of Mrs. Lane. Gen. Price and his officers had breakfast at the Oldham farm, then sent the Oldhams away in anticipation of the battle to come. Gen. Price’s sizable army was encamped around Independence and detachments of his army used the schoolhouse as their barracks. Due to the hated Order #11 issued on August 25, 1863, several of the families were forced to leave their homes. Mrs. Lane’s family moved to Sheridan County, Missouri, until after the war. Adam Hill and several of his family served in the Confederate Army. The Hill name is a very prominent one in our history and he was one of the trustees on the deed back in 1843. The Hill family moved their slaves down to Texas for safekeeping during the war.

The Rock Creek district was settled for the most part by staunch sup-porters of the Confederacy and during the war the feeling was very strong. It was said that the requirements for being a teacher at this time were that you had to be an excellent teacher and you must also be a Rebel.

During the 1870s another memorable character comes out of the pages of our history books to leave his name and legend in Rock Creek’s old tales. It seem that Frank James, Jesse’s brother, was dating one of our school teachers, Miss Annie Ralston. He tried to get permission for them to marry but the board informed him that the only way a teacher could break her contract was with the permission of the board or if the school burned down. Around 1875 the school did burn down and shortly thereafter they were married. Mrs. James is buried in the Hill’s Park Cemetery.

A new building was constructed, this one containing two rooms, with all new equipment. This building remained in use until 1917 when a frame building was built to replace it. This frame building was painted into a picture that was later presented to the school by Mrs. Annie Gilbert, the first President of the PTA.

 As early as 1889, Rock Creek was operating on a nine month basis. Raising funds to pay the teacher and get the janitor work done was quite a project. At one of the board meetings they were trying to decide on a deal and Mr. Hill was to bargain with the man chosen. The teacher selected was Mr. Ravencroft and he agreed to teach for $45 per month and do the janitor work for $3 a month. He never knew that the board had authorized Mr. Hill to go as high an $50. Mr. Wm. M. Hill was the school director for the period 1870 to 1900 and then Mr. R.E.L. Fogle served from 1900 to 1930. The old school board minutes date back to as early as 1886.

 In 1924 the brick addition was added to the 2-room frame building at a cost of $40,000. During the hundred year centennial in 1937, they also celebrated another addition to the building of four rooms and a stage, costing $20,000. This also was brick and sometime after 1938, the frame part was torn down.

 Our third President of PTA was Mrs. R. E. Chandler, who served during 1921 and 1922. The old two-room house was in existence when she was leading the PTA, which had a membership of twenty ladies and three teachers. The school enrollment was around 60 pupils. They were very concerned with the hot lunch problem, so the ladies carried huge kettles of soup to the school and heated it in the storeroom in the basement. The children would come down and fill their bowls and return to their desks to eat, as there were no tables in the basement. A little later another room was finally finished in the basement for the smaller children and a third teacher was hired. These early pioneers in our organization really had their work out for them. They were worried back then with about getting a bridge built across the creek. They succeeded in getting their bridge built and electric lights put in and new toilets for the yard. They must have had some pretty busy sessions at their meetings.

The years of the 1930’s are memorable ones to most of us as days of depression and hard times. There were many changes in most of our lives and this was also true of our school. It was outgrowing itself and building seemed inevitable.

 Early in October of 1934, the Blue Summit School burned down. This school had an enrollment of about 70 pupils and it was a part of the Rock Creek system. It was decided not to rebuild, but to transport the pupils to Rock Creek, since they had just completed their new additions. This brought the enrollment at Rock Creek to around 400. Once again our school was bursting at the seams. In October, 1942, it was announced that we were one of six schools in the United States to be allowed government funds for a new addition to our building.

 At the Centennial celebration in 1937, the main speaker was Charles Denham. He gave a detailed history of the school. A lot of the facts and information we have today is due to the research of Mr. Denham.

 He started in 1928 as Superintendent and left after the ‘37-’38 school year. While at Rock Creek he organized the Boy Scouts. Upon his retirement, to show him their appreciation, the patrons gave him a beautiful silver tea set. Tom D. Korte was the replacement.

In May of 1938 the Cub Scouts were organized at Rock Creek with many prominent leaders of our PTA taking over the reins as den mothers and cub mothers. Mrs. William Graham headed the first Cub Pack.

A two-year project for 1938 and 1939 was to buy a sound projector for the school. This was accomplished through various money-making projects. In November 1938, an Armistice Day program with Loie Bridge, a then-celebrated vaudeville performer, was presented to buy basketball uniforms for the boys and girls team. Our teams traveled to various other schools and towns to play. Athletic ability and good sportsmanship were a very important part of the school day at Rock Creek and was encouraged as much as possible. Several awards and trophies were won for such activities and they remind us of many happy days in our school life.

In 1938, 42 pupils were graduated from the 8th grade, the largest in the school’s history, because of the Blue Summit students. The membership of the PTA was about 93 members.

The 2-room frame building was still standing and in use in 1938. It was attached to the main brick building at the southwest corner.

A library was being formed during the latter 1930’s through the help of the faculty, PTA and other interested groups. Instead of the regular room count awards, library cards were issued to the rooms having the most parents present at the meetings.

During the 1940s there were other WPA projects in the offing. Two of these were the new kindergarten and a Concert by the WPA Orchestra at a regular PTA meeting.

There are a few known 1938 classmates still in the area: Robert Bryant, Earl Cavanah, Kenneth Howerton, and Faye Martin VanKirk, and myself. (There may be others).

 

Transcribed by Warren Kernaghan, Class of 1938, with thanks to Mrs. William Clark and Charles Denham