Farm Horizons
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Feb. 8, 2016
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Page 4
New book tells about country
schools in McLeod County
By Starrla Cray
It was 1941. Magdalen Ardolf Miller was 18 years old,
and had just started her first teaching job at a country
school near Winsted.
“Some of the 20 kids were only one year younger than
I, with some of the boys being 6 inches taller and 100
pounds heavier than me,” Miller recalled. “My wage
was $80 a month for nine months.”
Miller’s experiences – and the stories of others who
remember country schools in McLeod County – are recorded in a new book from the McLeod County Historical Society & Museum, called “History of the Country
Schools of McLeod County.”
“It has over 300 country school pictures that were put
together from our collection,” executive director Lori
Pickell-Stangel said. “We also have a DVD with personal memories.”
Purchased together, the DVD and 171-page book are
$40. Separately, book is $25, and the DVD is $20.
Days gone by
Most of the country schools in McLeod County
opened in the late 1800s or early 1900s, and closed in
the 1940s or 1950s.
“I realize today that my experience of attending a
country school was extraordinary – even amazing – to
modern children,” Beatrice Pishney Butryn noted in
the book. “I received a good education, plus I learned
responsibility and social skills with older and younger
children. I wouldn’t trade that background, or growing
up on a farm as I did, for anything.”
Beatrice was one of two first-graders at “Meadow
Dale” country school near Highway 7 in 1947.
“Our one-room school had no running water, two outhouses for boys’ and girls’ bathrooms, a pump house
where we got our water for drinking and hand washing
from the well, and a small storage building for unused
desks,” she noted. “It sat on about one acre of land, so
there was ample room for play during recesses where
softball, hide and seek, dodge ball, and other games
were played. The only playground equipment was a set
of monkey bars.”
Sometimes, the furnace would break down in the