Oak Grove School

One-Room School – 1865-1954. It was located on Homeville Road and Sometimes referred to as Street Road about ½ mile southwest of Homeville and at the intersection of the currant Watermark Road. Oak Grove is thought to have been located in Homeville at one time. It was also one large room with very high ceiling and 3 very high windows on each side and 2 looking onto the porch which covered the entire front of the building. This porch was very high and had wide steps on each side of the porch. There were 4 hand hewn posts along the front of the porch, but no railing on the porch or steps. The building was made of red brick and the windows had full shutters painted green and white. The very large windows were double hung . The doorway was painted green and white. The doors had 2 large panels top and bottom. There was a small ante room in the center of the porch and in this room was a bench with a crock sitting on it to hold water for drinking. The water was fetched daily from neighbors or a spring down the road. There was no plumbing, well or electricity. The inside of the building had 2 'cloak' or coat rooms, one for the boys and one for the girls. There was a full basement to which you gained access through a drop-door from the boys coat room. The school was heated by wood from a stove in the rear of the classroom or also at one time in the center of the room. In the last ten years the furnace was in the basement and coal was the source of fuel. The heat blew up through a large iron register in the center of the floor. There was a large school bell on top of the building and you could pull it by a rope which hung down into the ante room.

The teachers of Oak Grove are listed below as taken from news clippings, oral histories, and report cards:

1868 – Esther Rakestraw
1876 – Dora Brosius
1876 – Sue Dorman
1877 – Dora Brosius
1886 – Lena C. Ingram
1888 – Ella S. Weinberger
1892 – 1894 – Julia A. Haley
1907 – Rhoda B. Watson
1912 – Irene Bentley
1919 – Mary O'Brien and Mary L. Baldwin
1920 – Helen Holmes
1921 – 1922 – Arthur Rice and Elizabeth Brown
1922 – 1934 – Elizabeth Brown (married Dr. Harvey Glenn)
1937 – 1938 – Marian Fox
1939 – 48 – Agnes Kelly (Kelleher)
1948 – 54 – Ethel Hilton Gray

Oak Grove School Reunion 2003