Old School Days Recalled in New Book By Old-Time Teacher, Odeal Sharp

Many One-Room Schools Among the 90 That Served County Students 1838-1970

July 19, 2007
By: Dave Rogers

Odeal LeVasseur Sharp is 95 years old this month and is probably one of the few Michigan teachers who not only attended but also taught in a one-room school.

She recalls the early days of education in a new book, "Country Schools of Bay County, Michigan, 1838-1970," a 296 page reminiscence self-published at Voelker Printing, Essexville. It is available at the Bay County Historical Museum for $25.

Highlights of the book include personal recollections by T. Nathan Doan, longtime Bay City Schools employee, whose job included closing most of the old one-room schools, and a sketch of Myra Lovisa Seely Parsons by Patricia Drury, who has edited her diaries in an ongoing project of the Bay County Historical Museum.

Others profile Phyllis Schultz and the Hugo School, Essexville; Archie Mulders, Hampton School District official; former Nolet School students; Helen Jenkins Arnold, LeFevre School, Williams Township; Mildred Eckinger, Bangor Edison; Stella and George Schoerner, Hess School, Portsmouth; Margie Sharp Reder Eigner, Oxbow School, Beaver; Ella Collicker Bergevin, John Adams School; Anastasia Perry Howden, Willard School; Pearl LeVasseur Smith, Seidler School; Dorothy Spengler Stieve, Beaver Zion Lutheran School; Dora Blue of Linwood School by Rick LaFlamme; Hartley Anderson of Warren School; George and Hattie Cole of Monitor School by Ruth Staudacher; Margaret McAlear and Luella Sawden; Donald Mielens on Powell School and others.

Rules for Michigan teachers in the early days prohibited female teachers from marrying, keeping company with men, smoking cigarettes, loitering in ice cream parlors, traveling beyond the city limits without permission of the school board chairman, dressing in bright colors, dying their hair and riding in a carriage or automobile unless accompanied by father or brother. Teachers also were required to wear two petticoats!

Mrs. Sharp was born in 1912 to a pioneer Beaver Township couple and attended Seidler School 1919-1925. Local wags called the school "The Brain Factory."


The school was at the northeast corner of Seidler and Garfield roads. Seidler's Corner was a tiny community of a stave mill, grocery and dry goods stores and a hardware, saloon, livery stable, cheese factory, and blacksmith shop.

"One highlight of the school day was taking a turn ringing the bell," the author recalled. "Oh happy day!"

A library contained books donated by people of the Beaver Township Primary District No. 6, including novels by Zane Grey and James Oliver Curwood and the Rover Boys series. Mrs. Sharp recalled: "By the time I was in the eighth grade I had read every book in the library."

A big round floor furnace that burned wood or coal was located to one side of the classroom, and nearby was an area to dry wet mittens or warm frozen lunches.

Children practiced words on a slate or sometime wrote in chalk right on their desks. Penmanship was by the Palmer Method, and practice involved using the arm instead of the wrist by doing page after page of ovals.

Students came to the front of the room and sat on seats attached to the front bench while the recitation bench was the center of the learning process.

Mrs. Sharp recalls that pupils had to buy their own textbooks and were sometimes allowed to play tic-tac-toe on the blackboard, and, land sakes! "there were no discipline problems at that time."

After graduating from Bay City St. Mary High School in 1929 she took an intense year of teacher training at the Bay County Normal School, located in Riegel School in Salzburg.

"The County Normal classes covered science, math, government, history, hygiene, art and music. We had to practice teaching an elementary class downstairs at Riegel, as well as making lesson plans and scheduling.

Of 24 graduates of County Normal, only three were able to get contracts in the Depression year of 1930.

Seventh and eighth grades studied American classics such as Evangeline, Vision of Sir Launfal, Snowbound, Courtship of Myles Standish and others and eighth graders needed to pass a county test on all subjects including the classics.

Her first job was at Duford School, Garfield District #3, and later she taught at Oxford School, Beaver; LeFevre, Williams; Warren, Kawkawlin; Munger and St. John, Essexville. St. John in 1951-52 was her last assignment but she taught physical education through music and dance at Catholic schools in Essexville, Bay City and Saginaw through 1963.

For area residents the book is a trip down memory lane and also an invaluable historical document for the family library.###