[Granville-Hough] 17 Aug 2009 - Oak Hill School
Trustees for Granville W. Hough
gwhough at oakapple.net
Mon Dec 6 06:31:09 PST 2010
Oak Hill School People.
The Oak Hill School by its excellent program and
support from the Concord Church attracted people from the surrounding
communities, including the McNairs and Robinsons from Calvary, and
Sullivans from New Sardis, and Kennedys and Garners from Sharon in
Simpson County. As a result, bonds were formed among these families
which lasted a lifetime. Numerous marriages resulted, which further
increased the bonds.
I do not recall the discussions about consolidation, but Oak Hill was
not as well located as Shady Grove or New Haven as a branch school. It
was also a county line school, and the consolidation process also put
everyone into their home county. It split the Oak Hill district between
Smith and Simpson Counties, whether we liked it or not. The Simpson
County families joined the Sharon district which eventually consolidated
with Magee. We in Smith County were slated to go to Mize.
Late in her life, my mother, Lizzie (Richardson) Hough, became
interested in recovering and recording the history of Oak Hill School.
She joined with two old neighbors and friends, Vick (Sullivan) Wells and
Scrap (Sullivan) Wells in collecting pictures and identifying individual
students on them. Surprisingly, they could recall the names of nearly
every one. They spent many happy hours together reminiscing about their
old classmates and their families. The pictures with the annotations
remain in the Hough/Travis families, but the recall discussions among
Lizzie, Vick, and Scrap were not recorded. How interesting they would
have been!
Oak Hill School Building.
It was a two story, four room building with a
bell tower which I remember very well. It was located where the Concord
Church Cemetery was later laid out. I vaguely remember that, in its last
year of operation in 1926, I was allowed to go to school with my older
brother, Rudolph, for one or more days. Then, the building was turned
over to the Oak Hill Masonic Lodge which met on the second floor.
During church services, which seemed to go on and on, I would sneak out
the church door with Ershel and Vernon McAlpin, and anyone else who
could get past their parents and dare each other to climb to the top of
the bell tower. It was by no means safe, but we never had an accident.
We could get out on the second floor and see the locked door of the
Masonic Lodge. We were deathly afraid of what might be behind that door.
The building had been built by family contributions, and, with the
Depression upon us after 1929, the families agreed to tear down the
building and distribute the lumber. This they did about 1933 and the
Masonic Lodge moved first to a place called Maddox in Simpson County,
then later to Magee. The building was carefully disassembled, and even
the nails were saved for reuse. A share of lumber was set aside for each
contributor, or the contributors could take their shares or donate them
for building Sunday School rooms on the back of the church.
My grandfather, Jim Richardson, took home the 1 by 10 boards in his
share but gave all the remainder to the church for the Sunday School
project. Eventually, we had Sunday School rooms on the back of our
church and this was much quieter than when we just had curtains between
the various classes.
When I was able to return home for leave from the Army in the summer of
1946, I found my grandfathers barn was about to lose all its protective
siding. Looking around for some way to repair the barn, I found the 1 by
10 boards, carefully stored in the long hayloft. I used them the
stabilize the sides of the barn. I believe this lasted until my brother
Clifford Hough could replace that old barn with a livestock and hay pole
barn. So 1946 was the last time I saw a piece of the Oak Hill School
building. (I forgot that I could also see parts of the old building in
our Sunday School classrooms.)
More information about the Granville-Hough
mailing list