Going back to school
By Valorie Brecht
It takes a special kind of person to breathe new life into an old, forgotten building. But there is a unique satisfaction in seeing that building restored to a community gathering space once again.
That is what Loren and Kathleen (Kathy) Anderson have done to a little red schoolhouse that they moved onto their property on Rock Dam Lake.
Built in 1907, the building was known as the Blomquist School and later as the Church School, because it sat on the Church family property in Section 25 of North Foster, on the west side of County Highway M near Hay Creek. At the time, the address was Tioga, as there was a post office there; now the address is Willard.
George Church, one of the first pupils to attend the school, wrote, “In 1907 the town of Foster was part of the town of Mentor and the school was in the Humbird School District. It is not known who really paid for the land, or the school building, but is assumed that the Foster Lumber Company leased the land and had carpenters come out from Humbird or Fairchild and build the school.
“My folks came here in 1906 and they named the school after them. I attended the school from 1907 to about 1913 or 1914. There were only 10 pupils, at the start, but as many as 22 were counted and then it dwindled down to eight the last year, which was 1931. The teachers were Ray Lightfoot, Miss Burrows, May West, Emma Furlong, Gertrude Stony, Bernice Cole, Edna Sheets, Ethel Grave, Miss Elger, Ruth Baker, Lillian Jansen, Gladys Hizer, Miss Inglevby in the term of 1921-22, and were also teachers in the later years. Many of the teachers boarded with my folks” (as recorded on wiclarkcountyhistory. org). According to the Clark County Wisconsin History Buffs website, the school had one teacher who taught all eight grades. Some students bounced back and forth between the Church School and the nearby Blackberry School, going to whichever one had room.
“Many went to both schools during their eight years and some were quite old when they graduated from eighth grade,” the website notes.
In 1927, the teacher received $65 per month in salary. Some of the teachers stayed or boarded at the Fred Dean home, which at that time was the Tioga Hotel.
When the student count had dwindled too much, the school was discontinued and the building was sold to H. Van Gorden & Sons, who used it for a hunting shack for over 20 years. As of 1967, the building was still in use by another group of hunters.
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PROUD OWNERS - Kathy and Loren Anderson of La Crosse summer at Rock Dam Lake, and have spent the last three years remodeling the schoolhouse on their property when they come to visit on the weekends. VALORIE BRECHT/TRG PHOTO Schoolhouse
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The May 4, 1967 Marshfield News-Herald reported, “There is an atmosphere about a one-room country school that never will be duplicated in its larger consolidated parts. A case in point is the Church School… which today is the only ‘little red schoolhouse’ remaining in Clark County. It derived its name from its proximity to the nearby home of George Church. Idle for some years as a center of education, it is now owned by a group of hunters living at Delton, Wisconsin.”
At some point, the land was sold to Clark County and became part of the Clark County Forest. The building fell out of use as a hunting cabin. That is when Loren and his wife became part of the story.
The Andersons live in La Crosse, but stay at Rock Dam during the summers and consider Clark County their second home. Loren’s grandfather, Elmer Anderson from the Granton area, was chairman of the Clark County Board of Supervisors at the time they built the dam at Rock Dam Lake. Loren’s father, Charles, graduated from Neillsville High School and he still has a lot of relatives in the area.
In recent years, Loren was invited to take part in a project involved with preserving a piece of Clark County history.
“Back in 2021, I was talking with one of my neighbors at Rock Dam, and he said, ‘The county might be looking to get rid of the schoolhouse on M.’ So, I submitted a proposal and it was accepted,” Loren said. “The county wasn’t sure what to do with it, but they didn’t think tearing it down would be appropriate because of its history.”
“We had just gotten an empty lot on Lakeside Road at Rock Dam, and we didn’t know what to do with it, so we thought that would be a good place to put it,” he added.
Loren, an architect for 35 years, was no stranger to this type of project.
“I have restored buildings like this before. My first project was a church about the same size as this school that I did for the National Historic Trust or something like that,” said Loren.
“I thought, ‘Let’s put it back together, restore it, and save it.’” The first step was to move the schoolhouse to its new home. In February 2022, the schoolhouse was moved a few miles to its current site at N8677 Lakeside Rd., Willard. The mover built a steel frame to support the school, lifted it up, welded wheels onto the frame, and pulled it with a truck.
After that, it was a labor of love to completely gut and renovate the entire building. Loren and Kathy spent countless hours working on the schoolhouse.
“We were just up there on the weekends, so it took us a while,” said Loren.
“When we started out, the foundation was stone and we were going to reuse the stone foundation, but we figured we wouldn’t be able to do it as well as they did back in the early 1900s, so we ended up putting in pre-
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BEFORE AND AFTER - Above, the Church School had been used as a hunting cabin and fell into disrepair before the Andersons got their hands on it. Art tour participants check out the newly renovated Blomquist/Church School in the town of Foster, Rock Dam Lake, Clark County, completed this spring.
SUBMITTED PHOTO/VALORIE BRECHT/TRG PHOTO Schoolhouse
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cast blocks from a concrete company. We also sealed the roof off and put a new roof on. There had been some leakage. We put in new walls — there was not much left. There had been some damage to the ceiling, which we fixed. We insulated it when we put the heat in. We also had to scrub down all the walls, because they burned oil or coal, so we had to get all that residue off.”
“We very carefully put the electrical work in so we didn’t have to redo the walls.”
They hired out for the electrical work, heating and cooling system, siding, and roofing. Everything else they did themselves.
“We reused a lot of materials, as opposed to getting new,” said Loren.
They purchased a lot of their materials from the Habitat for Humanity ReStores in La Crosse and Eau Claire, which sell reusable and surplus building materials, furniture, and appliances to the public.
“We also had some neighbors remodeling and they would have stuff sitting out by the road, and we would ask, ‘Can we have this?’ and they said, ‘Sure.’ So that helped a lot,” Loren said.
The Andersons made an effort to preserve the original finishes, not wanting to create something new but rather bring it back to its original beauty — and simplicity.
“The school changed colors — it started out white and then was painted red. We decided to keep it red,” Loren said. “We also kept the inside colors what they were. We kept the maple floor but sanded it down. We kept the interior finishes original to the building. We wanted to keep the image of a school.”
The Andersons finished trimming out the schoolhouse a week before it was first opened to the public, which was during the Spring Into the Arts Tour, April 25-26, hosted by the Clark County Economic Development Corporation and Tourism Bureau. The Andersons’ daughter-in-law, her roommate, and her aunt all had artwork displayed there.
The Andersons also had an open house May 24 and played cards there the weekend of May 31.
Now, they are exploring other uses for the building, whether it’s to play cards again, host a musician, or just have a family get-together. They plan to have a little lending library in the foyer of the schoolhouse, for people to borrow books or contribute books for others to read.
“We’ll just see where it goes,” said Loren. They are happy to have the schoolhouse on display as a visual reminder of a simpler time and a point of interest for people driving by.
“A lot of people at Rock Dam would see us working on it and stop by to see how it was going. Now that it’s all done, they say it’s a nice addition to the lake area,” said Loren.
The Andersons are hoping to compile more historical information about the school so it can be added to the file they have.
“We would appreciate any more information people have about the school,” said Loren.
Anyone with information can contact Loren at a724la@gmail.com.
MAKING THE MOVE - The 1907 Church School was carefully moved a few miles from its original home along Highway M to its current location along Lakeside Road at Rock Dam in February 2022.
SUBMITTED PHOTO.
