Peal the bell for this old school

LaMOILLE — Some in LaMoille still remember when the old school bell would ring out to call children to class. The bell, which pre-dates the 1887 Allen School, was retired a few years ago only to make a comeback in time for the start of the 2019-20 school year.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 10, LaMoille schools superintendent Jay McCracken will revive the bell-ringing tradition to celebrate the start of another school year at one of the state’s oldest, continuously operating school buildings.

The old school bell will ring again on Wednesday, Aug. 14, for the first official day of school.

The school was originally built when Joseph Allen, an early settler in the area, left enough money in his will to build the school and an additional $10,000 to maintain it. Even today, Neal Drummer said that money is still in a trust for the school.

“I think they’ve still got the $10,000,” Drummer said. “They tried to use it for other reasons, but no, that will was iron clad.”

The original school included a three-year high school. The first graduating class was four girls.

On the top floor, walls were built to create classrooms in the original gymnasium.

“This was used as a gymnasium,” Drummer said as he stood in one of the rooms. “It was all one big room. There was a stage in it and they took the stage out.

“One of the people who stood on that stage and talked when my brother was in high school was Cordell Hull, secretary of state under President (Franklin) Roosevelt. How they happened to get him here (in LaMoille), I have no clue. (U.S. Sen. Everett)Dirksen and (U.S. Rep.) Lane Evans and several others were around too.”

By the time Hal Adkins started school in 1955, the school was bursting at the seams which prompted the construction of a new high school. The gymnasium that had been home to the 1920s county champion basketball team, meeting room for the local Christian Scientists and even high school study hall, was divided up again into classrooms.

Enrollment in the school district fluctuated from even the early days of settlement. Dummer said the stories say Allen School was built to replace a smaller school on LaMoille’s east side.

The three-story building also was used by the Civil Defense during World War II. Watchers would be on the roof during blackouts. Lines were run to the attic so the watchers could call and report any light found during those drills.

Those lines were possible after electricity came to LaMoille around 1919. Drummer said hooks in the ceiling show where the oil lamps once hung before the turn of the last century. The building also pre-dates indoor plumbing.

“Another thing, down on the ground floor are nice, tiled restrooms,” Drummer said. “But my grandmother, she graduated here about 1908, at the time there were huge indoor outhouses. There was no indoor plumbing.”

The superintendent changed that by digging a well and constructing a pump house on the grounds. A large holding tank in the attic still exists from when the water was pumped up there and then gravity fed to restrooms and other areas of the building.

Hal Adkins (LHS class of 1967) and George McCollum (LHS class of 1974) toured the building with Drummer and talked about the classes -- and the teachers -- that they shared.

Along with remembering the bell that rang at the start of the school day, they remember the Allen Day parade that would close the school year.

“We’d ask people who had gardens for flowers and we’d march down to the cemetery on the last day of school,” Adkins said.

That’s another tradition McCracken plans to revive along with the ringing of the school bell. He said the bell ringing ceremony will include a procession to Allen’s grave.

McCracken said tours of the building and other activities including an old-fashioned ice cream social are in the works for the bell ringing ceremony which he hopes will become an annual event.

“This will be symbolic for the area, the start of school,” McCracken said. “I think this building is a testament to the community as to how well they took care of the school.”

Allen Junior High School, now home to grades 4-8, is one of only a handful of 19th century school buildings still in continuous operation. The Illinois State Board of Education lists Bethel Elementary School in Mount Vernon as the oldest, continuously operating school and they, too, ring the bell in front of their 1865 schoolhouse to start the school year.

Steve Nelson with Larson and Darby Group in Rockford, the LaMoille School District architect, said keeping 19th century school buildings operating can be a challenge and requires a commitment from the community.

“Some (old schools) were abandoned, some too expensive to maintain, some must come down before they fall down,” Nelson said. “It’s challenging to put 21st century components into a building.”

But that’s what LaMoille did with whiteboards placed over the top of chalkboards as an example of modern technology piped into rooms that still look like the inside of a “Hoosiers” movie set.

“They built these buildings back in the day very solid, and I do mean solid,” Nelson said.

While that creates challenges when running wires or even hanging a new chart, it’s a challenge that LaMoille prefers to tackle rather than lose their school. Nelson said not all school districts want to spend the money on maintenance issues such as asbestos removal, tuckpointing, new roof and windows like LaMoille does.

As McCracken noted, it’s a testament to their commitment and pride in their school. And it shows.

The public is invited to attend the bell-ringing ceremony, tour the building and reminisce with other students and graduates.