Editor's note: This is part of a series of articles on one-room schoolhouses: their history and their
present status in rural communities. If you have a story about attending a one-room schoolhouse or about current uses of former one-room schoolhouses, email it to [email protected] for possible inclusion in a future issue of Agweek.
GEDDES, S.D. — For settlers across the Great Plains, patriotism was an important part of their heritage. They were proud to be Americans and one schoolhouse in Geddes, in southern South Dakota, has been displaying that pride for well over 100 years.
The Red, White and Blue school was built 7 miles outside of Geddes in 1884, but records show that school didn’t begin there until 1901. While most schools in the area at the time were painted all white, this one was painted in the colors of the American flag and still has its original colors to this day.
This schoolhouse was in operation until 1948.
Some of the Red, White and Blue school students still remember what it was like to study in that one-room school.
Richard Durhan started attending the Red, White and Blue school in around 1937 and stayed from first through eighth grade. He ended up getting to have the same teacher for almost the whole time he attended the school, which was rare for most country schools.
“It was very good because I had the same teacher for seven years and then her sister the last year,” Durhan said. “When I found out she was going to leave and go, I must’ve been in love with her because it was the worst day of my life."
Some of Durhan’s favorite memories in the school include the games they would get to play.
“We always played softball in the spring, softball in the fall and then in the wintertime, we’d probably make a big circle out in the snow, it all had traces in it and then everybody chased each other. If you didn’t make it to the center, you was kicked out,” he said.
At Christmastime, Durhan said they always had a nice Christmas program and a Christmas tree.
In the spring, the class would get to take a hike.
“We would walk out in the hills for about a mile and a half and back,” he said. “That was just a break for us, and it was pretty nice.”
Durhan says at country school, you got a well-rounded education.
“When you went to the country school, you knew your reading, writing and arithmetic, because you learned that from the first grade to the eighth grade because the teacher had the desk right up there and we sat back here and you heard every grade, every class went through,” he said. “So you kind of absorbed that by the time you got to the eighth grade, you were ready to go to high school.”
When it was time to go to the high school, Durhan said it was “like going to a different world.”
“We lived seven miles south of town. I didn’t know a soul north of town. Within three or four miles as far as I knew people,” he said. “But that was kind of our life. It was pretty small and we were country hicks when we went to high school in town.”
After high school, Durhan farmed and dug ditches.
“My mother told me, if you don’t get better grades in school, you’re going to end up being a ditch digger,” he said. “She was right.”
The Red, White and Blue school has since been moved in the Geddes Historical Village, where it is still open to the public.