Photo Provided Anne Rattine, schoolmarm at the Great Western Schoolhouse, continues to give visiting children the experience of learning in the 18th century. Ohio University Eastern will celebrate the 150th anniversary Saturday.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Ohio University Eastern will host a celebration Saturday to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Great Western Schoolhouse, along with OHIO Eastern’s 65th anniversary.

According to a news release from OUE, in the 19th and 20th centuries most American students attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse. The schoolhouse would be filled with area children from first through eighth grades.

All the children would be taught their academic lessons by one teacher.

The room was lined with rows of children sitting in desks, the youngest children seated in the front followed by the older children filling the desks in the back of the school room.

Located on Ohio University Eastern’s campus, the Great Western School is one of the one-room school buildings still standing in Belmont County.

It was built by Clark Construction Co. in 1870 and remained open and in use until 1952.

The clay for the handmade bricks to construct the building was taken from the farm pond on the property. Roof support beams were hand-hewn from trees in the schoolyard. The iron bell, which is housed in the cupola, was cast by the J.B. Foote Co. in Fredericktown, Ohio.

“Most of the students who attended the one-room school became productive, life-long citizens in the communities in which they lived, utilizing the skills which were taught in this little one-room schoolhouse,” Ann Rattine, today’s schoolmarm, said.

She said the school remained in use for 82 years with enrollment fluctuating from as few as nine students to as many as 70. During this time in history, school was not mandatory, and students were not obliged to attend.

Many families needed their children to assist at home or on the farm.

Rattine, who started the job in 2009, said students come from as far as West Virginia, Pennsylvania and different areas in Ohio on field trips.

“We reenact how the school lessons would have been done from 1870 to 1892,” she said. “I was asked to become the third schoolmarm soon after I retired from teaching full time, and I find it important for people to understand how education progressed in the United States. The students read from reproduction McGuffey Readers. They do what we call ciphering using … arithmetic, and we have spelling bees using the words from the McGuffey spellers. … We also play games like pick up sticks and jacks, and then outside they do leap-frog, tug-of-war and sack races.”

In an interview available on the Belmont County Tourism website, Rattine said the schoolmarm position was created in 1987 with Virginia Helms filling that post. In 1992, Bonnie Koci took over the reins, with Rattine stepping in after Koci’s death in 2009,

Nancy Wright Easton of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, is a former student of the school. She recalls a fond memory of her schoolmarm during her years in the one-room schoolhouse.

“I remember when my teacher, Mrs. Goldie Skaggs, told my mother to let me wear pants to school instead of dresses all the time. I loved Mrs. Skaggs for that,” she said. “I also remember a time when two bad boys kept putting dirt in the water cooler.”

A classmate, Walt Secrest of Merritt Island, Florida, remembers Mrs. Skaggs fondly for the way she controlled the classroom, and he attributes the coursework for his career choice.

“The math classes, I believe, are why I became a CPA, certified public accountant,” Secrest said.

Skaggs served as schoolmarm at the time of the school’s closing in 1952. Rattine said both students would have attended in the 1950s.

According to the release, in 1976 as a U.S. bicentennial project, National Trail 348 of the International Questers restored the building after it fell into disrepair following its closure in 1952. The Questers chapter initiated an effort to preserve local history, maintaining a vital link to local cultural and educational heritage.

The restoration of this one-room schoolhouse provides guests the opportunity to step back in time and experience what education would have been like for children in the 19th and early 20th centuries when students learned the “three Rʼs” – Reading, ʻRiting and ʻRithmetic. The Questers continue to maintain the school, conducting tours and providing hands-on educational classes throughout the year to local school students.

The schoolhouse is included on the National Register of Historic Places.

Public festivities begin at 1 p.m. Saturday in the Shannon Hall Theatre on the OUE campus, with a historical program that includes presentations by Rattine and Melissa Reinbold, incoming Quester president for the state of Ohio. An open house will follow with refreshments, a flag-raising, and period games at the Great Western Schoolhouse on the west side of campus at 2 p.m. The schoolhouse will be open for guided tours, and former students will be on hand to share personal recollections from the past.

This event has been made possible with support from the National Trail 348 of the International Questers and Belmont County Tourism Council. For more information, visit ohio.edu/eastern/65th-anniversary.