LIBERTY SCHOOL -- FONDLY REMEMBERED

Liberty School is slowly beginning to show its age, with part of the roof gone, holes in the walls and a portion of the floor gone.

Elroy Kinder points to some of the damage that has been done to the outside of the Liberty School. Kinder attended Liberty from 1939 until 1941.

This is how Liberty School looked in 1962. Liberty School used to be well-kept before time began to take its toll. (Photo courtesy of Elroy Kinder)

These are the parents and children of Liberty School in 1932. (Photo courtesy of Elroy Kinder)

Liberty School just three miles south of Gordonville may be in a near-state of ruin today, but it made a lasting impression on those who went there.

It will always have a place in the heart of Elroy Kinder, who attended the school from 1939 until 1941.

"The one-room school I remember attending touched so many lives," said Kinder, who walked nearly two miles to go to Liberty.

Kinder's teacher was Doris Davault, who was teaching for the very first time in 1940 at the age of 19.

"It was real interesting," Davault, who now resides in Jackson, said. "I had a good time."

Davault said she only had about 12 students, which was much better than the 25 plus classes she would later become accustomed to.

"The students I had were outstanding in their learning," Davault said. "In a one-room school, with just 12 students, I could give them maximum attention."

She walked to school, too, right passed Elroy Kinder's house. "Sometimes I'd even walk with Elroy and his sister," Davault said.

Kinder has saved everything he has come across in connection with the school.

He has news clippings dating as far back as 1966, when the Bulletin Journal ran an historic photo of the Liberty School Reunion of 1932.

"I am recording bits of history from the memories of those living, from the faded clippings in scrapbooks and the pictures treasured by so many descendants," Kinder said.

Kinder, who was a science teacher for 30 years in Cape, even has taken photos of the school as it falls into a state of disrepair.

Tragically, time has taken quite a toll on Liberty School.

Parts of the roof of the building that sits on the old gravel county road have caved in and a portion of the floor where the library used to be has given way to dirt and grass.

"It's in pretty bad shape," Kinder said. "It's a wonder somebody hasn't come in a bulldozed it over."

Kinder knows a lot about the school's history, too, though he only has vague memories of his brief time at Liberty.

"My father and older sister attended there," Kinder said, "so I got to hear them talk about it."

The original Liberty School of Cape Girardeau County was built in 1852. The log building was built on Charles Newmeyer's farm.

Previously, children in that area got much of their education in their homes. Those parents who had enough money hired a tutor.

More often than not, children were just taught the basics from their mother while their fathers took care of the farm.

But after the construction of Liberty, residents from as far as Dutchtown had their own school, if they had transportation.

Most children, like Kinder, walked. One boy, Henry F. Ueleke, of Zion, rode a horse to school.

The first log structure served for 38 years sitting three miles southwest of Gordonville.

On April 11, 1889, citizens and property owners in Liberty School B District, later changed to No. 60, by petition asked the school directors to select a new site.

The land was purchased for $64 from a man named Brennecke.

A frame structure was built in 1890 just a mile south of the original building for a cost of $600. The earliest classes had children ranging in ages of 7 to possibly 25 years.

At the frame school classes were carried on until 1945.

The board decreed that no profanity was to be used in or around the school; no quarreling and the teacher was directed to be impartial, speaking to all the students in plain speech and language.

But that was then. What does the future hold for Liberty School?

"That's a good question," Kinder said. "It seems to me it's almost past the point of restoration -- too far gone."

Kinder said that there is a memorial stone there and that will help preserve the memory.

"It's been interesting, though, from an historical standpoint, watching it slowly fade away."

Kinder hopes that his work will help keep Liberty's memory alive, too.

He said he's saved all of the things he has for "all who experienced a social and educational tie to the one-room school that somehow touched them."

Editor's Note: Parts of the information from this story was taken from previous articles written by Aven Kinder, a long time staff member of the Southeast Missourian.