Mulberry School

1932
Mulberry School

A Short History of Mulberry, District No. 28
by C.F. Mellenbruch

I have been requested to write something that might be interesting about the early days of Mulberry school and school district--so let me take you back to the year 1869, the year my parents came to Kansas from the state of Indiana.

They bought some land and built a small home near the Mulberry Creek, southwest of where George and Angel Hook now reside.

My father had taught his home school in Indiana for two years before he served in the army, through the Civil War, and again for five years after the war. Then he taught his home school Mulberry. He taught Mulberry for three years; then they moved south across in road and were in the Old Fairview District. So he had charge of Old Fairview school for four years, then one year at Eagle school and one at Carson. He taught seven years in Indiana and nine in Brown County, Kansas.

At that time, Mulberry school house was located one-half mile east of where it was when the school was closed, on the north and west corner of the former John Peck Farm. Later this school building was moved to the John Kruse farm and later known as the A.B. Streeter farm. It was then used as a horse barn. I have helped both Mr. Streeter and Mr. Kruse fill the mow with hay. The building is still standing with the original blackboard still painted on the partition (with the names of Lawrence, Hazel, Mildred, Audrey, and Violet Mellenbruch still visible).

After the building was sold, the location was moved one-half mile west, and the new building erected in 1879. I have the original transfer of one acre of land from D. M. Reed and wife to School District No 28, of Brown County, Kansas. The price was $15. and it was also stipulated that the grant would be in effect as long was it was used for school purposes. I was one year old at that time--1878. So when the schoolhouse was sold some years ago, the land automatically went back to the present owner, Mrs. Neola Scott Moore, and this was the termination of the activities of School District No. 28.

I do not know the date the school district was organized, but it must have been after the Civil War and before 1870. I suppose it got its name "Mulberry" from Mulberry Creek, which was one mile to the south and crosses the entire south part of the district. Mr. Ed Brockhoff and Bert Gaston have both spoken to me about when my father taught in the first building, and of the large number of older scholars. The school was overcrowded with young men, one being 24 years of age, and some wearing mustaches, which were quite prevalent at the time. I wonder if some hadn't served in the Civil War and were still trying to get more education by attending the winter months.

They also spoke of the singing classes my father conducted, evenings, at Mulberry and other schools. In those years the teachers had to recite or hold thirty to forty classes each day so the scholars had to study an prepare their own lessons and not depend so much on instruction from the teachers and workbooks as they do today.

We located in District 28 on February 1, 1901. The annual school meeting was in June. I did not attend as I was helping a neighbor threshing wheat, but when I got home at night, my wife told me I had been elected clerk to succeed Bart Shelton, who was planning to move to Oklahoma. I served all of the 17 years we lived in the district. Others who served with me these years were W. Fritz, Harry Scott, G.R. Appleoff, Mr. McLaughlin, and Lawrence Livinghood, all good men to work with. I might add that in 1916, I was also elected as clerk for the first board of the Hamlin Rural High School, along with Mr. Pierson Eglin as director, and Mr. Jerry Sherrer, Treasurer. Both were very fine men to work with.

Mr. Edward Brockhoff told me when he was one of the school board that school affairs were going along nicely, but nobody but the school board would attend the annual meetings. So they decided, and entered it on the records, to have three months of school in the fall and three months of winter vacation, then three months in the spring. The word soon got around about this strange new plan and a petition was circulated and everybody signed, asking that the board go back to the regular eight months of school. Mr. Brockhoff said there was a lot of complaint and criticism, but a larger crowd was in attendance the next year at the meeting.

When we moved into the district in 1901 and built the buildings where Mr. Ira Forney now lives, there were thirty homes that were occupied; and now, sixty-two years later, I find only fifteen homes are occupied, the other fifteen having disappeared or being vacant. Will the other fifteen homes be gone sixty years from now? Will the land go back to the prairie? Maybe the Indians will possess years food will be supplied from the bottom of the ocean and perhaps we will not have to raise it on the land.

Names of some of the earliest residents I can recall are: Claycamp, Ross, Fred Curtis, Baker, Frank Robbins, R. Fordon, Josiah Anders, Witmers, Beals, Wagner, Wm. Meyers, Amos Sward, Roberts, Kirk, Springer, Maxwell, Shelton, and Sweezy.

C.F. Mellenbruch
Written in 1963

Second version of letter edited by Otis Mellenbruch

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