Letter from Fred Mellenbruch

To Old Friends and Neighbors
Edited by Otis Mellenbruch

I have been requested to write something that might be interesting about the early days of the Mulberry School and school district No. 28 so in retrospect 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 S. W. of where George and Angel Hook now reside. This land was in the Mulberry district. My father had taught his home school in Indiana for two years before he served throughout he Civil War and for five years after the war then he taught his home school Mulberry. He was the teacher at Mulberry for three years then they moved south across the road and were in the Old Fairview District so he had charge of the Old Fairview school for four years and one year at the Eagle school and one year at Carson. He taught seven years in Indiana and nine years in Brown County. When teaching at Mulberry the school house was located one half mile east of where it was when the school was closed, to the north and east of the corner on the former John Peck farm. Later on this school building was moved east to the John Kruse farm and later known as the A. B. Streeter farm and used for a horse barn. I have helped both Mr. Kruse and Mr. Streeter fill the mow with hay. I think the building is still standing with blackboards still showing on the walls. This school building was sold and the location was moved one half mile west and the new building was erected in 1879. I have here the original transfer of one acre of land form D. M. Reed and wife to School Dist No 28 of Brown County Kansas. The price was fifteen dollars and it was also stipulated that the grant or sale should be in effect as long as it was used for school purposes. I was one year old at that time (1878) so when the school house was sold some years ago the land automatically went back to the present owner Mrs. Moore so this terminated the activities of School D. 28. I do not know the date this school district was organized but it must have been after the Civil War and before the year 1870. I suppose it got the name Mulberry on account of 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 that when my father taught in the first building of the large number of older scholars. The school was overcrowded with young men one being 24 years old and some wearing mustaches which were quite prevalent at that time. I wonder if some of these had served in the Civil War and was trying to still get some more education by attending the winter months. They also spoke of the singing classes that my father conducted of evenings at Mulberry and other schools. In those years teachers had to recite or hold thirty to forty classes each day so the scholars had to study and prepare their own lessons and not depend so much on instructions from the teachers as of today. We located in District 28 on Feb 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 that I was elected clerk to succeed Bart Shelton who was planning to move to Okla. I served for the 17 years we lived in the district. Others who served with me these years were Wm Fritz, Harry Scott, Mr. Appleoff, Mr. Mclaughlin and Lawrence Livinghood all good men to work with. I might also add that in 1916 I was also elected as the clerk for the first board of the Hamlin Rural H. S. along with Mr. Pierson Eglin as director and Mr. Jerry Scheerer as treasurer, both very fine men to work with. Mr. Edward Brockhoff has told me that when he was one of the school board thatt school affairs were going along nicely but nobody but the school board would attend the annual meeting. They decided and entered it on the records to have three months of school in the fall, then three months of winter vacation, then three months of school in the spring. The word soon got out about this strange new plan and a petition was circulated and everybody signed that the board go back to the regular eight months of school. Mr. Brockhoff said there was lots of complaint and criticism but he said (they) a large crowd was in attendance the next year meeting. When we moved into the dist in 1901 and built the buildings where Mr. Forney now lives, there was thirty homes that were occupied and now sixty two years later I find only fifteen homes being used. The other fifteen have disappeared or are empty. How will this situation be sixty years from now? Will the other fifteen homes be gone? Will the land go back and become prairie again? Maybe the Indians will possess it again. An old friend residing on the Pacific coast tells me in 10-15 yrs. from now food from the bottom of the ocean will be in supply so there may be no need to raise our food on land.

Some of the earliest residents that I can recall that are now all gone - Claycamp, Ross Fred Curtis, Baker, Frank Robbins, R. Gordon, Josiah Anders, Witmers, Beals, Wagner, Wm Meyers, Amos Sword, Roberts, Kirk, Springer, Maxwell, Shelton Sweezey.

(Added by Otis Mellenbruch August 9, 1990) C.F. Mellenbruch died in 1969 at the age of 91.