Walkers Creek One Room School

Every year on the first weekend in September I attend a rual gathering. I get a chance to visit with people of my father's generation. All the people have connection's to the Walker Creek area where the event is held each September. When I was young there was a church and a one room school at this location, both are long gone. The church burned and the school was in such disrepair it was torn down. I can still remember going to the church for services each September and when the church services had concluded everyone would spread out food they had brought on long tables. Back then it took 3 long rows of tables to hold all the food,today all the food fits on one 15 foot section. Each year I am there, my vision always seems to gaze to the south west corner of the property, the location of the Walkers Creek school. The one room school was the backbone of education in rual Texas not too many years ago. There was a school house in every farming community, most had to be in walking distance for the children. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were the basic yet somehow every student always turned out a fairly well rounded thinker and made his or her way in the world just fine. Most one room schools were next to a church just as the Walker Creek school was. It must have been a pleasant place, were the kids all got along and made their own games which is so unlike the modern games kids have today. The one room school was surely a warm and nurturing environment, a safe , secure place were kids took their first steps toward the future. One of my memories of the school was imprinted in my mind between the age of 7 thro 10. In 1960 the school was still standing at its original location. The school had been closed several years before the first time I entered the building. It was as if they could still hold class. The desk were still all in their places. The black boards were still on all the walls, even the chalk and erasers were in place. The large stove at the rear of the class room still was full of ash from the wood used to heat the school. I could hear the echoes of the school children saying their alphabets and as I looked at the black boards I could hear the chalk moving across the slat. I could just see myself filling the ink wells, washing the black boards and maybe even scratching my name in one of the battered desk. Texas has undergone vast changes since the era of the one room school. Television has homogenized popular culture and brought urban ways to rual Texas. The automobile has made rual isolation a thing of the past. Communities used to be dominated by the church and school. Our large population growth has made the schools impractical and obsolete and that is a pity.