MEMORIES OF LOVERIN SCHOOL

Bert Varnum started school at Hale School where his Uncle True was the teacher. A few weeks later he transferred to the Loverin School where his sister Alice had been hired to teach. Bert spent the next 9 years here.

This was the new schoolhouse in the district. The old one had been about one-half mile up the Robb Hill Road from the Airline. This building was one mile up the road. Bert had to travel a mile along the Airline and a second mile up the Robb Hill Road. His father, Earl Varnum, always kept a horse to get his children to school. The older children went to Hale school and the horse spent the day in the Grange stable. At Loverin District, the horse was kept in Alfred Perkins stable. Later on Bert’s sister Adla was teaching there and had a Model T touring car.

This schoolhouse was in an isolated neighborhood. The students that Bert remembers were Harris, Floyd, and Helen Brownlee, Grace, Viola, Ruth, and Dot Leaman, Bert and his brother Albert Varnum. Edwin Robb lived at the far end of the road, but drove his children over four miles to the Ryan School on the Airline in Baileyville (see issue 118, page 2) Bert could hear the wagon go by his school and Edwin clucking to his horse.

The last year for this school was 1929. Adla Varnum was the teacher and her four pupils were Harold and Gerald Perkins, Ruth Hall, and Bert. Ruth Hall boarded with Alfred and Carrie Perkins, as did the teachers excepting for the Varnums. School was in session for 30 weeks and there was a five-week vacation in winter.

We have no picture of this schoolhouse. It was unlike the Hale and Four Corners schools. This sketch shows the building from the road. Inside the door was a coatroom and woodshed. A door to the classroom was on the left.
 

One teacher between Alice and Adla Varnum was Pearl Hill of Calais. Her parents lived on the Hardscrabble Road and her father worked at Tori’s as the ice cream maker. In later years Bert would deliver cream to him in ten-gallon cans. Others teachers were Ada Mabey, and Charlotte Porter and Mabel McDowell, both of Princeton. Mabel was a good disciplinarian. She married Everett Perkins, one of the older sons of Alfred and Carrie.

RETURN