Wilder Association to build replica schoolhouse

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November 30, 2008

By DENISE A. RAYMO The Press Republican Mon Dec 01, 2008, 04:33 AM EST

BURKE — The Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder Association will step up fundraising in January with hopes to build a replica of the Burke schoolhouse he attended as a boy.

Almanzo Wilder was born in Burke Feb. 13, 1857, and it was his childhood in Franklin County that was the basis for his wife's book "Farmer Boy" published in 1933.

Of all the places Laura wrote about in her books, the Wilder family homestead on Stacy Road is the only original structure that remains on its original site.

Association President Kathy Ellis said volunteer research uncovered documentation that Almanzo's father, James Wilder, served as a trustee at a local district school.

Using maps from that time period and assuming that he would serve at the same school his children attended, it is believed the site is just south of the Wilder family homestead and the association's museum property.

"It's a home now, and there have been additions to it, but looking at it from the right angle, it appears to look just like a schoolhouse would have looked like back then," Ellis said.

The association has not yet approached the family living there to ask about the property's history, but the schoolhouse replica is an idea that is already igniting interest among the membership and association visitors.

There is no established fundraising goal yet until final designs are obtained and a contractor hired. But already a collection jar at the museum's gift shop announcing the planned construction has solicited donations.

A more formalized fund drive will start after the holidays, Ellis said.

"Any amount of money would be appreciated, but those who give $50 or more will get a free one-year (association) membership."

Those who give $100 or more will get the free membership and a nameplate that can be engraved with a message to be hung in the completed schoolhouse.

Donors who give $500 or more receive the one-year membership, the nameplate plaque and 10 free passes to the homestead grounds, she said.

In addition to cash, the association would also accept donations of building materials. The contractor hired for the building project would hand-make the students' desk to be displayed in the classrooms, she said.

The association would like the schoolhouse to include displays of authentic items from that time in history.

She said several school books have been donated, but they are mostly from the 1920s and '30s and would not work in the 19th-century school.

"We'll need an old wooden teacher's desk, and I'd love to find a real slate blackboard and an antique globe," Ellis said, adding that families could make a long-term loan of such items to the association with the explicit promise in writing that the items would be returned to the donor family.

Anyone interested in learning more about the project or to make a donation, can visit www.almanzowilderfarm.com or call Kathy Ellis at 483-3729.

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com