From the monthly E-Newsletter from Historic Cook County, MN – Feb 2021

THE BIRCHWOOD SCHOOL, MINERAL CENTER
by Gertrude Linnell, 1913-2004
 A big part of my heart went with the demise of Birchwood School in Mineral Center in the northeastern part of Minnesota.  This school was built by a heady group of pioneer settlers including my grandfather, Johnse Woodard.  During three phases of my life’s history, Birchwood School attained almost landmark stature.  First of all, my mother, Blanche Woodard, was the first teacher of Birchwood School in 1911-1912.  Secondly, I attended that school during my elementary years and have many happy memories of those days, some of which I will later relate.  Thirdly, after high school and college years, I returned to Mineral Center and taught 1935-1937, the last two years Birchwood School was in operation before being torn down for salvage lumber.  So, the brief 24-year history of Birchwood School will remain in these few pages of my inadequate effort.  How I wish I could impart to you the true essence of the nostalgic affection I felt for that beloved school!  But words are meager tools to accomplish that.

Mineral Center School, 1921

Birchwood School was built in a cleared area amidst a tall evergreen, maple, and birch forest that Rube Smith, my great uncle, had once used as a pasture and barn land for his goats and cattle.  When I began school in the early 1920’s the herd had dwindled to a feisty nanny goat and Billy goat, whom I will mention later.  The exterior of the building was white clapboard with two adjacent “his” and “hers” outhouses, a tall belfry atop the school housed a huge brass bell that could be rung from inside the building by an attached heavy rope.  How I loved the sonorous “clang!  clang!” of that bell even through it meant an end to a playground activity.

Birchwood School Mineral Center, c1936(row – position from front of image, rows starting on the right)  Doris Smith 1-1; William Cuff 1-2; Bobbie Smith 1-3; Gilbert Bockovich 2-1; Elsie Mosher 2-2; Cassel? Kimball 2-3; Bob Mosher 2-4; Gertrude Peterson (Linnell); Dorothy Smith 3-1; unknown Cuff 3-2; Oliver Peterson 3-3; Orlain Woodard 3-4; Halbert Bockvich 3-5; Mr. Lowe; Leonard Cuff 4-1; Ted Smith 4-2; Frank Kimball 4-3; Norman Wall 4-4; Helene Mosher 5-1; Harold Smith 5-2 (“Shine”); Nona Smith 5-4 (in front of stove); Bud Smith 5-5 (in front of stove); Fern Smith 5-6 (chalkboard)
The building was heated by a big cast iron furnace type wood stove enclosed by an outer tin jacket, supposedly to circulate the heat in our big one-room school.  Electricity was unheard of in these early schools.  Light was provided by windows on three sides and hanging kerosene lamps or lanterns when the building was used at night.  A crockery bubbler fountain was refilled twice a day with delicious cool water from nearby spring.  Desks attached to parallel strips of boards provided seating for the students, the desk having a shelf built underneath to hold our books and supplies.  In the rear of the room was a two-burner kerosene stove, used to make hot cocoa or soup to supplement the lunch box meal brought from home.  Two high bookcases held our library books, fiction and reference.  I’m sure I read every book in “our library” at least twice; “Toby Tyler and the Circus”, “Anne of Green Gables”, “Hiawatha” and many other exciting adventures to a young reader.

Birchwood Mineral Center School, 1937
(row-position from left) Bob Smith 1-1; Lonnie Smith 1-2; Donna Bramer 1-3; Jean Linnell 1-4; Nelda Bockovich Westerlund 1-5; Dallas Smith 1-6; Oliver Peterson 1-7; Warren Woodard 1-8; unknown 2-1; Barbara Bramer 2-2; Norman Wall 2-3; Violet Wall 2-4; Gertrude Peterson (Linnell) 2-5; Nona Bockovich 2-6; Doris Smith 2-7; Gilbert Bockovich 2-8

Having eight grades to teach meant classes of short duration (10-15 minutes), doubled up classes, and using older students as assistants; somehow learning took place.  Concentration was difficult as classes were going on while others were expected to study in preparation for their own classes.  We learned some valuable habits in this one room schools; patience, concentration, and sharing which carried us through our later years.

Recreation was of the children’s own making usually.  Playground equipment was two teeter totters, a chinning bar, and a maypole type swing called a “giant stride” (6 or 8 chain swings attached at the top revolved around wood to hold in our outstretched hands, then run clockwise for speed enough to carry you!).  As soon as snow was gone in the spring marble games and baseball were popular, also group games such as “pom pom pull away”, “Red Rover”, “last couple out”, etc.  “Puppy love” romances sometimes happened to the more daring couples, when they would be unmercifully teased by the others.

Every spring we would hike up to the “Sugar Bush Camp” where the Indians from Grand Portage Indian Reservation would set up temporary camp while the maple sap was running, tap the trees with hand carved spouts, and catch the sap in buckets below.  This they would heat over an open fire to a syrup or sugary stage and later put the syrup in bottles to be sold and molded sugar into tiny delicious cakes of maple sugar.  We watched the entire process in eager, open-eyed wonder, as we were later each rewarded with a tiny cake of delicious maple sugar.  I still remember the mouth-watering sweetness of that maple sugar!

Have I succeeded in making my beloved Birchwood School gone these many years, a picture in your minds you treasure as I do?  Or maybe it has brought to mind your own mental picture of your early years in your rural school?  I truly hope my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will know a little more about what made the person they call “mom, nana, and grand-nana” into the 85 year old senior citizen they know today!

Gertrude Peterson Linnell, teacher, shown in 1948