The book draft is complete!

Just a quick post to say the manuscript for The Brass Bell is complete and has been sent off for publication consideration. These things take time, patience, and a bit of a hard shell. What if they say no? Well, on to the next. I don't think I'll be wallpapering my house with rejection letters, but let's face it, these are tough times for any kind of business, including publishing. Nevertheless, I'm one of those who believes that books are as much a part of the human existance as eating and bathing. Life is not complete without books to hold in our hands, without stories to take us to another place and another life so that we might share and engage with humanity. There are so many of us here on the planet it's impossible for our brains to conceive the actual numbers. We are part of a teeming pot of people all like us in one way or another. Understanding how others overcome or transform keeps us sane, takes us out of our own predicament for a while, like heavy weights lifted from a sore back. Stories about the past take us to a place that has become somehow sacred through a feeling called nostalgia.

I remember so many happy times in front of the hearth in my Aunt Marion's living room. Perhaps some of you who knew her, who had the pleasure of visiting while a fire blazed in the stone fireplace will recognize the pen and ink drawing above.

Book almost Finished!

The first draft of The Brass Bell is almost complete! I could not have told the story without the help of those who were there and have been so generous to share their stories.

Every time I read the one about the boys stringing tin cans across the bottom of the stairs on a Saturday morning in hopes of hearing the janitor as he might unwittingly ascend the stairway from the basement, discover all of them in the gym playing basketball, I smile. These "boys" are now in their 80s, but to them, it was just yesterday. When they recount scurrying out the front door and across the lawn, they evoke a Saturday morning nearly 70 years ago, the sounds of their high-tops on the gym floor, the gasps of heavy breathing from running and from terror.

The biggest thrill for Cherry Roaders was the senior class trip. Each alumni I've talked with has recounted the events of that trip as though the train had just left the station, Syracuse fading as their train heads east and then south.

You can almost hear the cows mooing up at the Jeroms farm, the clanking of the milk bottles in Van Jerome's wire basket early in the morning. It's just a dream. Most of the farms are now buried beneath roads and shopping malls. The old tunnel that was part of a complicated system of cables, pulleys, and buckets, rigged to transport limestone from Split Rock to Solvay Process, was closed down a hundred years ago. Stories about running through the tunnel in the dark are embedded in the memories of those who were there. Until the neighbors plugged it up with cement, kids used the tunnel as a short-cut. They played in the abandoned quarry, took a picnic lunch, stayed all day until the street lights came on, their signal to go home.

The book is filled with people from the past. The wonder and the tragedies of their lives come alive on the pages.

There is much to be learned from the successes of Cherry Road School, from the first day Miss Parsons stood on the front step of the old chicken coop in 1926, and then on the front steps of the brand new red brick school in 1927, until the day she retired in 1952.

I'll keep you informed about the progress of the publication of The Brass Bell!








The Split Rock/Solvay Process cable system is pictured above....

Parent Involvement

The Cherry Leaf

Whether it's an old-fashioned ditto-mastered newsletter mailed to parents or a classroom blog, reaching out to families is one critical element for school success.

The leadership of Cherry Road School have always understood this. One of the first things Marion Parsons did when the new school was finished in 1927 was to establish The Mother's Club.

In 1932, a school newspaper called The Cherry Leaf began publication. Its masthead declared that it was "Published by the Pupils of Cherry Road School--School District No.1, Town of Geddes." Using it as a tool to teach children about running a business and managing funds, ads were sold to support the cost of printing and postage. Student reporters shared news and events. They wrote about fundraising luncheons, the advent of a new scoutmaster; purchase of new sports equipment, glee club, and drama club news. The Cherry Leaf had a staff of 11 student editors by its second edition in December of 1932. Lloyd Mitchell, as student Editor-in-Chief, used the metaphor of the stages of an acorn growing into a mighty oak tree as a comparison to that of "...a boy or girl through their life in school....if they don't start out right they won't end up right."

I've discovered in my extensive research into the history of Cherry Road School, through my many conversations with alumni, that students who attended from 1926 through the 1950s credit much of their success to the start they received at Cherry Road School. It was the strong element of parental involvement that motivated them in years to come. It was the parents' partnership with teachers and administration that kept them on the straight and narrow when they were in school....no room to play one side against the other. The adults were united, but according to the stories that by now have been re-told hundreds of times, they were fair. If a kid suffered a consequence, they knew they had it coming.

Many have told me that because of the strong foundation of parent involvement, this school felt like a family. And the students didn't want to let the family down, so everyone tried their hardest to do their best. Some of the most interesting stories are the pranks that were played by the kids who knew if they were caught, what the outcome would be...one alumni put it this way: "...if I had been caught, there would have been nothing left of me put a dark puddle on the sidewalk." They accepted what was right and what was wrong and had a great time trying to see what they could get away with. Each accepted their punishment when it came. They knew their parents would never defend them against the teachers. Imagine. Teaching in a supportive and supported environment.

On the Home Front, WWII

"But there is one front and one battle where everyone in the United States--every man, woman, and child--is in action, that front is right here at home in our daily lives."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1942

Like school children all over the country, the lives of the students of Cherry Road School were changed after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On the home front activities included air raid drills and collecting seed pods, piling them up in the gymnasiam. The milkweed pods were used to make parachutes.

Older brothers had gone off to war. Patriotism was a way of life, and children of Cherry Road School were part of a community effort.

I'm looking for stories from anyone who was there during this time. What can you remember about those days that you would be willing to share for the purpose of the book, The Brass Bell?

Please comment on this post or contact me directly at:

schoolhouse2@comcast.net

Memorial Day

Honoring Cherry Road School Veterans~

In honor of Memorial Day, and the young men who served over 60 years ago, some of them a mere 17 years-old, anxious to serve, willing to bend the truth to be there. The following men are graduates of Cherry Road School who served in World War II:

Lester Wilbur Marco Terziev
Robert E. Doehner Loyd Mitchell
Arthur Meyers Leland Mitchell
Harry Castleman Fred Baxter
Edward Browning Bradford Sherry
James Stewart John Sherry
John Terziev Irving Avery
William McArdell Sidney Spillett
Raymond McArdell Herbert Hardisty
Robert McArdell Robert Hardisty
Sidney Bannister David P. Cole
Peter W. Cole Van Jerome
Richard Henry William Male
Bradford Vineall Richard Pollard
Edwin Vineall James Male
Francis Powell Robert Klock
Raymond Hackbarth Fay Bailey
Kenneth Bailey John Farnham
Donald Calkins John Pyle
William Brady Alfred Colbourn
Raymond Smith Dan Salisbury
Stanley Smith Robert Coulter
James Robinson Edward Lundy
James Rowe Herbert Curtis
Jack Trowdridge William Patterson
Gordon Peterson Quentin Wells
Morgon Cooper Fermin McKaig
Richard Ryan Franklin Brady
Wendell Horrigan Donald Porter
Robert Horrigan Peter Zavalauskas
Robert Tetrault John Gould
James Sherlock Richard Owen
Ralph Bristol John Hennessdy
Matt Windhausen Harda Haight
Charles Windhausen Kenneth Meyers
Bernard Windhausen Frederick White
Melvin Merrill Eugene Allen
Ralph Amedro Nicholas Krascella
Donald Cole James Murphy
Willaim Harley James Payne
Vernon Roth Richard M. Cone
James Ryan C.E. Sillion
Harold Avery C.W. Hewlett
Carl Bausch Richard Schwartz
Nes Goodwin James P. Furlong
L.Adell Havens James Cosgrove
Frances Terziev Alden Sherry
Mary Gere William H. Stewart, Jr
Margie Bealer Schuler Edwin M. Baylard
Edward W. Sweeney
James C. Connelly
J.D. Hillyer

A plaque with these names once hung in the hallway of Cherry Road School. Since then it hung in the home of Van Jerome and he passed it along to Leland Mitchell who donated the plaque to the Solvay-Geddes Historical Society last fall. The now President of the Historical Society, Susan Millet, copied all these names off the plaque and sent them to me so I could post them on this site.

Many of the veterans listed here are no longer alive. Many of them are and have important stories to tell. Those of us who are interested try to gather as much of the history as we can while it is still available from the people who were there.

Thank-you all.

History of a Suburb

Almost every city in the United States has what became known as "suburbs" during the post-war housing boom of the 1950s. Most of these 'suburbs' were at one time farmland--dairy farms, apple orchards, cattle ranches.

Cherry Road School grew from a one-room schoolhouse in a farm community called Westvale. The area had been settled during the 1800s by several families. Over time, as their children grew up and had families, they stayed close by and built farms of their own. The barn in the picture above was the Jerome Dairy barn. The Jerome family lived and farmed in Westvale. Many of the farms in Westvale were able to survive for a while as the city grew around them. A vivid memory of my 1950s childhood is Van Jerome delivering fresh milk in the morning, glass bottles clanging as he placed them inside the tiny milk door in the kitchen. You could hear him whistling all the way back to his milk truck.

Eventually the Jerome dairyfarm, too, would have to make way for shopping malls, neighborhoods, freeways, more schools....During the second half of the 20th century, a lot of the landmarks and the familiar faces of Westvale disappeared in the name of progress. The Jerome barn came down in the late 1960s to make way for Route 695. The new road cut a swath through fields where cows and horses once grazed lazily, where children delighted to ride on the backs of big wide workhorses, help pitch hay in the barn, watch Ned Jerome hard at work running the dairy started by the family in the 1920s.

Just up the road, prior to the 1920s, my great grandfather,Willis Parsons turned a dirt farm into prime orchards. He began his work in earnest during the 1890s. Eventually his farm would be parceled off to create one of the early neighborhoods of western Syracuse. His foray into real estate came about not because he lost interest in growing prize fruit, but because he could no longer make a living doing so.

In a Syracuse Post Standard article dated 1917, titled: County Fruit Growers will Inspect Orchards, the writer notes that, "...the Onondaga County Farm Bureau will devote most of next Saturday to an inspection trip....The party will assemble at 10 o'clock at the farm of President Willis Parsons on the West Genesee Street road and spend the balance of the afternoon looking over his orchard." The story continues, "The Parson's orchard is a remarkable one of young trees of apples, cherries plums, and other fruits."

What is left of the cherries today is a street called Cherry Road, and a school named Cherry Road School. The most interesting part of the story is what the sons and daughters of the Jeromes and the Parsons and other Wesvales families did to guide their families through an economic crash and a great war.

That tale will be told, in part, in The Brass Bell.

There are many stories about Westvale, Solvay, Geddes, Fairmont, Camillus--small communities clinging to the western boundary of a small American city, just past the New York State Fairgrounds. This one reveals a cherry orchard, a hen house, a school teacher, and a handful of children eager to learn, eager to live up to handed-down farm values, eager to be part of a community.

Did You Know?

Cherry Road School Grew and Grew

Did you know that Cherry Road School has undergone construction at least eight times? The original building that consisted of two classrooms (rooms 104 and 108) and an office was constructed in 1926. Classes did not begin in this building, however, until at least 1927 when room 103 was completed.

Students met in a refurbished farm building, the Parsons' parlor, and the Parsons' barn while construction was underway. There is some conflicting information about dates. However, I have spoken with at least two of the people who began first grade in the refurbished chicken coop and because of their birthdates, and because this is how they remember it, it would have had to be at least 1927.

In 1928, room 105 was completed, and then in 1930, room 110 and the gym were added on to the growing structure made of fire-proof bricks. Eleven years later, in 1941, a second floor went up and included rooms 202, 204, 206, 210, and a girls' lavatory. Five years later rooms 203, 205 and 209 and a boys lavatory were added.

A few years passed, the school grew in numbers, and in 1949, the cafeteria along with six classrooms were built. This addition included rooms 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, and 116.

Another addition, including a playground and six classrooms, was completed just before my class started kindergarten in 1953. These classrooms were on the second floor: 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, and 218. Of note, this was also the year my Great Aunt Marion, Miss Parsons, retired.

Miss Parsons and a fellow teacher are shown on the front step in the picture above.

Schooling, Past & Future

Terry Road School Students, circa 1917

As followers of this blog know, work is progressing on a book, The Brass Bell. The book will follow the history of Cherry Road School and the life of Miss Marion Parsons, the Parsons Family, and the community of Westvale. Before there was Cherry Road School, students in this tiny farming community (now part of the greater city of Syracuse) attended the Terry Road School. That property and building was donated to Geddes School District 1 by Guy Terry Parsons and was located less than a mile to the west of Cherry Road School. Marion Parsons, her sisters, Grace and Martha, their cousins, the Jeromes, the Terrys, the Schuylers and other families who still reside in Westvale, all attended the Terry Road School until it became too small and too drafty and outdated to serve the needs of the community.

Cherry Road School replaced Terry Road School in 1926. There was a period of time before the new school opened when many community members opened their parlors and their kitchens for classes. School was always at the top of the list of priorities in this community. The book, The Brass Bell, will explore some questions whose answers might inspire and inform educators today who seem lost in the argument about how to make school relevant for students who are failing and floundering in the public school system. Following are some examples of some of those questions.

If you have any thoughts, opinions, or ideas related to these questions, please post a comment. If you would like to be a guest blogger and have your article or story appear here in this blog, please contact me at the email address at the end of this post.

Here are some of the questions explored in The Brass Bell:

1. If the basis of effective schooling must constantly change with changes taking place in economic and social structures around us, how will we ever settle once and for all on effective school reform?

2. How did one small community, surrounded but never engulfed by a city, make use of the best of who they were and what they had to create a school whose original students, and those who attended throughout the years, view their experience at Cherry Road School as the best of their lives?

3. In what ways do the values and the methodologies of the one room school set examples from which schools today might learn and benefit?

4. What can be learned from the life and the successes of one educator who led one school through The Great Depression and World War II?

5. What was it about Cherry Road School that draws grown men and women who’ve lived their lives successfully to keep coming back, coming together, to talk about their days there and in the community of Westvale? People who graduated in the 30s, 40s, and 50s meet regularly to talk about Cherry Road School, Miss Parsons and the other wonderful teachers who helped shape their lives.

Contact me at: schoolhouse2@comcast.net and please put "Cherry Road School project" in the subject line of your email.

A Good Teacher

What Makes a Good Teacher?

A good teacher is formed over time in the memories of students. This is a conclusion that might be drawn from a collection of posts on the subject on a national Education Week blog: Walt Gardner's Reality Check. Last week, Walt, a 27-year education veteran from the Los Angeles Unified School District, entertained this question on the blog. He based the discussion on a recent event in Washington, DC. In July of this year, 241 teachers were fired for poor evaluations or lack of proper credentials. Another 737 teachers were put on notice that if they don't improve their teaching, they too could wind up on the street.

What is this evaluation based upon, you may ask. Well, in grades four through eight, 50 % is based on student growth on standardized tests. In other words, are they doing better on their test scores each year. If not, this teacher may not be a good teacher, according to this system.

Other variables considered on these evaluations were classroom performance, though the Chancellor from D.C. admitted, allegedly, that she did not know the numbers when it came to this distinction. And what is classroom performance? It might include classroom management skills or teacher popularity. The answer to that is not clear.

Mr. Gardner rues the idea that our classrooms have become "test preparation factories." So do I. Is it the teacher's fault if a child is failing? There are so many factors involved. And besides, what will the child remember from those standardized tests in 20, 30, even 50 years?

The numerous Cherry Road School alumni I've spoken with over the past two years agree that they hold Miss Parsons in their hearts and minds because she commanded respect. It also seems to have been clear to all of her students that she cared about them and about their education. Years later what people remember is the kind, yet firm, woman who they still strive to please, even though she's long gone.

Mr. Gardner put it this way: "...I've long believed hindsight is the fairest way of evaluating teachers....the influence of teachers doesn't show up until years after students graduate. With the passage of time and the insights of maturity, students are in a far better position to evaluate their teachers."

What do you think? Please feel free to post your opinions by clicking on the "Comment" button.

Miss Parsons

My Miss Parsons

As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I had no idea how much my Aunt Marion meant to so many other people until I began work on this project. While I always thought of her as my Aunt Marion, I've come to know her better as everyone's Miss Parsons.

The picture here is my fifth birthday party in the backyard of our house on Parsons Drive, the old family farmhouse where Marion and her sisters grew up. That's me hanging from my swing set; that's Marion standing guard.

Notice her corsage. She took my parties seriously, the hostess to all my neighborhood friends. Marion loved children. She took everything about us seriously, our education, our social life, happiness, and mostly our understanding of what it means to be a good person. How self-centered I was to think she belonged to me alone when she meant so much to so many.

Cherry Road Alums

Ties That Bind~

I recently met up with some Cherry Road School alumni who also live in Oregon. Everyone you see in this picture attended Cherry Road except one. I'm in the black jacket and the others found me through this blog. How amazing is that? They were all in the same fifth grade class and two of them are married and now they are all close, held together by fond old memories and new-found friendships.

Walt Sweyer (middle, red jacket) tells me he was not the best behaved student at Cherry Road. I think he's made up for it since. Everyone agrees there was something so special about their experience at Cherry Road School that it's a strong tie that pulls all the way from Oregon.

Learning Backwards

The Power of Life Experiences

I heard someone say something the other day and the truth of the statement took my breath away. "Life can only be understood backwards and yet it must be lived forwards."

Thanks to the power of the Internet, I've been making contact with more and more Cherry Road School Alumni. There are many commonalities in what they remember about those days. The most common denominator is how much Miss Parsons touched their lives in one way or another. One remembers conversations on the porch when he delivered her newspaper, another remembers personal tutoring because she was "not a good student," another how much she wanted to please her, and all remember Miss Parsons as a larger than life character in the story of their childhood.

Recently I met with someone who would have graduated from Cherry Road School around 1953. He said he received much more from the school than he ever gave back, and that he was unable to appreciate it at the time. He's thankful to have the opportunity now to give back if only by sharing his memories as a contribution to the book. I have to agree with Walt. If I had even five minutes with my Aunt Marion I'd thank her for all she did for me. I'd let her know that I've discovered in this work that she was that much to many others too. But since I can't do that, I'll have to thank her by completing the book that tells the story of the farm, the family, and the many futures that were touched. Fifty, sixty, even seventy years later, many understand what one person contributed so that we might flourish and remember our days in the brick building in the old Parsons' cherry orchard.

Heros

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

Howard Zinn, the late historian

Westvale, the home of Cherry Road School, was born in bad times from the compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness of a farming community who saw the value of its youth and the importance of education. They saw the best in what they had and did something to ensure the future.

In the Beginning

The little chair came from the original Cherry Road School. In 1925, Marion Parsons, with the aid of two women working in her father's cherry orchard, transformed an old farm building, a chicken coop, into a temporary classroom. With money raised by the first school board (Trustees) headed by Judge Farnham, a two-room building was constructed on the current location the following year. By 1926, the number of students grew from 11 to 50.

The nine-acre tract belonged to her father, Willis Parsons. It was a sprawling and beautiful cherry orchard where Marion had played as a child, and where the new school was built of cinder blocks, steel, and bricks. Soon the cherry orchard was a playground for the children of the growing neighborhood. Pieces of the farm were sold during The Depression, lot by lot, tract by tract, and over time, a neighborhood was born.

Ten years later, there were close to 300 K-8 students at Cherry Road School. Over the years the little school grew in size and in stature. There have been eight additions to the original building, a new gym/cafeteria in the 1930s, a new wing in 1947; in 1953, 21 classrooms were added and a formal playground installed. By 1957 there were 800 students. As time passed, the district reorganized the school. Teachers from the olden days retired, moved on. Marion retired in 1952. But there are many Cherry Road alumni who remember those times. They remember Miss Parsons, a most unforgettable person; they remember the extraordinary teachers who made a difference in their lives.

The book in progress, The Brass Bell, will keep Marion Parsons, and the teachers who worked by her side, alive for the students who spend their days in the slightly more modern chairs at Cherry Road School.

Family Traditions

Miss Parsons' great, great grandfather, Maurice Parsons, wrote in a letter from Worthington, Mass, in January 1865: "My first nine children have all except one been teachers of primary schools, and I believe very successful in their occupation." Marion Parsons would one day uphold the Parsons' tradition, turning a hen house in her father's cherry orchard into one of New York State's premier public schools.

At the time Maurice Parsons wrote that letter, his eldest son, Edwin, had left Worthington for Syracuse many years earlier. When he first arrived in Central NY, he taught school. Later on, having saved his money, he was able to purchase property and pursue farming, another Parsons' tradition. Edwin married Julia Armstrong in September, 1846. They had six children, and as these children came of age, the farm grew in size. Their sons had inherited the father's love for making a living off the land. Their eldest daughter, Mary Amelia, married James Schuyler Jerome. The Jerome Dairy would provide milk for its Westvale customers for three generations.

Their youngest son, Willis (Miss Parons' father), purchased a sixty-some acre farm in the spring of 1890--just up the road from the family farm where he had grown up. The road back then was a dirt turnpike connecting New York State from east to west, the Genesee Turnpike. Over time, Willis added another 138 acres to his holding along the Turnpike and became one of the most respected fruit growers in the state. All along the Turnpike were the farms of aunts and uncles, siblings and cousins, creating a widespread community of Parsons relations. Though Willis dedicated his life to farming, he had not failed to notice the Parsons' love for and dedication to education.

When Willis's three daughters were children, they attended the Terry Road School, donated to the community by Cousin Guy Parsons. When the Terry Road School became too small for the growing community, many people opened their parlors for classrooms. By the time his daughter Marion had graduated from college and had taught school in a small frontier town in the wild west, Willis had committed his mind and his property to the idea of building a new school for the children of Westvale. Miss Marion Parsons would be the founding teacher and principal and would serve in that role for 25 years.

By the time she retired in 1953, the school had been built of brick and several additions had been made. A community institution had been established and by the turn of the century, many people had forgotten, or probably never knew, the history of Cherry Road School. That's why we are proceeding with the book project to tell the story of the history of a little school that grew and has come to mean more to its alumni than just a place where they went to school. For many who graduated many years ago from Cherry Road School, and still meet regularly to share those fond memories, Cherry Road represents a model of what it means to be part of a community.

The Olden Days

When I was a kid, I would go to my grandmother (Grace Parsons Cole) or my Aunt Marion (Marion Parsons) and ask them to tell me a story "out of their think." That was code for tell me a story about the olden days.

My grandmother and Aunt Marion are pictured here as they were in the olden days. The elder girl is my grandmother, the younger, Marion Parsons. Marion became known to most of the followers of this blog as Miss Parsons. But long before that, she attended a one-room schoolhouse, long before she would go on to found Cherry Road School.

As a matter of fact, records show there were 2 one-room school houses in the area, the Onondaga Hill School (1846) and the Terry Road School (1847). The Parsons girls and their cousins and neighbors attended the Terry Road School, donated by Guy Parsons who also served as a "Trustee" of the school.

When Aunt Marion told stories about the olden days, there were often events at the school--the day the farm burned and they saw the flames from the school window; rides in the buggy; playing with cousins in nearby orchards.

If anyone has any information about the history of either school, the Onondaga Hill School or the Terry Road School, we would love to hear what you may have to share. The Parsons girls, their Parsons and Jerome cousins, and other neighbors and friends attended the Terry Road School (also known at some point as the Geddes District One School) in the late 1800s.

The Old Milk Door

The Milk Door

Many long-time Westvale residents remember the old milk doors. Van Jerome or one of the other Jerome Dairy folks would come whistling up the walk in the morning with fresh milk in glass bottles. You could hear the bottles rattling in the metal racks. In the early days it may have been ladled right from the milk can in the truck into the bottle, fresh from the dairy.

The pictures here are not from Westvale, but depict images that will remind those who can remember or who may have been wondering what that little door from the outside into the kitchen might be for. Well, though they were used for many years to deliver milk to homes in Westvale and in other parts of the country too, they had other, less obvious functions. For example, many Cherry Road School alumni from the days when Miss Parsons was principal will remember that she was hard of hearing, that she wore a hearing aid. Oftentimes when my dad and I would stop by for a visit, and if her door was locked, she wouldn't hear us knocking. Dad would boost me up and I'd climb through the milk door and run get Aunt Marion.

As I talk to people in Westvale about their memories of this unique and enduring community, many have stories about the Jerome Dairy milk doors. Some of the doors are still in place, some have been sealed up, some are gone. If you have pictures or stories about your milk door, please contact the Solvay-Geddes Historical Society. (The link to their website is on this page.)

1924-1925

A Year Away from Westvale

In August of 1924, my Great Aunt Marion traveled by train and the Great Lakes Transit to a small frontier town on the Canadian border in northern Washington state.

I'm lucky to have the diary she kept of her year-long journey from Syracuse, across the northern Great Lakes; then a car tour through Yellowstone Park, to Omak, Washington, where she lived with a family and taught school until June of 1925. From there, she continued on her journey, visiting Seattle, then on to San Francisco, then to Los Angeles, where she rode the glass bottom boat to Catalina Island. The diary is filled with visits with Parsons cousins, luncheons held in her honor, and her perceptions of the countryside, the places, and the people.

She returned to Syracuse and in 1926 opened the doors for the first year of classes at Cherry Road School. That first year children attended school in a refurbished chicken coop at the edge of her father's cherry orchard while the school we know today as Cherry Road School was being built.

As part of the book, now in progress, I'll share excerpts of Miss Parsons journey away from and back home, in her own words.

Cherry Road School Alumni

Thanks to the Cherry Road School Alumni, 1947-1950!

Without this dedicated group, the story of Cherry Road School would be flat and limited to my own memories and those I've been able to eek from my dad and my uncle. My last two visits to New York have been highlighted with a luncheon hosted by this group of CRS Alum. Most of them have not only graduated from Cherry Road School, they have now retired from their careers, many as educators, or are close to retirement. But nevertheless, though the chasm of time takes them further and further from the little brick school on Cherry Road, they have kept room in their lives to get together and remember their days at CRS. They have been gracious and kind to share those memories with me.

These pictures are of our last gathering at a golf course out by the apple orchards on Route 20. Pictured in the photo on the top are: Martha and Dick Lacy. Martha has spent hours and hours and years and years collecting information, documents, and memories of Cherry Road School and has created a professional quality scrapbook. She also organizes the group and has been supportive of this project.

Middle Picture, from left to right:Nancy Sherman March, Joan Guth Close, Jim McLennen, Robin Lutzy McLennen, and Doris Jean Taylor.

Pictured in the bottom photo: Dick Lacy, Joan Donnelly Marcoccia, Marilyn Lewis Marcy, and Doris Jean Taylor.

Though I've only met these fine people two times, some only once, somehow they feel like family. They have shared their report cards from grade school, vivid memories of walks home from school in the snow, and a legacy that only a sort of family might be able to sustain over time. They, and the hundreds like them, are part of the reason I dedicate myself to the history project and to the book

Work on "the book" has Begun

Dear Friends and Followers:

Work on the book has begun! The working title is "The Brass Bell." The book will chronicle the history of a 19th century farming settlement that came to be known as Westvale, a one-room schoolhouse and the children who grew up there; a chicken coop, a cherry orchard, the new schoolhouse, a brass bell, and the woman who rang the bell every day and influenced many lives. Her name was Marion Parsons. Her family came by oxcarts from Massachusetts to New York in the early 1800s. They planted fruit trees, grew a dairy farm, and eventually established a community of cousins and neighbors that, if you look closely are still residents of of the Westvale community today. If they've moved away, they stay in touch. People in their 60s, 70s, and 80s meet regularly to reminisce about their days at Cherry Road School.

If you are one of those people, and would like to share information or stories or pictures for the book, please contact me by phone or email:

schoolhouse2@comcast.net
503.344.4434

Your contribution will be greatly appreciated.

Now that the book is in production, I will resume posting regularly on this blog.

Wishing you all the best of New Years,
Nancy "Camille" Cole