Silver Dale School

From School Folder, Genealogy Room, Rockport Library (No Date)

By Mrs. Charles F. Addie Brown

Some years ago when the people of Silver Dale community were trying to get a consolidated school, we all looked through The Guide to see if there was anything suggested as to just how to begin.  And we found many things to help us.  For the benefit of many communities in southern Indiana, I would like to tell something of how we have our school as it is to-day.

To begin with, our county superintendent of schools, J. W. Strassell, had a wonderful vision of schools, especially of the rural community.  His idea was, if we expect to keep boys and girls on a farm we must make rural life worth while; they must have good buildings and everything possible to make school days happy.  He succeeded in getting the patrons interested.  About this time we had in our little one-room school, a little teacher, Miss Laura Wright.  She was little but mighty.  She organized a parent-teacher association and put us all to work, always with the thought of consolidation.

To-day we have a nice new building consisting of four classrooms, library, rest room and large hall upstairs.  Downstairs there is an auditorium, kitchen, dining room, furnace and coal room.  We have a Delco plant that furnishes light and water.

The children are brought in closed trucks, driven by patrons of the school, who are careful drivers.  They arrive at the entrance of the building with clean, dry shoes and a happy frame of mind.  Their work is well done because our teachers have about the same training as our city teachers.  The gradation is better and the cost of operation is no more than it was to have the seven one-room schools with beginners for teachers, poorly heated rooms and all the children walking through rain and mud to get there some fifteen minutes or a half hour after the bell rang.  Here we have no tardiness, trucks are always on time and everybody ready for business.

Pictured here is Silverdale Grade School as it looked in 1924.  The picture was submitted by Mrs. Lyndall Miller Roberts of Evansville who was teaching there at the time.  The school has since been deactivated and students are attending the Rockport-Ohio Elementary School in Rockport.  The Silverdale School building presently houses Sharer, Inc., a metal stamping firm.