BRADY TWP — Foltz School, a one-room schoolhouse off Route 8, is stuck in the 1910s, but that’s the way educators want it to remain.

The school educated students from their youth to their teen years from the 1880s until its closure in 1963. So when alumni wander into the building, which recently has been restored by the Moraine, McConnells Mill Jennings Commission (3MJC), the memories come flooding back to them.

“They went to school here, and in their minds, it probably was erased,” said Sky Pfahl, a member of 3MJC, “and here it is manifesting in real life again, and they can walk in and see the school similar as it was.”

The commission began restoring the historic building around 2018 and had it ready to open for tours by late last year. This year will be the first in decades where the school will once again educate visitors about one-room schoolhouses and their role in education through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Dave Johnson, former director of Jennings Environmental Education Center, said he wanted to see the building preserved because of its value in demonstrating early American education to modern audiences.

“Basically, once these buildings disappear, they’re gone,” Johnson said. “If kids today don't see this, if we hadn’t protected it, we wouldn’t even think of this kind of thing.”

According to Debbie Sale, a member of the 3MJC, the project started with a look at how other one-room schoolhouses across the county and state had been preserved or restored. She said this included a visit to the Little Red Schoolhouse, a one-room schoolhouse near the former Butler Middle School.

“We looked at like six different one-room schoolhouses to see what they had done and talked to a couple people who had done the work,” Sale said. “It was really interesting, I took a lot of pictures. I realized it's a lot of work.”

Sale said members of the commission made a conscious effort to replicate how the school might have looked in 1918, because that year was around the midpoint of the school’s life.

“We tried to keep everything in line with the time frame,” Sale said. “Whether it be lights, or the shelf with the coat rack. We even have our own potbellied stove.”

The interior walls are made of wooden planks, and although most of the windows had to be rebuilt, they retain a 20th-century look. Commission members tracked down old wooden desks with built-in chairs, a potbellied stove and a bell that would have been rung by students to signify the beginning of class. The whole place is lit by just a few electric lanterns hung around the room.

Pfahl said school-aged students who have visited the restored school so far have been surprised at how it looks.

“Getting their reactions to being in a one-room schoolhouse, it's probably the most valuable thing we could have done, so that children today can understand what it meant to be a student in 1918,” Pfahl said.

Sale also said the restoration work had been done all but completely by volunteers, including members of a carpenters’ union, who helped fix the roof that was “40% missing.”

“They came in like five Saturdays in a row to do the ceiling. It was huge,” Sale said of the union. “And they finished the last Saturday just before everything was closed down for COVID — that was a relief.”

The schoolhouse had been located by a coal mine that was in operation at the same time as the school. When restoring the building, the volunteers kept some props in place, like coal and the potbellied stove in the middle of the one room, in place so students could see how school day proceeded.

“A student had to go out and get the coal and bring it in,” Pfahl said. “Probably someone had started the fire with some kindling to start the day to maintain the heat.”

Old photos of the school salvaged by 3MJC and the building’s proximity to the mine entrance also help immerse visitors in the time period, said Miranda Crotsley, program coordinator at Jennings.

“It helps us to interpret how kids were going to school by a mine; it really brings that connection to folks,” Crotsley said. “It will really change how we relate to the local area and the park.”

School days at the schoolhouse probably would have seen teachers work with one row, or one grade, of less than 10 students at a time. Pfahl said that based on research conducted by the volunteers, students probably walked or even rode horses to get to school during its early days.

With the schoolhouse scheduled to be open for guests several days throughout the summer, Sale said the park and 3MJC are educating docents to be able to share information like this with visitors.

“There will be a more experienced, knowledgeable person with a new person,” Sale said, of staffing the schoolhouse. “We want to make it fun, we don't want to make it stressful.”

The schoolhouse is scheduled to be open for visitation from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on the second Sunday of each month from June to October, as well as some other weekdays and a weekend throughout the summer.

The project was several years in the making, beginning with Johnson’s dream of seeing the schoolhouse reopened before he retired from being park manager in 2010.

Seeing it restored and ready for tours is a dream come true, he said.

“This is far beyond what I imagined,” Johnson said. “I just wanted to stabilize it and have it open to the public, but what this group has created is a heritage piece.”

Johnson added that the park received several grants for the restoration of the building, including a watershed grant and one from the Department of Education. He also said Jennings will pay the “minimal” electric bills the building will generate.

For the staff of the park, the restored schoolhouse offers more than just a history lesson, but a lesson on conservation and restoration.

“The fact that it has been restored by volunteers is right in line with our message,” Crotsley said. “We hear about the loss of nature and forest but with some work things can be brought back.”

Pfahl said he is most looking forward to meeting visitors, both old and new, of the schoolhouse. Having spoken with children who have never seen a one-room school and people who attended Foltz in its heyday, Pfahl said the Foltz experience has surprised all.

“The most compelling thing for this whole project was the stories about the alumni as they came upon the building for the first time,” Pfahl said. “They were beginning to tear up and people were pretty touched by the whole thing. That was pretty cool.”

For more information on the schoolhouse’s hours of operation, or to volunteer to be a docent, visit 3mjc.org.