Progress rages on all around us while too much of our history gets bulldozed. An old house here and a school there and, pretty soon, we start losing that crucial sense of where we came from. That's why it's so important to slow down and try to save a little bit of that history -- such as the Red Bank School building near Germanton.
In these days when people complain about children going to school in trailers, it's worth remembering that students of yesteryear had it a lot tougher, and many of them came through it just fine, thanks. Yes, we've all heard the stories from our elders, or at least heard about the stories, of walking five miles to school through snow. But no amount of hyperbole can bring the simplicity and hardship of those times back as well as seeing the real thing.
Fortunately, a few people realize that about the Red Bank School and want to see it restored and moved to Horizons Park.
"I think history is sort of one-dimensional for so many people," Jerry Rutledge, a Walnut Cove resident who has watched too many old schoolhouses in the area be torn down, recently told the
Journal'
s Mary Giunca. "Schools evolved from very crude log cabins. This (the Red Bank School) was a modern school for its day. We think that it's so primitive, but for its time, it served its purpose and was the cutting edge of schools."
The two-room, frame schoolhouse might have been built during Reconstruction. One faded photo, possibly from the early 1900s, shows about 40 students lined up in front. Boys wear ties and girls wear long dresses in the photo. Stare at it long enough, and it's easy to imagine them taking part in the activities that never change, the cutting up in class as teachers try to maintain order, the laughing and jeering outside.
And now, to paraphrase the classic lines, it's almost close to dust. The ceiling and floors are decrepit, as is the staircase.
But help may be on the way.
V.L. DeHart Jr., who owns the building that is on his family's land, said he's willing to donate it to any group that wants to move it and restore it.
Descendants of those who attended the school, as well as just history buffs in general, should "adopt" this school and secure donations and grants to save it. Such projects have certainly been done before. Oak Grove School, thought to be the oldest school for blacks in Forsyth County, is a shining example.
But time is of the essence. "Once it's gone, it's gone," said Randall Crews, who lives nearby. "We have lost so much county history. What hasn't been torn down or burned up … has been shipped to Raleigh."
Indeed. The Red Bank School should be saved.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement