Miscellany Mondays: A Grand Pile of Bricks - The Stowe School
Andover's Stowe School was named after one of the town's most famous residents, Harriet Beecher Stowe. In his post, Jim Batchelder shares memories of 6th grade in the massive red brick school house.
Years ago - sometime before 1980 - a friend and I were walking up Bartlet Street headed for the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy when we passed the Stowe School.
He said, “What an ugly pile of bricks that building is!”
I looked at him and said, “Of all the schools I have attended in Andover, that one is by far my favorite! Dare I say I loved that grand pile of bricks!”
The rest of the walk was all about Stowe School and my sixth grade year there in 1960-1961.
West Andover was the fastest growing area in town after WWII and we Baby Boomers were filling up the old schoolhouses faster than the town could build new ones. West School with seven rooms and Central School with twenty classrooms both open in 1952.
I entered West in 1954 and by the time I reached sixth grade, even with a seven-room addition, the school was again overcrowded. So the two sixth grades were bused up-town to Stowe to join the three other sixth grade classes from Central. Stowe was the oldest school still in use. It opened its doors in 1895 and had not changed much in sixty-five years.
The building looked more like a Gothic Castle with its two pointed towers flanking either side of the building.
The double entrances on the front were designed as separate entrances, on the left for boys and girls on the right, but by 1960 we all entered through the left. There were five granite steps up to the porch then one more through two massive wooden doors with windows to let light into a small vestibule. Two lower rise steps up through another set of twin doors took us into a central hallway.
The floors were all wooden, with bead board wainscoting about four feet up the walls followed by plastering to the 12 ft. ceilings. It smelled old and the floors creaked under foot.
Once in the central hallway, the boys and girls briefly parted company. The towers held the well-worn stairways to the second and third floors and the basement where the bathrooms were located. The boys had rights to the left and the girls had theirs to the right.
There were six classrooms, three on each floor and mine was upstairs in room 5 on the northeast corner overlooking Central School next door and the Playstead to the rear.
We didn’t have lockers — just a coat enclosure with hooks hung on the wall outside the class room. A shallow shelf above held a lunch box and a place below for boots. Each classroom had one wall of five tall double hung windows that opened at the bottom or top. There was an eight foot pole with a small brass hammer like head that inserted into a brass hole at the top of window for adjusting the flow of fresh air into the room. This was a coveted chore done daily by a chosen student when the room was too hot and to keep us from dozing off. Two more windows facing east with a door out to a metal fire escape which was perfect for clapping chalk out of the felt erasers used on the slate blackboards. Four pendant lights hung down from the ceiling on chains with white fishbowl style glass shades.
There were six rows of dark stained wooden desks, five desks per row, all bolted firmly to the floor with cast iron legs. The slanted top opened to store your books in and on top was a flat area grooved to hold pencils from falling off and a round hole where the inkwell sat. Another coveted perk was filling them if you got your work done in a timely manner.
When I was in the third grade in the late 1950s, we learned to write cursive and were taught the Rinehart Handwriting System. All writing was done with a steel pointed pen tip dipped in black or blue ink.
If you were a lefty, like me, it was a challenge not to drag your hand through the wet ink. I found turning the paper 90 degrees and writing vertically was easier than contorting my hand and wrist to avoid ruining my work and starting over. Once a month our work was collected, sent to Rinehart for grading. A chart on the wall plotted our progress as a class. Gold seals, or stars of gold, silver, red and black were awarded and fixed to the chart.
In the sixth grade, our daily routine always began with the salute to the flag and the singing of the first verse of America, which was written in Andover.
All academic subjects were taught by your teacher. The five teachers that year were Mrs. Louise Casserly (my teacher) and Mrs. Irene Donaldson both from West School, and Miss Eunice Stack, Ms. Helen Thompson and Ms. Mary Doyle from Central School. The Principal was Miss Catherine Barrett who had her office in Central School. Twice a month an art teacher would come and do a lesson. As Stowe had no cafeteria, gym, library or clinic we all walked over to Central School facilities each day.
I don’t remember having bells in the school. Instead we took our cues from the outside bells of Central next door. We did however have a fire alarm, and when it sounded it was a mass co-ed exodus down the staircases and out a side door. The rumble of the stampede down those wooden stairs only heighten the excitement of the drill.
The stampede was repeated every day at recess as the boys headed down to the basement and out to the playground in the rear of the school. I don’t think there was a blade of grass left in the yard. A very large jungle gym and a sand box were the only two features that remained usable after the summer was over. The swings, merry-go-round and seesaws all dismantled.
The basement was a dark, cool, and dank space which held the bathrooms that were installed in 1904. A brick wall down the middle of the cellar separated the girls from the boys. Rainy day recess was also spent here usually with the janitor keeping watch over boys. Seating was limited to benches and stools.
Then there was the restricted area, off-limits to all students. On the third floor was an auditorium that had also been used for basketball in the early years. What year it was closed to the students is not known but it was, of course, the one room everyone wanted to see. Creeping up those squeaky stairs without getting caught would be a feat in itself, but was it worth the risk? Yes, but when you arrived at the top another double door that was locked.
Thomas Moody attended Stowe School and shared this memory,
When I attend the school the third story auditorium had long since been abandoned and locked. On one autumn afternoon right after school, a bunch of us boys who were remaining to play in the yard begged the maintenance man to let us see it. He kindly took us up there by means of the nearer tower, and it was magical! It was exciting to all of us since we thought we were never going to see it. I remember it to this day — the small raised stage in front of those huge windows and the dark recesses of the room filled with old text books, desks, chairs, and whatever else was lying around . . . that building was certainly one of the most unique I have ever attended and that year . . . educationally — one of my most profound.
What I loved about the school was it was just sixth graders all gathered in one space. It was all ours and no one else, which gave us a sense of ownership, but also felt like we were on a campus with Central, Samuel Jackson and Andover Junior High Schools.
Stowe School operated as a Grammar School originally, much like a Middle School today. My Grandfather, Great-Aunt, parents and most of my Aunts and Uncles attended Stowe School graduating from the eighth grade there.
The final assembly was held in June 1972 when the school closed to students and was converted to the School Administration Building. The Grand Pile of Bricks served another nine years until the school offices were moved to Shawsheen School in 1981.
A final farewell assembly was held on June 12, 1981 — 85 years after the first assembly was held.
The building was scheduled to be razed in October of that year for the renovation of the old Central Elementary School (renamed William Doherty Elementary) into a Junior High School. The night before the wrecking ball began the work of razing Stowe it burned to the ground, reduced to just a pile of bricks.
We hope you enjoyed these memories of the old Stowe School. Most towns — in New England anyway — had at least one, if not many. Those that remain today have been repurposed as residences, offices, and other uses. Did you spend any of your school years in an old 19th century school building, like Stowe? Leave us a comment below and share your memories!
Thanks for reading!
Jim, your memories are very similar to mine but not as specific. I was there in 1961 and had Mrs. Donaldson. Andover had early Wednesdays and if you needed help you had to stay after. Well, I was a lefty, too and I stayed for help with my handwriting. I also remember getting bitten by a dog on the playground which resulted in me not being that fond of dogs. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Thanks Susan, I guess it hits home for lots of folks whi were luck enough to attend one of that period.