Known as both Marble School or Maple Ridge School, the school had a few unique features. Among these features were a woodshed behind the building and the desks inside the school were on skids so that they could be moved easily. The last teacher at the school was Mrs. Mary Halvey, a Sigma Phi Sigma honor student at Geneseo State. She would teach at Maple Ridge until she had her daughter in 1943. The school closed the same year. During Mrs.Halvey’s time, there was a food program in which “potatoes were baked in the furnace.”² It is also known that George Welcher was the trustee of the school at one point.³

General schoolhouse information:

Most children started school at age 5 and immediately entered first grade as there was no kindergarten in most rural schools. A grade typically ranged from 1 student to 4 or more. There were a variety of subjects taught at the schools including, “arithmetic, reading, writing, spelling, social studies, and other basic material … per the educational law.”⁴ When particular subjects were to be taught for specific grades. Students that were to take part were called to the front and students in other grades kept quiet and worked on other things in other parts of the room. Once a week, an afternoon would be dedicated to Bible studies with Miss Van Dusen. Miss Van Dusen used figures and a felt board depicting characters from different bible stories. She would also give out prizes occasionally for perfect attendance or for learning a specific number of verses from a book and chapter of the bible. There was also a recess period in which the students could play and eat. Each of the schools were heated by a wood or coal stove, which was the first thing the teacher would tend to when they arrived at the school. These stoves were also used to dry winter clothes.