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SUNSHINE VALLEY SCHOOL
District No. 8 Section 32 on Hwy. 33, Town 12N pre 1851 - 1962 A new 30x20x10 foot schoolhouse was built in 185l at a cost of $300. Lorraine (Gallus) Traeder taught at Sunshine Valley School from 1948-50. It was her first teaching job out of the Reedsburg Normal School and she received $212 per month. She taught between 30 and 35 children. In a recent interview, Lorraine stated that as part of her new job: “I was the janitor, I was the nurse, I was the mother, and I was also the teacher in my spare time.” There was a large furnace in the middle of the schoolroom floor and when the kid’s mittens got wet, they were placed around it. “When they got warm, you could smell fried mittens,” she said. Holiday celebrations were an important part of rural school life and, pupils and teachers alike, looked forward to them with anxious anticipation. For Thanksgiving Mrs. Traeder said that the students put on programs dressed as Pilgrims and Indians, “I made the hats for the boys and the little girls had white bonnets.” Mothers were invited to attend the program. “At Christmas time we put on a large play,” said Lorraine. “We would hang sheets as a curtain in one corner of the room.” The children entered the stage from the basement dressed in white capes with red bows. “We performed like a choir,” she recalled. There were also various plays and skits. An unusual part of one Christmas program was a turkey raffle. “My husband’s uncle made a big wooden crate and we had a live turkey gobbling during the whole program,” said Mrs. Traeder. “The people bought tickets for it and someone won the turkey in the crate.” The profit from the raffle was used to purchase library books. Valentine’s Day was the next important event in the school year. “For Valentine’s Day I would stop at the bakery and get some white roll bags. All the children would get a bag which they had to decorate with pink or red paper and put their name on it. The bags were hung on the window sill and the kids would sneak in and drop their Valentines into the bags.” When the county fair rolled around, each school had to provide some kind of display in the white building. Mrs. Traeder made a poster by mounting photographs of the children along with a picture of the school, Student science projects were also placed on display. “One of the unique things about a country school was that the older children thought it was wonderful to be able to help the younger ones with their lessons,” said Mrs. Traeder. “They’d take their chair over beside them, because the school was so small they couldn’t go anywhere else to study. They would huddle off into a corner and the little one would read to them, It was so helpful to the little ones and the older kids enjoyed playing teacher too.” Following consolidation, Sunshine Valley schoolhouse was sold and moved to a site near Rocky Point Road, Section 30, Town of Greenfield. Former Sunshine Valley students were bused to a school in the City of Baraboo. Note, the above text is copied from a photocopy of what appears to be a book on Wisconsin's one room school houses. I can not cite the specific source however, since the photocopy is unmarked. |