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The Greenville Mountain View Pioneer • Thursday, July 1, 2010
Westerlo & Rensselaerville
Sayre School alumni gather for a long overdue dedication
Historical marker commemorates 66 year legacy of one-room schoolhouse
By Andrea Macko
MEDUSA — Once a place of learning, building
lifelong friendships and even stirring-up a bit of
mischief, the old Sayre School is today showing its
age. Situated just off County Route 352 on the north
end of Sayre Road, the small one-room schoolhouse
was where hundreds of Medusa children learned to
read and write from 1885 to 1951.
It has been nearly 60 years since a child took notes
from the old blackboard or ate lunch beneath one of
the tall maple trees, but on Sunday, June 27 a group of
former students were among those gathered at the
Sayre School for the
long-overdue
dedication of a
historical marker.
The marker is
one of roughly 13
just like it, installed
throughout the town
by the
Rensselaerville
Historical Society.
Other former
schoolhouses dot the
town, but many have
been renovated and
restored into homes.
This is the first time the society has dedicated a
marker to a former school.
The marker is the result of the work of Gene Cook
Mackey Smith, an alumna of the Sayre School who
hoped that the little schoolhouse would not be a
forgotten piece of Rensselaerville history.
Smith was five years old when she began attending
the Sayre School in 1928.
Smith‟s initial idea was to create a booklet
containing old pictures of the school and memoirs of
alumni. With the help of Smith‟s niece and Sayre
School alumna Adrienne Mackey Saurer, the booklet
became and reality.
Saurer‟s son , Bill Saurer, donated the necessary
funding for the historical marker.
In her memoirs, Smith details how there was no
electricity or bathrooms in the Sayre School.
“The school was a one-room school with a black
iron stove in the middle of the room surrounded by
rows of desks… If it was zero degrees, there was no
school,” Smith writes.
Since there was no running water either, Smith
explains that one of the “older boys” had to walk a
quarter mile to a spring to fill a pail before school
started. Each student used the same dipper to get a
drink from the pail.
“We had an „out house‟ with two sides, the girls‟
on the south side and the boys‟ on the north side,”
Smith writes. “I think we used the Sears Catalog for
Alumni from the Sayre School gather for a photograph in front of the newly erected historical marker. From left to right (bac k row);
Ray Ormsbee, David Lewis, Janice (Baitsholts) Bowdish, Lyle Finch, Maryann (Roulet) Matelli; Front row, left to right) Gene (Mackey)
Smith and Adrienne (Mackey) Saurer.
the toilet tissue.”
Janice Baitsholts Bowdish, one of the last students
to attend the Sayre School, recalled how it was the
teachers‟ responsibility to keep the school clean.
“She, along with her students and their parents
would give the building a thorough cleaning at the
close of the school year in June and again in the fall
before school reopened,” Bowdish writes.
“During the school year all of the kids were
expected to help keep the school clean… I remember
helping wash windows. We used vinegar and
newspapers… we washed the blackboards with plain
old soap and water.”
Bowdish recalled that school
board meetings were held in the
school as well and, in those days,
parents brought children along to the
meetings. Bowdish recalls falling
asleep during the “dull and boring”
meetings and doesn‟t remember
anything in particular being
discussed until talk of closing the
school.
Many of the students walked to
school — some for several miles one
way. If they were lucky, a parent
drove them in a car or, in earlier
days, by horse and wagon.
Bowdish writes in the booklet of
one particular incident while walking
to school with Janet Jettner.
“Janet and I had a little tiff over
something which resulted in her arm
getting between my teeth,” Bowdish
The Sayre School as it stands today on Sayre Road, just off of County Route 352.
writes.
The school was operational from 1885 to 1951.
Janet Jettner, whose married name
is Becker, writes of how she was six years old when
she started at Sayre in 1945 and teacher Pearl Haskins
was about 45.
“She passed away in June 2004... 104 at the time,”
she writes.
Becker recalls in the school‟s later days that they
did have electricity and lights in the ceiling, but heat
still came from the woodstove.
“I remember taking my crayons and touching them
to the outside of the stove,” she writes. “They would
start to melt and I can still recall the smell… Melting
crayons on the stove was not something Ms. Haskins
was happy about.”
The first record of a teacher at the Sayre School is
John Bailey from 1886 to 1888. A total of 27 different
teacher taught at the school during its 66 year history,
some of whom resided with different local families
during the school year. Haskins was the last teacher at
the school.
The school is named after Silas Sayre, who is
buried along with his wife, Elizabeth Ethredge, in the
Brookside Cemetery in Preston Hollow.
Sayre, a local farmer, was born in 1785 and
originated from Southampton, Long Island. The Sayre
family is credited with “founding” Southampton.
The Sayre School closed in 1951 and all students
began attending to Greenville Central School.
Over the years the school has been the subject of
vandalism. Large holes remain where the windows
and doors once hung, and some alumni are surprised
the roof has not caved-in.
And while there are currently no plans to restore
the old building, it will always stand strong in the
memories of former students.
“May it be a constant reminder of an education in
a past era,” said Smith.