Crouse Schoolhouse renovations under way again
Built in 1903, the Crouse Schoolhouse was built on Crouse family land. Back then there had to be a schoolhouse every 3 miles due to children walking to school.
The original desks and textbooks are still housed in the one-room schoolhouse even though large amounts of mold can be seen growing on the walls.
Inside the Crouse schoolhouse sits the original iron stove that heated the room during cooler days.
ROGERSVILLE – Eben Williams stood inside the Crouse Schoolhouse last year and could see its potential.
He envisioned the original rod iron desks set up in rows inside the century-old schoolhouse that still holds the faint white writing of the date September 20, 1976, across the chalkboard. He could also see the antique school books – now rotted with the hardbound covers flaking apart – with pressed flowers safely stored in between the yellowing pages and displayed in glass units at the back of the large room.
The black bell in the bell tower was moving forward and backward. He could hear it ringing.
Williams, the administrator and curator of the Greene County Historical Society, envisioned people visiting the schoolhouse for a photo before stepping onto the small porch and into the old school room where a meeting, reunion, get together or something completely different was about to take place.
But then, mistakes were made.
Two years ago, the Crouse Schoolhouse, built in 1903 in Rogersville, was in better condition than it had been for a long time. But now, after a failed renovation attempt, the one-room brick schoolhouse is worse than before.
“It breaks my heart because we worked so hard to get us to there,” Williams said. “And to almost see it in sight as being done and to just imagine what it was going to be. And now the reality of how bad it has become.”
And the reality is pretty bad. With a hole in the roof, multiple rain showers and snow storms over the past two years caused heavy damage. Ice melted between the brick and plaster walls, puddles formed and warped the original hardwood floors and mold now grows along the entire right wall.
“This is an embarrassment for me now,” Williams said.
In 2013, renovations began on the Crouse Schoolhouse by the Greene County Historical Society and volunteers. The plan was to get the schoolhouse back to working condition and to use it as a meeting space, a tourism location and a satellite location for the museum in the western half of the county. The to-do list included many projects with the main one being the roof.
The roof renovation was set to begin in May 2014 and be completed by November. Williams said everything was going well until August when the hired carpenter stopped working with only one-third of the roof done, leaving a large hole uncovered. The historical society lost $7,000, and Williams said they’re now in the process of invoicing their losses as they prepare to file a lawsuit with the hope of getting some of their money back.
“It is really hard when things like this happen where we have moved five steps forward and then we get knocked back three,” Williams said.
This led to the renovation project stopping dead in its tracks. With hardly any money left in the budget and losing a large sum to a job that never got finished, the Crouse Schoolhouse has been at a standstill since then with its condition growing worse every day.
After seeing the damage firsthand while nailing a piece of plywood over the hole during the last snowstorm this past winter, Williams decided he couldn’t let this happen just because of one problem.
“I want something done with this,” Williams said. “We hope that will spark interest in people to help us.”
The new renovation plan is nearly identical with the main concern still being to finish the roof. The next step would be to fix the damage caused by the hole in the roof. Other plans are to add lighting fixtures, get the renovated bell tower back on the roof, work on both the chimney and the old iron stove to get them working again and various other cosmetic projects inside.
Williams along with other volunteers like Buzz Walters and the Anderson family hope that people will realize this project is as much the community’s as it is theirs.
“Our funding for this project will come if we meet the benchmarks we have set up for it,” Williams said. “The only thing holding us up is that we haven’t reached those benchmarks yet. Once we get to the benchmarks, more funding will come. We just have to show that we are invested in this place ourselves.”
The historical society is hoping to spend less than $10,000 on the new renovation plan, but Williams thinks that to do the project correctly, they will need between $15,000 and $20,000.
People can give to the project by sending money or checks to the Greene County Historical Society and simply writing on the bottom of the check or leaving a note stating it is to be used for the Crouse Schoolhouse fund. All of the donations will go directly toward the schoolhouse renovation project. Other ways the community can help is by offering time or supplies.
“I think we used to be embarrassed to tell people that we were having issues and we needed help. And I think that now we are comfortable with that and I believe that will help us get a lot more done,” Williams said. “This is a piece of West Greene history that needs to continue to stand for another century.”