Historic Dundee Township schoolhouse seeks volunteers
Dundee Township has a gem that needs people to help it shine.
Seventeen years ago, a group of local residents and Kane County officials worked together to keep the historic Centerville School from becoming a heap of burning rubble when Randall Road was widened.
A county grant, volunteers and a construction company picked up the 1884-era building and moved it across the road to Randall Oaks Park. With the help of photos, volunteers restored the one-room school house to its original condition, hoping to show present-day students a one-room schoolhouse where their grandparents may have learned life's lessons.
No SMART Boards, laptop computers, white boards, or pens and pencils. The first- to eighth-grade classroom doesn't even have a stapler, paper clip, American flag with 50 stars or indoor plumbing.
"Every student had his or her own piece of chalk, a slate board to write on and cloth eraser," said Marge Edwards, Dundee Township Historical Society president. "There's antique desks, a wood-burning stove in the back, and the original flooring.
Unfortunately, though, more people can't see education as it looked 132 years ago because only two volunteer docents, Edwards and her husband David, are available to conduct tours of the museum.
The West Dundee couple volunteer at the school the first Sunday of the month from 2-4 p.m. Park district employees open the building for specially scheduled tours, and it is open on the Sunday during the Dickens in Dundee festival (in December).
For the rest of the time, the schoolhouse is closed.
"We want to find a dozen volunteers to be here for two hours every Saturday and Sunday from May to October," David said. "I know people want to see what's inside. On the days we're open and people are in the park, they stop in and say, 'Oh, you're finally open.'"
When children see the rows of wooden desks, they sit in them, Marge said.
"They love to hold a piece of chalk in their hands and write on the board. When they see the old map of the United States, they can't tell me where Oklahoma is because then it was named 'Indian Territory.'"
The school was built when the map was the most up-to-date image of the country. Generations of children from rural Dundee Township walked, rode horses and carriages, and eventually cars and buses, to the school until 1949 when it closed to make way for the post-World War II Baby-Boom era and neighborhood schools built closer to their homes.
Families moved from their farms to nearby Carpentersville and East and West Dundee. They attended brick and mortar schools built in what eventually would become Community Unit School District 300.
Centerville still had a purpose, though. When the final bell rang, it was purchased and converted into a home. Eventually, time and the weather caught up with it. The roof leaked and the structure weakened through the years.
Local fire officials wanted to use it for a training exercise and burn it before traffic lanes were added to Randall Road.
That's when the "Save Centerville School" movement started.
"It's a shame more people can't see it," Marge said. "It's a good learning experience for students."
The Dundee Township Park District owns the school. If the school attracted a steadier stream of visitors, the district would assign more staff members for tours, said Mark Simon, superintendent of park services.
"Maybe in the future if we expand the petting zoo complex (adjacent to the school), we could add to the attraction of the school," Simon said.
This raises the question: what comes first, availability or spectators?
"People are shocked when the see the door open, and they can come inside," Dave said.
Marge and Dave Edwards have the entire winter to find more docents to answer their part of that question. The regular once-a-month Sunday tours end for the winter months.
For information about the school or to volunteer as a tour guide, call the historical society's museum at (847) 428-6996.