Rosebank School

The one-room schools scattered across Jasper County never cease to amaze me. Made of different materials, different styles, and different architectural types. The Rosebank School sits just on the outskirts of Alba and was constructed in 1876.

It’s crazy to think there are buildings this old still standing at all, even if they are dilapidated. But this school has withstood the testament of time and mother nature. It makes you think about the evolution of construction methods and materials over the last two centuries. It seems like somewhere we went wrong, buildings over a century still exist but buildings we built in the ’60s and ’70s and are already ready to be replaced.

Teachers over the years that have been documented thus far: L.L. McCormack 1884, Anna Moorman 1893-1894, Cynthia Haynes 1902-1903, Stella Mink 1912-1915, Lula Dixon 1917-1918, Lucile Petefish 1922-1923, Nellie Hand 1924-1925, Esther Ferguson 1926-1927, Herbert Mosler 1928-1930, Monte King 1932-1933, Maurine Mink 1936, Rubie Palmer 1938, Carl Parker 1939-1940, Roy Hardaway 1940-1941, Clifton E. Keltner 1940, Margaret Williams 1945-1946.

Like many other small one room school houses throughout the United States most met their fate in the 1960s and this one was no exception. Consolidation and changes in federal funding made it nearly impossible for rural communities to continue their own education programs. Most had to send all their students to bigger community schools although some towns were lucky enough to keep their grade schools going for another ten years in the former high school buildings but those would eventually consolidate as well.

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