Mount Prospect Historical Society

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Schoolhouse

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Celebrating Laura Ingalls Birthday at Central Schoolhouse

Book review with Mrs. Runde

A group of Mount Prospect children recently gathered on a Saturday to celebrate author Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 150th birthday in the newly-restored 1896 Central School. The 4th graders had a book discussion about Wilder’s book, “These Happy Golden Years,” which focuses on her teaching experiences in a one-room schoolhouse.

Writing exercise
Mrs. Rittle

“The modern-day students wondered what it was like having all the grades together in one room with only one teacher,” said Deborah Rittle, program coordinator. She is a teacher at St. Paul Lutheran School in Mount Prospect.
Tin pails were packed with a simple lunch — an apple, sandwich, corn muffin and an old-fashioned candy stick — like Laura might have carried to her prairie school. Students churned their own butter for lunch by passing a jar of cream around and shaking it very well while discussing the story.
“We were delighted to have the book talk so well-attended, “said Michele Runde, a member of the museum’s living history committee. “It was a fabulous start to the fun and educational programs we plan to offer in Mount Prospect’s own historic one-room schoolhouse.”

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Watch The New Central School Fund-Raising Video

Watch the video!

schoolhousewebIn their never-flagging effort to raise the final funds necessary to complete the restoration of the 1896 one-room Central School and open it to school groups and the general public, the Mount Prospect Historical Society is taking to social media and even crowd-funding.

Members of the Society wrote and produced a short video about why the re-opening of the historic District 57 school should matter to everyone and enlisted the help of Lions Park School fourth grader Nolan Hahn and his neighbor and friend, Anna Toneva, a sixth grader at Lincoln Junior High, who both appear in the video.

St. Paul Lutheran School third grade teacher Deb Rittle, a member of the Society’s board of directors and author of the curriculum which has already been developed for the restored schoolhouse, is also featured.

The video has been posted on the Society’s two websites, www.mtphist.org and www.yourcentralschool.org and its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/mphistory.  The Society has also launched a Go Fund Me crowd-funding site (www.gofundme.com/centralschoolhouse) and the video can be seen there.

The video is also expected to be shown in local schools that are participating in the October “Cents for Central School” campaign to collect spare change for the restoration effort and it may even appear on the local cable channel, MPTV.

“Central School means a lot to me because I want to see part of our Mount Prospect history come back,” explained Hahn when asked about his participation.   Hahn was the 2015 winner of the Celestial Celebration Rising Star Award, bestowed by Mount Prospect’s Special Events Commission.  He was honored for his work making jewelry and selling it for the benefit of the historic schoolhouse.

For more information, phone 847-392-9006.