History Nuggets

1. Webster and Wooster Pike (Pearl Road/ Rt 42)

2. Smith and Hummel

3. Old Berea Depot on High St.

4. Gray and Bradley District (corner of former Graton and Five Points)

5. Old Rockport Road at Waddups Hill (Sometimes called Pincombe District)

6. Fair St (site of present Berea Board of Education)

7. Bagley east of Eastland Road

8. Smith and Wooster Pike (Pearl Road/Rt 42)

9. Old Engle Road north of Hummel (Ford Plant site)

10. Sheldon and Fry Roads (for a time served as Middleburg Heights Town Hall)

William Scrivens was born on April 30, 1901 on Sheldon Road in Middleburgh Township. At age 95 he still resides in the family house, built in 1860, at 15873 Sheldon Road in Middleburg Heights, His lifespan is such that his experiences and memories pre-date even the Old District 10 Schoolhouse have we would like to see preserved. Mr. Scrivens attended the wooden District 10 Schoolhouse that once sat where the current structure is. The wooden building was moved down the street and converted into a home when its size could no longer adequately accommodate its growing student body. There is a picture of William Scrivens, his brother Edwin, and other classmates in front of the old wooden schoolhouse on page 41 of Walter Holzworth’s, The Spirit of Independence-A History of the City of Brook Park.  Mr. Scrivens remembers doing chores before school and after school on the family farm, and attending class from eight in the morning ‘til four in the afternoon.  He recalls children from grades one through eight all sitting together in the same room, divided into rows, each waiting their turn for their respective, daily instructions and lessons. He attended the wooden District 10 through eighth grade and went on to attend high school in the then standing Union School, later called Central School where the current Baldwin Wallace tennis courts now sit. It was a four-mile walk to and from high school each day.  Mr. Scrivens recalls that the “new” District 10 opened in 1914 with two rooms- one for grades 1-4, and one for grades 5-8, with a middle door that could be lifted to made way for one big room.  William Scrivens’ life is undeniably linked to several of the more well-known facets of Middleburgh Township’s history.  He worked as a youth not only on his family’s farm, but toiled as well in his early years both in the quarries near his home on Sheldon Road and in the onion fields in the Eastland Road area.  He also participated in the infamous meeting held in the District 10 Schoolhouse in 1927 that led to the incorporation of Middleburg Heights as a village, and subsequently served as a Middleburg councilman. 

Louise Plum Rademaker was born in 1907 and lived on a farm on Sheldon Road near Eastland. She later operated a restaurant with her husband called Rademaker’s Steakhouse in the structure that was known as Sheldon Inn.  Mrs. Rademaker attended the still-standing Old District 10 Schoolhouse, walking from her home eastwardly on Sheldon, passing Engle Road and her grandparents’, the Bradshaws’ farm, on her way.  William Scrivens had also remembered the Bradshaws, saying it was his responsibility for a while to fill buckets of water at the Bradshaw spring to bring back to the schoolhouse.  Mrs. Rademaker remembers walking down a cinder-covered road and that the schoolhouse was divided into two rooms by a wall that was lifted to make for one big room for holidays and special occasions.  She also realls not-too-fond memories of having to go outside to separate quarters when one had to go to the bathroom.  Mrs. Rademaker later went on with her husband to operate Rademaker’s Steakhouse, as well as a butcher shop and beauty shop that were both located around the Triangle in old Berea.

Al Evans, on April 17, 1974 sent his handwritten memories of old Middleburg from Baltimore, Maryland to the Benedicts in Middleburg Heights, Ohio.  A copy of his draft was found in the Berea Historical Society and transferred to a computer readout, as best as possible by Ron McEntee on September 13, 1995.  According to Evans’ tract, his family moved to a farm near the corner of West 130th Street and Sprague Road on September 5, 1919.  Following are some of his excerpted memories of the District 10 Schoolhouse.

“When I went to the school at Sheldon Road and Fry Road it had two rooms, each with its own teacher, four grades in each room, 1 to 4 in one room, 5 through 8 in my room. The other room was taught by a Miss Scheaffer; my room was taught by Ella Zoe Poddock,  a sweet young thing of about 20, as I recall.  Every kid in her room liked her, so much so that when she tried to correct the bigger boys in the 7th and 8th grades, they would pick her up and kiss her, and should run into the cloak room and hide her face under her coat.  The other teacher, Miss Scheaffer, I think was jealous of this (she was tall, skinny, older woman), and reported this to A.A. Alberty, who was then school superintendent, and Alberty came out with a harness strap to strap Charles Goble for kissing Miss Poddock, but Charles Goble was bigger and stronger than Alberty, and never did get strapped.”

“There was a foot-powered organ in our room, and we began each day with two boys pumping the foot pedals on the organ while Miss Poddock played; the first selection had to be a hymn, after that we could suggest any sone in our songbook, and ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’ was played at least once each day, sometimes twice.”

“…The classroom was a rather large room; in our corner it had a huge cast-iron, pot-bellied stove, about 6 feet tall and 4 or 5 feet in diameter.  We had two huge coal scuttles to bring in coal and carry out the ashes.  Around the stove was a sheet iron fence about 5 feet high with a door in it opposite the front of the stove to put in coal and take out ashes.  The bigger boys had to take care of the coal and ash problem.”

“In the front of the school building were 2 cloak rooms, one for each class room, with plenty of hooks to hang our heavy winter clothing and over-shoes on, and a rack to put our lunch bucket in.  Every student carried his lunch inn some sort of a bucket, round or square; some of the lunch buckets had lids that were also a container to carry coffee, or he carried his coffee in a ketchup bottle.  You would see some pretty young students drinking old coffee out of a bottle or lunch box top at that school.  In good weather we ate outdoors; in bad weather at our desks.  At lunch time we would do some sharp trading if we saw another kid eating something we liked.”

“In 1919 there were 2 horse-drawn school buses to haul us to school.  Each bus could hold about 20 kids seated and was pulled by a two-horse team. Our bus was driven by a retired farmer named George Hutchinson who lived on Pearl Road opposite the Ehrbar farm.  He was paid $1,800 a year for himself and his team and had to grease the school bus himself and keep it clean.  The seats in our bus ran along each side, and if five or six boys began rocking nak and forth inn unison, they could tip the bus over; when we did this old George Hutchinson would grab his horse whip and threaten to whip us.”

“In deep snow old Hutchinson pulled a bob-sled filled with straw and the Board of Education used to pass out foot warmers, a soapstone slab with a handle on it, to families with small children and girls in them about an hour before school bus time; the mother would put this soapstone in the oven, and the last kid out the door grabbed the soapstone and hurried out to the bus and put it on the floor where the small kids and girls could put their feet on it.  About an hour before school let out the process was repeated at school.  If the bigger boys got cold, they could trot along-side the bus to get warm.  Where the mud was deep the girls got out and walked and every big boy was expected to wear rubber boots so he could get out and push the bus to help the horses.”

Julia Trapp Weinle, at a Middleburg Heights Historical Society Heritage Luncheon around 1976, recalled her memories of old Middleburg.  According to a newspaper article at the time, Mrs. Weinle “was perhaps the oldest resident in the group”, having been born in Middleburgh Township in 1891, in a farmhouse on Bagley Road.  Following are excerpts of the article:

“’We had the tallest evergreen in the village in front of our house,’ she said with pride. ‘The house where I was born stood where the Crest Apartments are now.’”

“Mrs. Weinle said she lived on Bagley for 57 years in a house across the street from where she was born.  She told others attending the luncheon that her family came to Ohio from Germany.”

“A former school teacher, Mrs. Weinle attended Balwin-Wallace College and taught in several area school districts.  She also served as superintendent for Parma Heights schools.  Perhaps her biggest tie with many residents at the luncheon was the time she taught at the District 10 Red Schoolhouse at the corner of Sheldon and Fry Roads.”

“Several residents attending the luncheon said they had ‘Miss Trapp’ as a teacher when attending classes at the schoolhouse in the early part of the century.”

“Mrs. Weinle has since passed away and her gravesite is in Woodvale Cemetery.  Her former dwelling across from the Crest Apartments is still standing as a vacant century home.

Harvey Cross was an Argentinian-born man who would come to own and live in the District 10 Schoolhouse from 1940 until his death in 1970.  He is buried at Woodvale Cemetery and his little gravestone has the little school building engraved in the corner. (See Newspaper article April 15, 1973, “Middleburg Debates Fate of Old School”)