School Name: Spring Garden / Sunnyside School School District Number: #012
Location:
Township: Twn42N Range: Rng14W Section: Sec24
Latitude: 38.387302 °N Longitude: -92.419240 °W
School Photos:
Spring Garden Schoolhouse - Date unknown
Spring Garden Schoolhouse - Date unknown
Spring Garden Schoolhouse - 2016
Per Alan Wright: One room Spring Garden school that my brothers, Glennie and Bernie Wright, attended for several years in the late 1930s and early 1940s, before transferring to Eugene grade and high school whose bus picked them up at the Wright house on U.S. 54. They no longer had to walk nearly a mile through bitter cold, snow, ice and rain to get to school. The Spring Garden School closed a few years later and was consolidated with several other schools in Miller and Cole Counties into Cole R-V School at Eugene. Nearing retirement, Glenn Wright revisited the school many years later and wrote an article for the Miller County newspaper descrbing his wistful feelings and recollections from long ago. He once had a "crush" on his teacher, Miss Thompson, and tried to arrive early on winter days to have the privilege of helping her get the coal fired stove going.
Photo by Alan Wright, 5/6/2016.
Spring Garden School, Miller County, MO, - 1943
Last day of school picnic at Aurora Springs, MO.
As remembered by Anna Mae (Bontrager) McNeely and Bernie Gail Wright.
Back row: L-R, Virginia Farris, Anna Mae Bontrager, Donald Farris, Vincent "Aloysius" Evans (orphan boy staying with Ed & Nell Tellman), Glennie Wright, teacher Frances Thompson (Later Mrs. Leroy Snodgrass).
Front row: Probably Jessie Pauletta Hodge, Dolores Feltrop (Nell Tellman's younger sister who would die June 7, 1944 from the affects of earlier rheumatic fever), Bernie Wright, and Leland McMillan.
A glimpse of rural Missouri school children 18 months after Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into WWII.
School Information:
Date Started: Date Closed:
School Registers:
Teachers: Judge Jenkins lists the following teachers for the early years of the school:
| 1893-94 | Hattie Miller | 1897-98 | Frank J. Keep | |
| 1894-95 | Marble Fields | 1898-99 | Dollie Savage | |
| 1895-96 | Ida M. Tomson | 1899-00 | W. M. Simpson | |
| 1896-97 | Lou Lumpkin | 1899-01 | Anna Brown |
Resident Taxpayers in 1885:
Jno. T. Atkinson, E.A. Becker, E.D. Becker, J.J. Bond, S.W. Belshe, James Belshe, Taylor A. Cartee, Frank Devilbis, George C. Fields, Miss Marble Fields, Thomas Gaither, S.W. Gilleland, Sammy G. Gilleland, Robert H. Gosner, J.G. Hoff, Jasper N. Henley, William R. Henley, C.C. Henley, Mrs. Harriett Johnston, Frank Keep, Herman Kroeger, E.M. Lumpkin, W.S. Lumpkin, R.P. Weaver, A.P. Wadley, J.S. Lumpkin Sr., W.A. Lumpkin, J.S. Lumpkin Jr., G.J. Moore, J.J.Mengers, Mrs. Lizzie Miller, Esom Miller, J.B. Norwood, I.W. Porter, Wm. T. Pitchford, Jonathan Roberts, W. Rosson, Pony Shearrer, Mrs. E.A. Simpson, D.W. Son, H.M. Sutton, W.P. Sullens, E.D. Sullens, Mrs. H. Umstead, John Vanhooser, Henry Vanhooser, and H.B. Vanhooser.
Merchants:
Becker Bro.'s, Frank J. Keep, Wm. T. Pitchford, Pony Shearrer, Mrs. E.A. Simpson, H.B. Vanhooser, Dr. J.B. Norwood, and Dr. Frank Devilbis.
Institute Professors:
Professor G.J. Moore, Professor H.M. Sutton, Professor Jont Roberts, and Professor I.W. Porter.
The first institute of higher learning that brought attention to Spring Garden was the Spring Garden Seminary, a private school for girls only that was established in 1866, using the old Christian Church building in what is now the northwest corner of the cemetery, according to Clyde Lee Jenkins.
In 1868 the community erected a two-story frame schoolhouse in which Prof. William M. Lumpkin taught the first classes and which was incorporated as the Spring Garden Seminary. He was joined by Julia A.H. Colby who came from Springfield to join the faculty, and Edward A. Henry of Mt. Pleasant.
School Resources
