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Subject: A look back at the one room school at Dizney

Name: Chris Jones

Date posted: Aug 27, 04 - 7:28 AM

One room schools is a phrase that is synonymous with early rural education all over these United States. The Appalachain Mountains of East Kentucky in the early part of the 1900's were pocked with small one room schools, often, as in the case we will see,housed in the local one room Church.
The late Raymond Layne, who served in 1978 as the then editor of the "School Bell Echo" the official newsletter of the Madison County Retired Teachers Association, wrote an article on his early begining as an educator in the hills of east Kentucky in a place on Yokums Creek in Harlan County called Dizney.
Lets step back in time, as we again bring this article to light, showing how it was on Yokum Creek about 1922.
The Spring term of school was rapidly coming to an end at Eastern Kentucky Normal School( Now Eastern Ky University) in Richmond Ky. We were studying for exams, students were asking "Where will you be teaching this fall?" We didn't know because we still did not have a job.
President Coates announced that County school superintendants were coming to Eastern to interview graduating students as prospective teachers in their systems. We were very interested in being interviewed for a job.
The superintendant of Bracken county talked to us and then we went in to see Abner C. Jones, Superintendant of Harlan County Schools. Mr. Jones said he could use both of us(My wife and me) and the salary was somewhat better than Bracken County was paying.
In due time we got a letter saying we had been assigned to teach at Dizney, Ky. This school was at the head of Yocum Creek up from Evarts, Ky. We were given the name of the trustee and of the local merchant. We wrote to the storekeeper, Henry Surgener, who agreed to rent us two furnished rooms.
We had no money. We borrowed $100.00 from Berea Bank and Trust Co. to tide us over untill we could make a "draw". We rode the train to Evarts were we made connections with the mail wagon. This was a farm jolt wagon pulled by two mules. We put our suit cases in the wagon with the packages and mail bag and headed up the creek. The rough rocky road followed alond side the creek part of the way and IN the creek the rest of the way. Someone said we "forded" the creek lengthwise.
The Surgeners were friendly folks and we were soon settled in our two rooms. Henry gave us credit at the store for groceries and we did not have to pay rent untill our check came in. We both taught in the same room, the Baptist Church(Locust Grove Missionary Baptist Church) which had leased by the county since the old log school house had been condemned.
A revival was in progress when we arrived. We decided to wait a week for it to close before starting school. We kept busy by digging pits and erecting two "Outhouses" back of the Churchhouse.

We no sooner had started school when three preachers came in and announced that they were starting another "protracted meeting". We were somewhat disgusted. This meant that every morning we would have to clean out the room of trash thrown on the floor by folks the night before. This sometimes filled a bushel basket.
Since this was our first time in the mountains of Harlan, we were a curiosity to the folks there and they were no less a curiosity to us. Many of the men we met on the road carried two 45 pistols or a rifle. We decided to stay in the house at night.
To make it easier to get the pupils in and out of the house we tool a portable phonograph to school and played marches for the children to walk in by. The next day, Bill Cloud, the trustee, came to school and ordered us to take that "Devil-Box" out of the Church house. He did not want no "Dancing" in the Church house.
We got a bubbler drinking fountain and set it on a table by the door. This was another "newfangled thing brung in from the lowlands" The trustee allowed we thought the kids were too nasty to drink after each other. They had always done it.
We erected swings and a merry-go-round and started supervised play on the yard. Many of the boys played marbles at recess time. Two fifth grade boys got to fussing over the game. I told them to stop or I would spank them. In a few minutes they were at it again. I picked up the Jones boy and spanked him soundly. Then I picked up the Pace boy to give him his punishment. He happened to have a penny box of kitchen matches in his hip pocket of his overalls. When I came down with my palm on him the matches ignited and literally burned a hole in his pants and blistered his hip. The word was soon spread over the community that Mr. Layne sot a boy on fire at school.
We stayed seven months in Dizney before coming to the flatlands. When we rolled into Richmond and got off the train, the land looked like it had been run over by a big roller and flattened out. We had spent very litle of our money and had $1400.00 in the bank when we got home. I spent the next two years teaching in a coal camp on Wallins Creek. Our stay in Appalachia was very educational for us. We went back to Dizney 49 years later and could not even find the spot where we had lived. Things had changed so much we did not recognize places.

Note: The "Jones" boy who was spanked was my grandfather Milton Jones, I do not know who the Pace boy was. The Church was a one romm clapboard frame stucture which was torn down in 1947 to make room for the present building. Henry surgener ran a country store and was postmaster at Dizney, before the business was sold and taken over by Arthur Pace. The new school building at Dizney was built on Turners creek to house the students, thus moving them from the church building, This building too is long gone, the students having been consilidated with Black Mountain. The old Log school that had been condemned, sat near the mouth of Stretch-neck hollow, and was the first meeting site of the Locust Grove Baptist Church, which was established in 1885.

I welcome your comments and questions, either on the other boards or via e mail. have a wonderful week-end....yer ole buddy...Chris

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