Former teacher saves a memory

She said the county used to have 300 of the buildings.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR PENNSYLVANIA BUREAU
MERCER, Pa. -- The books are on the desks and the potbelly stove has kindling ready for cool days, but the Caldwell One-Room School won't be having any visitors.
The regular stop for history buffs has been closed since May 10 when its 97-year-old curator, former one-room school teacher Mae Berringer, took ill.
"I'm expecting to get better," said Berringer from her Mercer home. "If I could go back next week, I would."
Bill Philson, director of the Mercer County Historical Society, said the one-room schoolhouse, about seven miles north of Mercer on Pa. Route 58, has remained closed in deference to Berringer but has been opened if visitors call the historical society for a special tour.
Berringer usually mans it from 1 to 5 p.m. each Sunday and upon request.
She has been the curator of the Caldwell One-Room School since 1960 when the county shut down all of the one-room schools and required children to attend the current school system. The Mercer County Historical Society took over the Caldwell School and has preserved it since. The red brick building is believed to be the last one-room school left standing in the county.
A family tradition
According to Berringer, there were 300 one-room schools in Mercer County where pupils in grades one through eight attended class.
"I enjoyed teaching school," Berringer said, fondly recalling that she decided to be a teacher at age 8.
"My mother and my father were one-room schoolteachers, as were my four aunts and two uncles. I admired what they were doing and felt it was worthwhile," she said.
Berringer said the job of a one-room school teacher involved far more than teaching.
"I was the janitor, the nurse and the teacher. Maybe twice a year the school superintendent would come out to make sure everything was OK," she said.
Philson said when Berringer took over as curator of Caldwell School, she kept up the tradition of doing all the work herself. Each season she cleans the school, weeds the gardens and also greets visitors and gives them a taste of life in a one-room schoolhouse.
Visitors from around the world have come to the school in the past 46 years, she said.
The school is chock-full of old books, two-seat bench desks and toys from the era when the school was in use.
It's a treasure Philson says they intend to continue to preserve with Berringer's help when she is well again.
And even today, Berringer remains a staunch proponent of the one-room school education.
"If you've never been a pupil in a one-room school, then you don't have a good education," she said.
cioffi@vindy.com