Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408250103
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GOODE LENGTH: Medium
In 1926, Brookhill School was Lucille Hughes Witt's only option for an education.
Like most children from farming families in the rural Goode area, she went to Brookhill, a three-room brick schoolhouse with a triangular tin roof and four symmetrical chimneys on what is now Virginia 643 in Goode, near Forest.
The next-closest school was in Big Island, miles away and a hard climb up dirty mountain roads.
``There was no bus and I rode a pony three to four miles'' to Brookhill, Witt recalled.
Ironically, in 1928, when Witt dropped out of school to help her mother and older sister care for her seven younger brothers and sisters, bus service to the high school in Big Island began and Brookhill became an elementary school.
That's how most of its alumni remember it today. They also remember Witt as the friendly lunchroom cook who served them hot meals. She returned to the school in 1944 and cooked at the school for 10 years.
Many of the school's alumni, teachers and employees will meet again for the first time in more than 50 years on Sunday. A Brookhill School reunion, "Happy Days at Brookhill School," will be held from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Bellevue Community Center on Virginia 668 in Goode.
Brookhill closed in 1972. After sitting in disuse for about 10 years, it was purchased and remodeled into the Brookhill Wesleyan Church.
Reunion organizers, hoping to learn more about the school's 55-year history from the event, are asking alumni to write one-page essays of recollections about the school.
They also hope to create an alumni directory and locate archival materials such as yearbooks and photos for a collection at the Bedford City/County Museum.
They shouldn't have to dig too deep. During informal conversations with Brookhill alumni Wednesday, memories flowed like a waterfall.
Edith Shelton, who went to Brookhill from 1936 to 1942, remembered getting piano and Bible lessons at the school.
She said, "I'm very anxious to go to the reunion. I'm looking for a lot of people."
Ida Berger Powell, who now lives in Lynchburg, grew up in Goode and attended Brookhill from 1943 to 1950.
"World War II was in full swing," she remembered. "We had little booths set up in the hallway for selling war bonds. I believe you could buy a stamp for a quarter."
Annie Markham, who was the school's principal from 1942 to 1945, also taught sixth and seventh grade at Brookhill.
She remembered the war's strict rationing and getting extra gas coupons for giving a teacher a ride to the segregated black school in Goode on her way to Brookhill.
Other mornings Markham would catch a ride on a milk truck, bringing the milk and ice cream for the school day with her. Some mornings, she said, she would miss the school bell at 9 a.m., because she would be out shopping for groceries for the school's 120 children.
Edith Elliott's mother drove the milk truck that gave Markham a lift. Her mother taught at Brookhill from 1926 until 1928. Elliott herself attended Brookhill from 1946-53.
She started organizing the Brookhill reunion soon after putting together a similar reunion at New London Academy earlier this year.
She sat in Markham's house Wednesday leafing through old black-and-white photographs of school pageants and Tom Thumb weddings, or mock ceremonies for children.
Other photos showed the school's improvised rhythm band, in which children played on homemade instruments, using pan lids for cymbals or a gallon can with a piece of rubber tubing stretched over it for a drum.
Musing over the pictures of the smiling children, Elliott said, ``I wonder if these people will show up [at the reunion] and recognize themselves [in the photos]. It's hard to tell.''
by CNB