| Notes |
- In 1920 the family appeared in the Oconto > Little Suamico > District 1 65 Census
William, Elmer, Chester, Elsie and Frank all were listed as single.
From the Oconto County Reporter –History of Little Suamico 1969-70 I believe written by Alice Koehne The One-Room Schoolhouse Closely associated with St. John’s is the Cottonwood Schoolhouse, not only because many of the same persons were organizers of both, but also because the school building now serves the church as a parish hall. As with the church, the settlers organized a school before a building was available to house it. The beginnings of the School District No. 4 goes back to 1892 under the leadership of Henry Koehne, director of the school board; Obediah Ferdon, clerk and Alex Zoeller, treasurer. For the first few years, the scholars met in Ferdon’s home on county trunk S to lea rn their three “R’s” under the tutelage of Gusta Jacques. Ferdon received $4 a month rent for the use of his home and the school teacher was pa id $30, out of which $10 went for room and board. Until August of last year, when it was destroyed by fire the house was the oldest in the school district. (It had been owned for the last years by the Vincent Larsons .) Two of the Little Suamico youngsters who attended school there were Mrs. Ed Allen (Edna DeMaiffe) and the late Minnie Koehne Liebert. Early in the summer of 1894, John Virtues obtained 26 signatures on a petition to be presented to the town board requesting authorization for a school district to encompass a cited territory. The petition notarized by then Justice of the Peace William W. Foster, was favorably considered by t he board members Harry D. Whitcomb, Obediah Ferdon and Henry G. Bramschrieber, and school district No. 4 was born. A few days later, on June 9, the new district called its first meeting a nd again elected Henry Koehne as director of the board, John Gierke as treasurer, and August Alandas clerk. So many people turned out for the meeting that the gathering had to move from the house to the barn to conduct t he business at hand. The following summer, the school board contracted Gust Papenfus to build a schoolhouse on land leased from Asa Foster Sr., (grandfather of the p resent Asa Foster). For the sum of $490 Papenfus furnished both material and labor, including seats and desks. Grandfather Koehne donated the blackboards. By 1905 there were 48 students enrolled in grades one through eight in t he one room schoolhouse. Some of the boys, their education interrupted while helping their families become established in a new land, were as old as 18. The task faced by the young school teachers in handling so ma ny students of varying ages- in discipline as well as teaching- was formidable, and all for the compensation of $25 a month. School was held for s ix months out of each year. During the 66 years of its existence, Cottonwood had 34 teachers all of w omen with the exception of Willard Allen who now serves as mail carrier f or the village. The roster reads as follows: Gusta Jacques, Rose Touchette, Vira McGinnis, Ester Minian, Pearl Trechet te, Kathryn Herald, Laura (Johnson)Virtues, Ida (McDowell) Herbert, Clarice Roy, Lenore Kehl, Kathryn Noonan, Mrs. Gertrude Larson, Ethel Armstrong, Georgia LaVigne, Berna Berman, Mrs. Violet Laduron, Muriel (Coopman) Hicks, Willard Allen, Mae (Young) Koehne, Bernice (Krueger) Bergh, Mildred Murphy, Margaret Rabe, Mary (Whitcomb) Papenfus, Helen (Carey) Daul, Alice (Lorang) Koehne, Adella (Berth) Pagel, Patricia (Young) Mathey, Margar et (Jahnke) Sarvick, Anita (Ward) Kennin, Alice Thome, Nora Johnson, Car yl (Leigh) Hazen, Janet (Jensen) Reed, Mary Ann Otrodovec and Laurell LaCount. During the tenure of one of the early teachers, a tree planting was carried on around the new school, each student responsible for planting and caring for one cottonwood. Not all the new trees made it, and the first sapling to die was the one planted by Margaret Virtues. When Margaret herself died soon after, the students read into this an ominous significance a nd became keenly interested in the survival of their particular tree Most of the trees grew and flourished, however, and in 1919, when the school board began searching for a name they decided on Cottonwood Grove School. Early in 1960 the last class met at Cottonwood school. The following year District No. 4 became part of the Oconto Falls school system and Cottonwood went the way of most of the one-room country schools which have be en closed in the past decade. It was however, rescued from oblivion when the congregation of St. John ’s church bought the building at a cost of $801 from the Oconto Falls school district. The one-time school house was extensively remodeled inside and out and has become an attractive and serviceable parish hall.
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Jindra and Chaloupka Families
1848 - 1929 (81 years)
