Dulin Hill School- Fleming County Ky.

Students at the Washington School on Dulin Hill, Maysville Road, Fleming County, Kentucky during the mid to late 1920s. Among the students are Orville Carpenter, Frances Carpenter Blair and Jeune Carpenter Bake. For those who recall Miss Bess Ross, this was one of her early schools to teach. The one-room school was located on the boundary of Campbell farm (former Arthur Gorman farm). Photo courtesy of Evelyn Pearl Carpenter

A walk to remember Fleming County’s Dulin Hill School

While working on her family tree, Evelyn Pearl Carpenter Anderson has pieced together information that helps document the people and places of Fleming County’s past.

One interesting piece of local history is that of the Dulin Hill School, where Evelyn Pearls father, Orville Jones Carpenter, and his siblings obtained their early education.

The late Jeune Carpenter Baker, a sister to Evelyn’s father, attended the Dulin Hill school from 1931 to 1940 and sent the following memory to Evelyn to add to their family’s genealogy.

“I walked to Dulin Hill school with my brother D.R. It was several miles over fields and fields and we had to climb fences to go from one field to the next.

Spring and fall seasons were not bad, but winter was no fun. Often, when we reached the building, our fingers and toes were just short of frost bite.

There was a pot-bellied stove where we were instructed to sit until we warmed up and the teacher had a basin of very cold water, and even snow if there was any, into which we put our fingers until they gradually began to feel normal.

The school sat on a hillside, surrounded by a huge pasture which served as a playground for recess and grazing areas for any horses that brought students and teacher to school.

Our teacher arrived early. I believe someone from Flemingsburg brought her or maybe she roomed in the home of one of her students, which was very typical.

It was her responsibility to keep the classroom clean, the fire going in the stove and water in the bucket for drinking and brought up from the well on the property.

Our teacher solicited the older boys to help her with these tasks.

She was hired by a trustee system which was led by my dad.

Her name was Kate Breen and we called her Ms. Kate.

The school had one large room which you entered through a small closet-like room we called the cloakroom.

There were hangers for coats, etc., and shelves where we stored our lunch bags.

The water bucket with one dipper for all, had a shelf of its own.

A wall to wall blackboard in the large classroom was opposite the cloakroom.

There was an American flag in a corner and pictures of Washington and Lincoln above the board.

Desks were arranged in rows and two students occupied the double desks which were bolted to the floor.

There were recitation benches at the front of the room and the teacher’s desk was centered near the chalkboard.

Ms. Kate sat at her desk and called students to the front when it was their time for lessons, grade one or Primer, went first.

There were not many students per class.

I remember when I was done reciting, I would listen to the others and consequently I became a very good speller.

I was extremely bored and often practiced reading with words upside down and backwards.

We had no science or social studies instruction and our music consisted of songs we knew and shared.

We delighted in doing Christmas plays and learned our parts, so we could perform for our parents.

At recess times, we played “Andy Over” with a ball we threw over the school, Tag, Kick the Can, Red Rover, just to name a few.

Sometimes some of the older boys got in tussles and Ms. Kate had to intervene. I don’t remember that she ever flogged anyone, but she gave writing exercises for the guilty and misbehaving students were made to stand with their noses pointed into the chalked circle on the chalkboard. I don’t remember having a dunce cap.

The outhouse was a two-holer and we were instructed to use it one at a time and always at recess.

If there was an emergency, we held up one finger or two.

I stayed at Dulin Hill through my seventh grade, then all the county schools were consolidated into the main Fleming County School system and we were bused to Flemingsburg.

Because I had been involved in our own school’s spelling bees for 7 years, and could spell all the words given, I represented Fleming County in the statewide spelling bee in Louisville, Kentucky.

The editor of the Flemingsburg Times Democrat, John Kelly Ryan and his wife took me.

What a treat for a country bumpkin.

Needless to say, I didn’t compete well with the other more progressive schools.

My experience at Dulin Hill was certainly unlike any I would have had in the Fleming County schools.

I was superior in reading and language skills but very deficient in social studies, science and art. If I had not had teachers who believed in my potential, I would have failed. Instead I excelled in all except geography. Later my husband Jack taught me how to read a map”.

Noted in the Prater family book complied by Evelyn Pearls cousin, Mary Blair Hamm “The Carpenter children either walked to the Dulin Hill School or rode their horse “Old Nell”, the distance of about two miles.

It is through first-hand stories such as these that helps paint a picture of what life was like for our ancestors and adds an extra touch to the history of our hometown communities.