Mt. Hope School
Mecosta Township


 
Mt. Hope School about 1907 or 1908. This is from the photo collection by Ethel Armstrong who spent hours giving background information of the area and sharing her collection of photos. She was a lovely woman and who kept in touch after she had gone to a nursing home.
 
 
Students at Mt. Hope School. Sitting on the bench at the left is Alonzo Armstrong (Ethels husband) and squatting beside him is his brother Frank. This school was located on 220th Avenue in Stanwood.

Below you will find her poem about the old school which she gave me permission to use in my story written about Mecosta Township.
 
THE SCHOOL HOUSE ON THE HILL

by ETHEL ARMSTRONG

The Mt. Hope School stood on the hill
And looked down on the fields below,
What conversations it must have heard
What secrets did it know?

Wraps were hung on a row of hooks
In the cloaks on the wall
Tin lunch buckets sat on a shelf there too
Awaiting the lunch time call.

The boys all wore bib overalls
And were barefoot most of the time
The girls wore long black cotton hose
And pigtails with bows so fine.

The water was carried from the spring
In a battered, galvanized pail
They all drank from a dipper of tin
That hung by it on a nail.

The teachers were of a courageous breed
Most barely out of their teens
But they took on a responsibility
Beyond their wildest dreams.

Now everyone has forgotten the school
That stood so proudly there
All that is left is the lilac trees
That still perfume the air.

How many young lives were influenced
By the lessons they carry still
And how many dreams were born and died
On the top of Mt. Hope hill?
 
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