Old School House
I shot photos of Drew and Fifi last week on a splendid Sunday Afternoon. I met up with their moms (kids in tow) at a sweetly restored old school house in Danville.
A little bit about the magnificent school house:
If buildings could talk, the Tassajara School House would tell of children reciting lessons, ciphering and singing in a classic one-room school. Students from Tassajara Valley ranches attended this school from 1889 to 1946.
Students from first to eighth grade walked, rode horses and took buggies to get to school. In 1889 Richard D. Williams was the teacher and 41 students attended that August. Roger Podva (born in 1884) began school in 1890 and said there were 42-75 students at the school when he attended, sitting two to a desk. They learned mental arithmetic, reading, geography, spelling and writing. A picture of George Washington hung on the wall.
Today the School House sits in rural, restored splendor on its original site at 1650 Finley Road in Contra Costa County’s Tassajara Valley. A belfry with bell, old outhouses, a restored stable, picnic tables and a new redwood water tower complete the picture.
About
Having spent the last ten years restlessly roving the planet, Melissa Schilling, a published writer and photographer, has spent time coordinating photo-art therapy in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, searching for huitlecoche on the Mayan Riviera, riding bicycles through Patagonia, cooking Basque food in the Pais Vasco and deep-sea fishing off the coast of Cuba. email: melissa@projecthopeart.org
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