Tucked away underneath the redwoods, Daniels Schoolhouse stands
empty and silent in the hills above Healdsburg. Cars occasionally
pass by on Mill Creek Road, often driven by the children and
grandchildren of the original settlers who first came to the
logging community of Venado in the early part of the 20th
century.
Gloria Egger and Bonnie Cussins-Pitkin remember a time when the
one-room schoolhouse was not silent. A time when perhaps a dozen
students—children of a handful of families living in the remote
hills of Mill Creek—gathered to learn.
The two Mill Creek Road residents, along with neighbor Kimberly
Flowers, have come together to raise money to restore the
schoolhouse so future generations of children may visit and
understand how the original settlers lived. They estimate they’ll
need up to $50,000 for the project—$10,000 for county permits and
up to $40,000 to rebuild and maintain the structure as a local
landmark. They’re also looking for the schoolhouse’s original
furniture and any items rescued by neighbors in the years after the
school closed.
“It’s like a dream come true,” said Cussins-Pitkin. “I always
came back here thinking, when will we bring this back?”
The school closed in 1951 when the number of students had
declined to the point where it became necessary to send them down
the road to Mill Creek School, another one-room schoolhouse. It’s
sat nearly undisturbed for long decades.
Daniels, like most of the one-room schoolhouses in the
Healdsburg area, was housed on private property. Unlike many of
these buildings, the property owner spared Daniels.
Local historian Kay Robinson has researched one-room
schoolhouses in recent years, documenting 15 in the Dry Creek
watershed including Daniels School. “About a third of the ones I
researched still exist,” she said. “The others, I’m pretty sure,
have been destroyed. Burned, removed, taken down for lumber, I
don’t know.”
The fate of these schoolhouses varies from district to district.
Of the five in what is now the West Side Union School District,
only one, Felta School, has been totally restored.
Junction School was converted into a residence after it closed
in 1952. Mill Creek School was dismantled in the late 1950s.
Lafayette School was dismantled around 1970. Jerry Arrigoni, the
owner of the Westside Road property where the schoolhouse once
stood, said it was in bad shape when he bought the land in
1969.
“When I bought the place hippies were living in it,” he said.
“They’d burned a hole in the floor and were tearing out the old
redwood for firewood. It really wasn’t worth putting a lot of money
fixing it up because of the fire they did.”
So Arrigoni, a former school administrator himself, sold it to a
neighbor for $1 to build a barn.
While the area’s other four schoolhouses met various fates,
Daniels School sat undisturbed. Property owner Stanley
Stewart—Cussins-Pitkin’s uncle—lived in Concord and left the
structure alone. Then in 1993 Cussins-Pitkin bought the property
and inherited the schoolhouse.
“I was delighted,” she said. “I was hoping that one day it could
be renovated.”
Her hopes were nearly met in 1998 when the Venado Historical
Society formed to restore the schoolhouse and community post
office. In 1999 contractors raised the schoolhouse building and put
in a new foundation, cripple walls and a front entrance porch and
stairs. The full restoration halted when Floramay Caletti — a
former student at the school and teacher at Mill Creek School —
fell ill.
Now, nearly a decade later, the new group of Mill Creek ladies
have come together to continue Caletti’s work. “Floramay started it
and practically had it finished,” said Cussins-Pitkin.
Egger and Cussins-Pitkin chattered back and forth on a recent
weekday afternoon, recalling stories of their youth at the
schoolhouse. Egger, a few years senior, attended the school for one
year in the late 1940s when her father fell ill and she lived with
her grandparents. Cussins-Pitkin, who also attended the school for
only one year, attended the Daniels for the school’s final year in
1951.
“We’d build forts on the hillside above the school, and throw
rotten fruit and vegetables at each other at recess,” said Egger,
standing inside the long abandoned schoolhouse. “We wouldn’t hit
each other. Those are the things I remember. The good, clean
fun.”
The two spoke of Christmas recitals, of drawing water from the
spring and ladling out of a bucket, and dunking for apples. “Our
teacher went out wildflower picking with us,” remembers
Cussins-Pitkin. “I knew the name of every flower, or every
tree.”
The Venado Historical Society is now accepting donations for the
project and ask donors to send a check to the Venado Historical
Society, 7751 A Mill Creek Road, Healdsburg, CA 95448. Those with
questions can call Gloria Egger at 433-7732 or Bonnie
Cussins-Pitkin at 433-3301.
