arning in the past
Ottumwa residents remain devoted to former schools .
By Chad Drury , Courier staff writer
Charlotte England fumbled a bit for the key to Dahlonega School No . 1 , then opened the door to a bygone era .
A few more steps , and one might as well have been in 1952 , not 2022 .
It was the smell of an aged room , complete with organized wood desks , faint sunlight peeking through the tall windows on two sides of the building . There were scribbles on a chalkboard that could have been written 60 years ago instead of at a reunion three years ago .
A time warp it certainly was .
“ This was all I ever knew until I was in junior high ,” England said , flipping through a thick binder of news articles , obituaries and yearly records of attendance related to the school . “ Everybody else had their class of friends they went to school with . It was a big adjustment .”
Whether it was a one-room school in the country on Ottumwa ’ s periphery , or an elementary school in the city , folks in the area are devoted to their schools and their history , and often pine for those days .
Molly Myers Naumann is one of those people .
She went to school at a time when Ottumwa had almost 20 schools , including multiple middle schools and a Catholic and public high school . Naumann , who graduated from Ottumwa High School in 1960 , fondly remembers her time at Lincoln School and Washington Junior High , both of which are long gone .
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