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Rogene H. writes: I can't believe that some people in our area of Star Lake could see the only "Landmark",  we have left in the hamlet, be removed.   All other landmarks like the old horse barn is gone, the old Star Lake Inn on the lake is gone, the Presbyterian Church is re-designed, the old fire station was destroyed by fire, Tears Store was torn down, Ed Cleaver Grocery Store is gone, the Old Waldorf known as Harney Hotel and also known at the Bluebird Inn was destroyed by fire, and the Foley Hotel is also gone.  The only two, old buildings left in Star Lake are the old Lakview Hotel and the  old Post Office building that now houses apartments.  She stated, " I started teaching Kindergarten through the third grade in l943.  Mr Marshall was principal and taught the 7th and 8th grades.  Nettie Gale had the 4,5,and 6th in a room in the back of the fire station.  I have many pleasant memories in and of that old school house and I believe any senior citizen in his or her early sixties and early seventies should also have pleasant memories.  Please try to keep this building on the same property in tip-top shape.  It should be saved...it is the best looking building in Star Lake."

To whom it may concern:  My name is Burton Benson.  I was born and brought up in Star Lake.  I went to the old  school house in l921, our teacher was Miss Gladys Daniels from Oswegatchie.  That old school holds a precious spot in my heart.  I am so happy that you wonderful people are going to save it.  Sincerely, Burton Benson.....Kathy Benson Elliott stated,"As children, we visited my Aunt Pearl Benson Richter at her cottage on the lake, and we all have a soft spot in our hearts for the area.......My sister and I want to honor my dad for his 89th birthday by donating to the Save Our School House Project.  My dad thinks about it everyday, as he has a print of Rosa Bonheur's "The Horse Fair" hanging over his fireplce at home in Rome that he remembers looking at as a student at the Star Lake school house.  He has a rich storehouse of memories, should you desire such informtion.........

A recent letter that was received by Joe R. from a former student at the Old School follows along with a photo:
Hi Joe,
          Sorry to take so long to get you a copy of this photo you asked for.
          It was taken when Mom(Coretha Grant Wendt) was 18, after she moved
          to Star Lake and set up her beauty shop at l7.
          Hope this helps you and the SOS group.
                  With warm regards to you and Margie,
                                          Gail

   

Memories of the Star Lake NY Elementary School in the 1940’s

My first memories are having my sister Becky, who is a couple of years older being instructed by Mom(Alice Hunkins) to keep watch of me as we were to walk to the school each day. I remember my lunch pail was round and was made of chrome like metal and it was very shiny. It had a bale wire handle and I think it was a pail that something we had for food came in and Mom just used them for our lunches. It kinda resembled a standard paint can in design.

 We lived in a rented house provided by John Kerr( the father of Hartwell, Ralph and Grant) just a bit SW of where the present Clifton-Fine Central is located. It is still a place where there is a cluster of different types of homes. The Gore family used to have a farm against the mountain at the end of the little road there which runs over behind the present sports fields to the West. My Dad(Lester Hunkins) worked at Benson Mines as a Shovel Operator in the pits. Dad had worked at the mines when it was being built as he worked for a Contractor early on. When the mines were completed …he decided to apply for a job there and was successful. We, at that early time….around 1942 had a travel trailer that we lived in…Dad put it up for sale right there in John Kerr’s property where we were living in the Trailer….a man came by….wanted the Trailer right away. Dad went to John to see if there was anything to rent there in his rentals. John said NO…but he was living alone after the death of his first wife and why did we not just move in with him until something came available. What a deal…..we did move a bit later into Kerr’s green house where I started School from. I remember living in the Kerr residence and Grant coming home on military leave with his Uniform on etc. and he was very …very handsome. Mom was young then and she said in later years that she had never seen a more handsome man. John Kerr was a gracious man with a successful Insurance Agency there in the lower floor of the home right on old Rt. 3 going down the hill across and down from the Brace-Scott Entrance across the road. The house is no longer there…and I wonder when it was torn down….? The ground banks where the house was is still visible.

At that time….an airport was organized where the Clifton Fine School is now. I believe the Kerr Brothers planned it at the time along with others. There were also Sulky Horse Races held there. I remember visiting a few downed planes there as a kid. We lived there in the Green House as it was called for a few years before buying a house on Young’s Road which was our home as kids for the rest of our child’s life there in Star Lake….which ended for me in 1959.

During this period the Clifton-Fine Hospital was built and the Benson Mines(J&L)and the Newton Falls paper mill were really doing well providing excellent employment for North Country folks. During my time there in Star Lake I saw the transition from a summer community resort all around Star Lake to mining town type families taking over. Most of the Summer residence came from the NYC area and would stay ..often the entire summer. They owned the homes, camps estates etc. around the lake and the two main larger places for people to stay was the Star Lake Inn and the Star Lake Camp. The INN was the classy place with beautiful accommodations which included excellent dining, a Golf Course(still used), quality service with all the normal amenenities of the times….i.e. tennis courts, boats, beach, movies, dancing etc.

It was more geared to older folks of means but some families did come but usually because of older generation connections.

On the other hand the Star Lake Camp was a family type place with campy type surrounding, more basic accommodations etc. People there tended to come for a short period ..like a week or two as it was the working class.

I would say that the primary group of all the Resort People were Jewish. Many of my summer friends were from Jewish families renting on the Lake for the summer. Another favorite place for folks coming to Star Lake was the Kilbourne Properties. They had many places for rent going down to the Lake on a road behind Kerr’s Garage. I remember making friends with the kids of these families. Old man Kilbourne..first name I think was Alfred….. was a very good business man and had some recreation planned for his renters expecting that some would come every year and they did. One of the things the Kilborne’s did was hold a DANCE on Friday nights during the season in a garage down at the end of the road in the midst of all the rentals he owned..not far from the water’s edge near the Reeves Point where the Sand Bar extends out. He had lots of old phonograph records and he would teach us how to do the various group type dances as well as call for a type of square dancing….. Dances where you would bow to your partner in a row..then turn them around etc…what fun it was and very special for me…never having been exposed to any of this. .I was very impressed with the Jewish Children and their parents. Those kids were watched closely by their parents and they had books with them to study daily for the upcoming school year….they were aggressive in their desire to be someone….it left a large impression on ME….the value of each one of us.

The Alfred(memory) Kilbourne family lived at the top of the hill behind Kerr’s Garage in the summers and went to Florida in the Winter in the years I knew them. It was a man and wife team…they had at least one Son….Eddy who also had a wife and family the generation between for me. Many people would still remember Eddy and Ada Kilbourne and they had at least one child.

Anyway…going to School those first days…..there were no buses for those that went to the Star Lake School as far as I know. When you reached the 6^th grade…you were bused to Newton Falls. At some point...I think it was going into 9^th….students were bused to Oswegatchie to attend High School. I suppose these class arrangements may have changed over different periods but from the mid ‘40’s until we went into the new Clifton- Fine School…….there in Star Lake ..this is the way it was for schooling.

Star Lake Elementary Building features

There were two Class Rooms with separate entrances and playgrounds.

There was a large stone based fence on the street side with Stone piers for entrances to each entrance. The actual fence was black iron and heavy duty with a good height to it…..with the pointy tops….pretty standard for those years I would say. I believe some of the older pictures show it.

The Bath Rooms were common to both Class Rooms and each class took turns standing in line to go to the bathroom. Each Class Room had a door toward the back center that had steps down to the bathroom level and there was a space outside the bathrooms to stand in line. Except for the bath room level…there was no common part for the two Classrooms. You really did not sense that there was another room just through the wall.

The Class Room to the South was for grades up to 2^nd grade. Some years there was a kindergarten and other years it was just 1^st and 2^nd. The outside playground was on the south side for these kids. The Black Board was on the common wall between the Class Rooms that presently is a missing wall and the seating for the students faced the Black Board in Rows. The Teacher had a desk in the left front NW corner. I believe that there were coat posts near the entrance door.

The North Class Room was a bit larger I think with the Black Board on the East Wall toward the back mountain opposite the street. The Seating was lined up with 3^rd grade to the south end…then 4^th and then 5^th on the north end. The teacher’s desk was in the center of the East wall with the Black Board behind it.

Both of these Rooms had a Black Board that went along pretty much the entire Wall. With that size Black Board…the teacher could leave material up there for each class throughout the day between lessons. All the information we got from the teacher was spoken or on the Black Board…although we did have books to take home and study from in class.

The student desks types I think varied between the rooms. I know that the higher grade room had the desks screwed to the floor in rows. I am not sure of the desks in the lower grade room….they may have been movable.

The playground to the North was much larger for the bigger kids and we would play softball etc. during the recess times etc. That playground was about the size of land from the present School to the present Fire Hall. I seem to remember a swing set on the east side of the playground.

I do not remember how the place was heated…did not remember ever going to the Basement below or ever using the Emergency Door that is presently off the Bath Room lobby area there.

The exterior shape etc. appears to be the same as when I went to school there.

Typical Day

I do not remember that much on this.

I remember being read to from a novel at the beginning of the day…and after Lunch Break. The teacher would read with great skill through the action parts, sad parts, joy parts etc with such enthusiasm that one could really be part of the story. We never wanted to miss a chapter etc. if we missed school and it was something to look forward to a couple of times every day. The books were usually about some history portion of our region so it was story like but also a bit of an education.

I remember having the teacher give us our lesson and then I would usually listen to the other lessons for the other grades as well. I think this really gave me a chance to hear things more than once…..lessons ahead of me and lessons past…a great teaching pattern. The way the rooms were organized…you could pretty much hear and see what others were getting for information from the Teacher and the Black Board entries. You also had a thought about the other kids in the room as you saw them under lots of situations. I believe we had recess time in the morning and afternoon for about a one half hour each time which of course…is a special time.

My first teacher was Miss Corcoran who would later to be Mrs.Rogene Henri. She was so beautiful wearing wool plaid skirts and neat sweaters in the winter...I thought she was from a far off place beyond my imagination. It turns out she was from Colton NY and at that time Colton was truly an unknown place to me. She was not at the school for my second grade so I do not know where she went…I know that she married Charlie Henri and was in our Clifton-Fine School teacher staff until she retired some years ago. I have always kept in contact with Rogene and she would drop me a clipping out of the paper or something over the years as I moved away etc….a very special friendship connecting in a time that we were both starting up something.

Mrs. Amo was my teacher for the 3^rd, 4^th and part of 5^th grades as we moved to the new school in mid year. Mrs. Amo was an excellent teacher always paying attention to teaching and remember her excellent reading skills when she read to us twice a day and sometimes other times on special occasions. She also stayed in the Clifton-Fine Central Teaching staff until retirement some time ago. Imagine teaching three grades for all of the subjects and these teachers did not have any aids etc. The only adult in these rooms was the lone teacher.

We moved out of the Star Lake Elementary I believe in 1952 ….as the new Clifton-Fine Central was complete. We were picked up by a school bus not far from our home on Young’s Road to go to Clifton-Fine.

Conclusion

It gives me great joy to tell someone about these memories. I hope it is something that you can relate from your early years in school. I probably will remember other things later on…but for now…..this was a special time to share with you and thank you for asking for my memories of the Star Lake Elementary School.    

Respectfully,

David Hunkins

 The following photos were given to the SOS group by Harold Kerr who attended the school in the l930's.

    Gearald Marshall--Principal