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THE OLD SCHOOLS
Not all of us remember the days when the teacher as well as the students often walked several Bennett Valley miles each day to attend school. Nor did all of us learn the 3 R’s in a one-room building with a coal stove, no running water, and a pair of outhouses located a sufficient distance away. Some of us may be amazed to learn that in the good ol’ days it was not uncommon for teachers to live with school board trustees or parents. Well, if you were an early Bennett Valley resident, you may recall some of this. If not, here are a few comments to bring you and me up to date.
By 1857, the James N. Bennett family had lived in the valley for approximately eight years. During those years several efforts were made to educate the scarce and geographically dispersed young folk. It was only common sense that led these Bennett Valley pioneers to locate the first school on the banks of Matanzas Creek to facilitate the bucketing of water used daily by the teacher and students. It didn’t take long, however, for everyone to tire of the periodic flooding of the school and it was moved to higher ground to the west. Since these educational efforts had given Bennett Valley a head start over the Santa Rosa area in school building, our first school was able to be named the Santa Rosa School, a title we kept until 1942.
Long distances to school and a growing population motivated upper Bennett Valley citizens to build another school on a strawberry-covered hill near the intersection of Grange and Guenza roads. This, the first Strawberry School, opened in 1857 and remained at that location until 1879. About that same time, Sonoma County was getting its first high school. Because of hard times (sound familiar?), the high school was closed after two years, only to re-open again in 1883.
The second Strawberry School, built near the Bottasso property on Sonoma Mountain Road, had more staying power than most early schools and remained in operation until it burned in 1952. In bygone days, it was customary for the school trustees to do much of the work maintaining the schoolhouse. Thus it was, in the summer of 1952, following the close of the school year, that the trustees redid the wooden floors and desks and then locked up the schoolhouse doors for the summer. Unfortunately, the oily rags used in the work were inadvertently left in the building. During the summer the heat built up within the schoolhouse until one day the rags combusted and sent the house up in flames. There was little that anyone could do with no source of water available, so the schoolhouse burned to the ground. We are told that students watched, in tears, as the building burned.
Construction of today’s Bennett Valley School soon began at its present location and “Strawberry School” was only a memory for fifteen years. But in 1976, during a “Name That School” contest for the new district elementary school off Summerfield Road, the old school name re-surfaced. Young Teresa O’Hanlon suggested using the Strawberry title for the new school and won the contest. This third Strawberry School in the valley was dedicated in 1978 and the ceremony was attended by 28 of the old school alumni.
We can only guess that someday there will be another “Santa Rosa School” in Bennett Valley or a fourth school named “Strawberry”.
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