New Life For Hilda Frame School

Former student Bud Walker, 83, from Mullica, tells the story of “Butch” a mixed breed dog that used to follow the children to school and look in the window during the 1940’s where his picture hangs in one of the classrooms of the Hilda Frame School that has been recently turned over to the Mullica Township Historical Society for a community center and museum in Mullica Township. Photo/Dave Griffin

 

 Mullica Township Historical Society, former students and supporters, gather for a tour and light lunch at the Hilda Frame School that has been recently turned over to the Mullica Township Historical Society for a community center and museum in Mullica Township. Photo/Dave Griffin


By MICHELLE BRUNETTI POST, Staff Writer

MULLICA TOWNSHIP — One of the regular attendees of the two-room historic Hilda Frame School on Nesco Road in the 1940s couldn’t talk, but he had a lot of friends.

Butch was a mongrel dog that was bigger than a German Shepherd, but extremely gentle, said 83-year-old Bud Walker, who attended the school for 5th through 8th grade in the 1940s, and was there Wednesday for an open house.

Butch was a hobo, said Walker. The free spirited dog walked to school with a different kid every day, after staying with a different family each night.

“He would lay up by the blackboard,” said Walker, who now lives in Green Bank, Burlington County. “Then he’d go out with us and play.

“Imagine today bringing a dog to school,” said Bud’s wife Anna Walker. “They’d all be worried about somebody being allergic.”

The school building, which was built in 1900, was used as recently as 2010 for preschool classes by the Mullica Township School District. It was recently made available by the district to the Mullica Township Historical Society and the Mullica Senior Citizens group for a museum and community meeting center.

Supporters now need to raise about $3,500 for needed improvements like new flooring, and to pay for heating oil and other maintenance, said Mullica Township Committeeman Anthony Gabris.

Gabris, who didn’t grow up in Mullica so never attended the school, worked for about two years to get the school designated for use by the historical society and the senior group.

He and Mullica resident Lou Vitale, 68, who is active with the senior group, are working together to improve conditions there and try to make it a community center. Vitale also never attended the school, having moved to the township about 15 years ago.

“There have been some skeptics. We want to show people the building can be a centerpiece and a meeting place for seniors and Cub Scouts,” Gabris said to about 50 people who came out to see the building. “One way this will be a success is to get a lot of people involved.”

He said the agreement with the school district requires that no big changes be made in the building, but cosmetic upgrades are allowed.

 Clarence “Barney” Peterson, 93, a retired home builder who still lives in the Nesco section of Mullica, said he attended kindergarten through 8th grade at the school in the 1920s to 1930s, when there was a mix of ages in each classroom.

“It worked well, we all worked together,” Peterson said. “We called (the K-4) room the little room, and the (5-8) room the big room.”

The kitchen and small cafeteria were in the basement, and there was a small cubby closet in the front of the classrooms, with bathrooms in the back. The cubbies and bathrooms are still there, but the kitchen in the basement has been largely removed. Though many of those who attended Wednesday have lived in this rural township all of their lives, some hadn’t been inside its doors since their own school days.

“This is the first time I have been in here since the late 1960s,” said Robert Ware, 57, whose grandmother Estella Ware was the cook at the school from the 1940s to 1970; and whose mother Virginia Ware was the custodian from the 1950s to the 1970s.

“We had the best food of any school,” Ware said, all homecooked by his grandmother in the basement kitchen.

On Wednesday Ware, who attended the school in the 1960s, brought in the brass hand bell used by teachers to call kids inside in the mornings and after recess. It had been given to his mother by Hilda Stewart Frame, a long time teacher at the school who was married to Batsto Fire Tower ranger Bill Frame.

“It’s been in my mom’s attic for about 50 years,” Ware said.

In the mornings when the kids heard the bell, they lined up in two lines: One for boys, and one for girls, said Ware, who attended second and third grade there. On nice days they said the Pledge of Allegiance outdoors.

By his time, however, second grade had its own room, and third a separate room.

The historical society is seeking donations for its museum, and one of the first photos to go up on the wall is one of Butch. It is hanging by the window he once chewed through to try to get out, after he fell asleep and the teacher accidentally locked him in for a weekend, Bud Walker said.

“All that time he didn’t mess,” Walker said, adding he shot out the door when it was opened Monday morning for some much needed relief.

 “He was unbelievable,” Walker said. “The kindergarten kids would ride him. You could do anything to him, he was so gentle.”
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/bringing-new-life-to-former-school-in-mullica/article_4930502e-a1b7-11e4-a04a-bbb946ba188e.html

 

Voice of the people 1/30/15
Hilda Frame School Memories
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2015/01/voice-of-people-hilda-frame-school.html