The Marietta Elementary School some years ago still had its important bell and ground tower which brought the community together. The building continued as a community center.
Marietta still has its school bell in a prominent location on school grounds. In former times, when a death occurred in the community, the bell was rung to let everyone know.
The Marietta Elementary School auditorium was a well appreciated room. Several years ago, this picture shows a Marietta resident enjoying a moment of remembrance. The angel-like paintings were not part of the original decor.They are covering what used to
WHERE IS IT?
WHERE
The Where Is it? mystery is changed from time to time. The mystery picture is still presented, but the answer is given in the same paper.
A week’s delay in finding the answer takes too long. So, here is this week’s “Where Is It?” mystery. Notice there are three pictures, too, of the mysterious school.
Where is this school that’s pictured as it was several years ago? It still has one of the best bells in the county. The building, too, is still being used even after its closing in the fall of 2008.
On the ground outside by the entry way, the huge bell is hung in a ground level bell tower made of brick. It is well-remembered and appreciated by the citizens.
The Marietta Independent School District closed and consolidated in the fall of 2008.
In one way, the school closed because it was too wealthy.
“With an annual tax income of some $165,000 but only 19 students enrolled for the fall, that would have made us a Chapter 41, or wealthy school district, when considering tax amount per child,” then Marietta school business manager Audrey Knight explained.
The Marietta school grades were pre-K through sixth grade. With 19 anticipated students for the fall, plans were being made to have two to three grades in a single class.
Marietta School Board voted to consolidate with the Paul Pewitt Consolidated Independent School District (PCISD). The Pewitt board voted the same action.
The Marietta school had been organized in 1880 and would have been 128 years old that fall of 2007 when the district had its first ever reunion of former students.
“The facility was very well kept and appreciated,“ said one Marietta resident at the time. “We’re hopeful the community will be able to keep it. There’s a lot of sadness now, but we are hopeful something will be done.”
The school, while pleasant looking enough on the outside, was almost beautiful recently, one might say, on the inside. It is so especially because custodian Beatrice Addy kept the reddish-brown floors so highly polished.
Such deeply dark floors would show every speck of sand from the playgrounds. But the students helped Addy. They knew she swept and polished every corner, every moment. They even knew that when the floors were to be polished or re-stained, Addy would do them herself, on a weekend of her time.
There is also a humorous story that goes along with the bell and school. It’s about the day the bell rang mysteriously. During a recent school reunion, the story was told again.
It seems there was a student named Hugh Floyd who had gone to sleep during an afternoon class. Floyd was the school’s official bell-ringer. Very dutiful.
When the teacher called upon Floyd to answer a question, it awakened and startled him from a dreamy sleep. He jumped up and ran out of the room.
“School’s out. Time to play,” Floyd must have thought because he ran to the nearby bell and started ringing it. The whole school got out early.
At school reunions through the years, Floyd had a chance to tell what he’d been thinking, But he never came. He missed out on his last chance to explain things, and on a lot of fun.
Maybe sometime at a school reunion someone can ring that bell again. In Floyd’s honor and they can all go home early.