Final classes of one-room Sunnyside School reflect during the historic restoration process

BEMIDJI -- Brit-turned-Minnesotan Chris Mole spent a good portion of his career in painting and restoration fixing up ornate 14th and 15th-century castles in England. When he was asked to help restore a historic school in Beltrami County, where he now lives, he jumped at the chance to get back into an old building.

Though when he found out its age -- 116 years -- he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“That’s cute,” he said, referring to the age of buildings in America compared to buildings in the United Kingdom.

Mole and his team at Mr. Mole’s Painting of Bagley were selected to restore the Sunnyside School, a one-room schoolhouse that originally stood in Frohn Township until it was moved to its new home at the Beltrami County Fairgrounds. The building was active as a school from 1906 to 1963 and by 2021, was in dire need of exterior paint repairs.

“If walls could talk, huh?” Mole said, stepping into the school building. “I love this stuff. I used to restore old 14th and 15th-century castles back in England with the old gilded ceilings. I'm really passionate about historic restoration. I love this. I am enjoying it a lot. I know how much it means to the community to do a great job and I'm glad I got the opportunity.”

Sunnyside School has played a significant role in the lives of hundreds of students who attended over the years, despite its relative youth compared to England.

Members of the final classes of the one-room schoolhouse passed through the building’s threshold once again on Monday, June 21.

All in attendance were at least second-generation Sunnyside students.

Walking into Sunnyside School, looking at the rows of desks, you can almost hear the chattering of young people coming in, taking off their coats, and grabbing their books as the teacher writes notes on the chalkboard. Alumni poured out stories and happy memories as they meandered through the school.

Perhaps your grandparents used to tell you tales of walking uphill both ways to school in the snow.

For Tomy Hegland, who graduated from Sunnyside as an eighth-grader in 1960, he not only walked up to school both ways in the snow, but his lunch would freeze solid on the way there.

“I'd walk to school the two and two-tenths miles and by the time I got here, my sandwiches were frozen. The only heat we had was the woodstove over here, with a shelf on top and we'd put our sandwiches on top of there and they were thawed out by lunchtime,” he said with a big laugh.

Hegland moved his way around the room, sitting in the different desks, the smallest on the right for the first graders, and the largest on the left for eighth-graders.

Donna Kimmes was part of the last graduating Sunnyside class in 1963. “They shut the door when I walked out,” she said.

The returning alums all spoke about the harrowing transition from the small comforting building to the Bemidji High School. All four went from a one-room schoolhouse with only 14-20 students in total in any given year and around three per grade level from first grade through eighth grade, to a class of hundreds.

“We went from a class of three to a class of three hundred,” alumna Sue Wells said. “It was traumatic.”

“(I was) scared to death. Went from three of us to 275, and I only knew one other kid,” Hegland added. “I was scared. I begged my parents to quit.”

They described the big changes, like using combination lockers and going to gym class.

Alumni laughed and swapped memories of kind but stern Sunnyside teachers.

“We were the janitors,” Wells said. "The teacher assigned duties of what we had to do for the week. Some were assigned to put up the flag, pump the water -- that was always the older boys’ job."

“One time we had a fire drill and we went out that door there and I grabbed my apple off the desk and I really got chewed out for it,” Kimmes said.

“I think I was in the eighth grade, and (the teacher said) ‘There is no leaving school to go hunting,'” Hegland recalled. “My dad gave me permission. When I came back the next day, I had to write 100 times, 'I will not skip school to go hunting or fishing anymore.'”

Former students shared not only mischief but also feelings of closeness and community. The women recalled teaching the younger students, helping them with subjects they didn't understand while the teacher tended to other students.

“I think that was a good thing,” Wells said. “We're going full circle. They wanted to close all the little country schools, which they pretty much managed to do. And now it's back with charter schools, homeschooling with a co-op, it's back to small schools again.”

“It was amazing how one teacher could teach all eight grades, and all subjects,” she added. “And we were still able to compete when we went to the high school.”

“ I would help some of the younger kids with their reading or their math,” Kimmes agreed. “To this day, I see this one young man who said to me, ‘If it wouldn't have been for you, I don't think I would’ve made it through school.’”

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Students who were struggling weren't targeted, and the group as a community helped them learn the subjects at hand, alumni said.

This was something that intrigued Mole.

“This (sentiment) is why I'm here,” he said. “The younger generation learning from the older. I feel like I'm doing that with my company, too. I've got guys that have been in the paint industry for three, four years and the new apprentice guys and they're shadowing the guys who have more experience. I'm passionate about this stuff and I'm really fortunate that I can relay my passion to other guys, to other craftspeople.”

As of Monday, crews had been working on the building for a week.

“You've got to really be delicate with it,” Mole said. “A lot of these boards -- they've gotten a lot of use. We've just got to take it bit by bit. You just can't go in there and pressure wash it like I do normal homes here around Bemidji.”

Mole said he and his crews are stripping the building of about 70 coats of paint down to the bare wood, covering imperfections with caulk, sealing it, and then repainting the building so it looks like it did when it was built.

In working on projects like this, Mole said he finds true happiness.

“We find satisfaction and adaptation in the ever-changing nature of our work,” he said. “The movements of our bodies create value for our clients, provide food for our families. It means we eat lunch under the shade tree on our job site.

“Maybe true happiness is using the muscles of both the brain and your body to solve problems and create things. Something we come upon all at once, it seeps in little by little until one day, you become aware of it, you stop what you're doing, put down your tools, you look around and say to yourself, I think I'm happy.”

Mole said he hopes one day to open a trade school in the area, to pass along his passion to others.

Sunnyside School was originally located in Frohn Township on Sunnyside Road.

When the school bell rang its final toll, sometime in the 1960s, it moved to the fairgrounds, which were then located near where Target is today.

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The school moved locations when the fairgrounds did in the 1990s, and later that decade, alumni painted the interior and restored the floors.

Alumni said they appreciated the care Mole is putting into the restoration, and that the building is at the fairgrounds for visitors to see.

“(Alumni) decided to redo the school so that we could open it up so people coming to the Beltrami County Fair could see what it was like going to school in a one-room school with all eight grades and only one teacher,” Kimmes said. “I'm just really glad that out of all these one-room schools, this one was saved and has been made a part of the Beltrami County Fair.”

“I think it is really great,” Wells added. “I still live in the same neighborhood the school was moved from. My grandfather donated the land that the school was on. I think it's wonderful that the school is out here. There's very few, in fact, I can't think of any actual one-room schools in Beltrami County that were saved for people to look at.”

The project is set to wrap up in a couple of weeks, so the Sunnyside School will be ready to greet visitors at the Beltrami County Fair in August.