“When we moved in 50-odd years after the last students had walked out, the animal shit was three feet deep. It was fortunate for all of us that the temperatures were freezing because otherwise the stench probably would have been unbearable. As it was, things got pretty steamy in that little room when we fired up the potbelly Franklin Stove so we wouldn’t freeze and started shoveling…

“Now, I might sound like I’m complaining about the old schoolhouse, but the truth was that in some ways, it was a real step forward for my mom and stepdad to own that property. Truth be told, it was also a hugely formative experience for me. I certainly would not have been able to achieve the things I have accomplished in my life if I did not have that old schoolhouse looming in my background. My point is just that when people look back at one-room-schoolhouse days through the haze of memory – especially if they didn’t actually live in the schoolhouse – it takes on a nostalgic glow that does not actually quite cover the real experience.

For us, that one-room schoolhouse was home, but it took a lot of work to make it livable. As the oldest and a boy, I was out there with my stepdad to make the place safe for my mother, the younger kids, and the babies. Each outing would start with us starting a fire in the Franklin Stove and cutting some wood to keep that fire going since it was still extremely cold. Northern Michigan in March is nothing to take lightly. The year we moved into the schoolhouse we got nearly two feet of snow in March alone. Working on that building with my stepdad, I was in and out of the cold, wet, white stuff all day trying to get the debris and dung far enough away from the house that it wouldn’t come back to haunt us when things thawed…

We lived near the Pigeon River and also had a well although no running water, and in the summer we would go down to the Pigeon in the evenings and take our baths there. In the winter, of course, you boiled water on the stove and took a sponge bath. I remember cutting wood, melting snow when we needed water, and wondering if I would have to help shovel the school bus out of a snowbank on the way to school. And that was how life was for me in the old Beebe Schoolhouse when we finally moved in.“

From Chapter 3, “Moving On”