Greenvine Schools

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can pass it along. Now, public education has to start somewhere, and in the rural community of Greenvine, it started in 1880. That's when the Greenvine School was established near this very site.

Picture it: a community made up predominantly of German-descended families, Lutheran and Baptist in faith, and so it made sense that those first classes were taught in German, right there in the Emmanuel Lutheran Church parsonage. Not a schoolhouse. A parsonage.

You work with what you've got. Over time, the classes moved. First to a site near the Greenvine Baptist Church Cemetery, and then, finally, to a building standing just seventy feet south of where you are right now.

Seventy feet. You could throw a hat and just about reach it. Now, while all of that was unfolding for one part of the community, another school was taking shape a mile and three-quarters to the southeast.

In 1895, the Waller Chapel School was established to serve the local African American children of Greenvine. Classes were held in a wood-frame building that did double duty, serving also as a house of worship for the Waller Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation. One building carrying two kinds of faith: faith in God and faith that an education was worth the effort of showing up.

Both schools kept their doors open, kept their communities rooted, for decades. Then came 1949. The schools in Greenvine, Latium, and Burton were consolidated, and just like that, the Greenvine schools closed.

Local students began attending Burton Rural High School, which offered twelve grades of instruction. And here's a detail worth holding onto: the last Greenvine schoolhouse wasn't torn down. It was relocated, picked up and carried to the new school site, as if the building itself refused to stop bein' useful.

The Waller Chapel Schoolhouse kept going too, continuing to serve the congregation for church services all the way until 1965. Two schools, two communities, one shared conviction that learning and worship are worth protecting, even when the world around them keeps on changing.

What the marker says

Public education in the rural community of Greenvine began in 1880, when the Greenvine School was established near this site. The students, predominantly German in descent and Lutheran and Baptist in faith, began attending classes taught in German at the Emmanuel Lutheran Church parsonage. Classes later were relocated to a site near the Greenvine Baptist Church Cemetery and finally to a building 70 feet south of this site. A school for local African American children known as the Waller Chapel School (1.75 mi. SE) was established in 1895. Classes were held in a wood-frame building that also served as a house of worship for the Waller Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church congregation. In 1949, after schools in the Greenvine, Latium, and Burton communities were consolidated, the Greenvine schools closed. Local students began attending the Burton Rural High School, which offered 12 grades of instruction. The last Greenvine schoolhouse was relocated to the new school site. The Waller Chapel Schoolhouse continued to be used for church services until 1965. (1992)