Site of Grady School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out here in Ellis County, there's a story that started small, just a handful of children on pioneer land, and grew into something a whole community called its own. It goes back to 1895, when a school was first established to serve the children of the Farrar family.

Pioneer country, Red Oak Creek running through the land, and somebody had the good sense to put a schoolhouse up on a hill overlooking the north bank of that creek. High ground. Good view.

You can almost picture it. Now, that first building stood its post for a good while, but by 1919 a second building went up; this time on the south side of the creek. Schools have a way of movin' with the people they serve.

But here's the detail that gives this place its name, and it's a fine one. Mrs. Simon Bowden Farrar, a woman connected to that same Farrar family the school was first built for, she named the school for Henry W.

Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. Not a Texas name, not a local name, but somebody thought enough of the man to put his name on a schoolhouse in Ellis County, and so Grady School it was. It grew from a family school into a community rural school, drawing in children from all across the area.

And it kept at it, kept those doors open, kept those students learning, right on through until the late 1920s. Then it closed. The students moved on to schools in nearby communities, carrying with them whatever a little creek-side schoolhouse had given them.

The hill's still there. Red Oak Creek still runs. But the school, Grady School, lives now only in the marker and the memory.

What the marker says

Originally established in 1895 to serve children on the pioneer Farrar family, Grady school eventually grew into a community rural school. The first school building, located on a hill overlooking the north bank of Red Oak Creek, was replaced in 1919 by a second building on the south side of the creek. Mrs. Simon Bowden Farrar named the school for Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. The Grady School continued to serve students in this area until the late 1920s. After it closed the students transferred to school in nearby communities.