DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, straight from Kimble County soil. Three brothers rode into Kimble County in 1883: Sam, Jack, and Bob Ivy, and the land out here took their name and held onto it. That's the kind of thing that happens when a family puts down roots deep enough.
Now, the one you'll hear the most about in what follows is S. H. Ivy, and he was a man who apparently believed that a community without a school and a place to gather wasn't much of a community at all.
In 1898, he deeded two acres of land for a school site, and a structure went up nearby. Folks had a place to learn. That was a start.
But S. H. Ivy wasn't finished.
Come 1917, he donated another tract of land, and that same year a new schoolhouse was built on it. Now here's where it gets interesting; that building didn't just teach arithmetic. It doubled as a chapel, with preachers riding in to hold services once or twice a month.
It was a voting place when election time rolled around. It was the site of box suppers and social gatherings, the kind of evenings that hold a rural community together through long stretches of hard and quiet. One building doing the work of a whole town square.
In 1939, Ivy School was consolidated with the nearby London School, and that chapter closed. But the chapel (well, the chapel kept right on). The schoolroom went quiet, the children went down the road, and the building just kept serving the area, same as it always had.
Some things in Texas outlast every plan made for them.
What the marker says
THE IVY COMMUNITY WAS NAMED FOR SAM, JACK AND BOB IVY, BROTHERS WHO MOVED TO KIMBLE COUNTY IN 1883. S. H. IVY DEEDED TWO ACRES OF LAND IN 1898 FOR A SCHOOL SITE AND A STRUCTURE WAS BUILT NEARBY. IN 1917 IVY DONATED ANOTHER TRACT OF LAND, AND A SCHOOLHOUSE WAS BUILT THAT YEAR. THE BUILDING ALSO SERVED AS A COMMUNITY CHAPEL AND PREACHERS HELD SERVICES ONCE OR TWICE A MONTH. THE BUILDING WAS THE SITE OF SOCIAL GATHERINGS, SUCH AS BOX SUPPERS, AND WAS USED AS A VOTING PLACE. ALTHOUGH IVY SCHOOL WAS CONSOLIDATED WITH NEARBY LONDON SCHOOL IN 1939, THE CHAPEL CONTINUES TO SERVE THE AREA. (1996)