The Gazette – Thursday, March 12, 1981 – Ville Platte, La.
Back before there were public schools everywhere people had to get together in communities, furnish all the materials, do the work themselves, and build a building to be used as a school and In some cases as their house of worship, too The area was not too thickly populated, It seems people built their houses In groups, and if there was a school it could be as far away as five miles or more, too far for the children to walk although many did walk this far to attend school.
All of this was considered the Chicot area but this particular school was built in the northern part way past the old Jack Walker homesite, on the road through the hills to Cocodrie Bayou.
The distance from one settlement to another was the reason “Cheney Old Field” school came into being. It was probably built about 1885-1888, no one knows for sure the exact date. The building had no glass windows, only wood shutters. A dirt chimney was the only source of heat, and the teacher and pupils fared very well if the parents took a load of wood for them to burn. If none was brought the boys and girls had to pick up limbs out in the woods for the fireplace.
It seems some years before this school house was built a family by the name of Cheney had Iived here, and when they moved away the opening in the woods that had been cleared for farming was called an “old field” so the school became known as “Cheney Old Field” school. Some claim it was for this family that Cheneyville got its name.
Some believe that my grandfather Hoison THOMPSON was the first teaoher here as his grandchildren Leslie and Percy THOMPSON, Myra, Bruce and LilIie THOMPSON walked to his home wnere they joined Ralph. his youngest son, and Grandpa, and walked along with him through the woods to school. Other relatives’ children went along. too. as Isaac and Dolly GRIFFITH and I’m sure there were others. It was five miles from my brothers’ home to Cneney Old Field school. That made a round trip ten miles each day, much too far for children to have to walk
We can not put the teachers In order but we do know Miss Katie Grifiitn taught here in 1895. 1 talked to Mrs. Eva Whittington JENKINS some years before her death and she told me that Miss Katie was her first teacner. She and Mrs. Irene Walker FOREMAN 4 said they remember going to schooi with Vince. Alien. Saliie. Amelia and Corbett LEYSER (their father was a tanner), Eva SINGLETON, Robert, Frances, Irene and Ola WALKER 4, Melvin, Eva, and Jack WHITTINGTON, Lizzie, Ola and Marvin FERGUSON. Edmonia, Jeiffie, Nelie and Emma JOHNSON, Tarnnie, Bud, Martha, Geore, and Mae FOREMAN, Audrey, Trudy, Lee, Murray, Ed THOMAS, Fred, Charlie, Sam and Dick WIGGINS, Sallie, Adrienne and Charlie WOLFF, Mattie, Currie an Ova Wall, Cammie, Susie, and Henry ERLICH, Sam, Henry, and Janie FORMAN. There could have been others we did not find out about
Henry FRIFFITH, deceased, told me some years before his death that when Katie FRIFFITH., his sister, was to teach at Cheney Old Field school she was on her way to see Mr. and Mrs. Jack WALKER 1 to see if she could get room and board at their home as it was the closest to the school, and she had an accident. She was driving a small horse to a gig and some way the horse pulled the gig up on a stump, this caused the gig to turn over and threw Mtss Katte out onto the ground but one of her feet got caught in the slats at the bottum Of the gig, she was scared to death the little horse would get frightened and run away. She kept talking to him and he stood still. She caIled for help and finally Allice BENHARD heard her and sent her husband Ed to her rescue. He unhitcned the norse, then pried her foot out, and then they got the gig upright, and the horse hitched to the gig again. Miss Katie went back borne where she was laid up for more than a week with a biack and blue ankle, one that she couid put no weight on. She was very thankful it was no worse for if the horse had run she would have been killed.
After Miss Katie, Miss Lillian [Rink] THOMAS taught here. Then Mrs. Rose Tatman HELMER 2 taught here when she was nineteen yeas old in 1896-1897. She gave me the names of the pupils she taught or afl sne could remember and tfley were Grace LAWSON 3, Homer and Georgie WHATLEY 5, Mary, Ola. anc Lizzie FERGUSON, Jack and William CAUSEY, Irene, Frances, Robert, Oia and Andrew WALKER 4, Amelia and Sallie LEYSER. All the desks were homemade they had no chalkboards, no outdoor toilets, and their drinking water came from either the pond or nearby gully.
Joshua SPEIGHTS, who had come here from Texas and rnarried Ulah SCOTT, was at one time the teacher here at Cheney Old Field school.
Others teaching here were Miss Pearl NOLAN, 1910-1911. Alonzo PLUMMER, Annie Mae HAWKINS, Maude TATMAN, and Grace LAWSON. The pupils told a tale on Will WHATLEY 6 when be went here and said he had rigged up some type knocker that he put up on top of the school house and had a iong string corning down by his desk in the corner of the room. When he pulled the string it sounded just like a woodpecker pecking away on the roof. When the teacher sent some one out to see what it was there was no noise for Will did not pull tne string. It took the teacher s long ttme to find out the mystery.
We have heard these folks attended here at some time the school was being taught. Joe HAWKINS, William R. WALKER 4, Emma and Leify NASH, Johnny NELSON, Banks TATMAN, Lorena, Frances, Sam, and Bessie WHATLEY 8, Sarah and Gordon WHATLEY 7, Joe, Martin, Evie, Charlie. Marshall and Vallie Ferguson, Blanche, Betty, Hardy, Murray, Aldridge and Albert CAUSEY, Walter, Charlie, Garnett and Beulah MURPHY, Billie WALKER 4, Wallace WHATLEY 9, Billie MITCHELL, Carrie and Sunshine YOUNG 10, Jeffie, Jay and Edna FONTENOT, Howard, Murray, Evelton, Stafford, Frank, Luckett, Lloyd JOHNSON, Frances, Gasperecz, and Philip JOHNSON, Mamie, Jensie and George FOREMAN. Others have been mentioned previously and there could have been many more.
I believe Miss Grace LAWSON was the last teacher to teach here. On days that it was unusually hot she would take her students out under the trees where they could get some air, and carry on classes. She was always afraid the superintendent would visit the school but in this last year she taught here Evangeline had iust been made a parish, so the schools were not visited very much. Her fears were unnecessary.
I think I’m lucky to have found out as much about this school that I did. If you know of any student who went here and I left them out I’m sorry.
When the new three room school was built in Chicot in 1912 all pupils went there. Miss LAWSON brought all her pupils and taught the lower grades in the new school.
Correction: On last week’s School story and picture I said there was only one on the picture still living. Mrs. Massie WHITTINGTON Deville is still very much alive. Sorry about that Miss Massie!
ONE OF THE LAST GROUPS OF STUDENTS AT THE “CHENEY OLD FIELD SCHOOL is shown in this picture. (Click here to see photo) They are (left to right) first row: Edna FONTENOT, Wallace WHATLEY, Betty CAUSEY?, Sarah WHATLEY, Grace MURPHY, Jay FONTENOT, Miss Grace LAWSON, teacher, Joe FERGUSON, Bessie WHATLEY, (second row), Charlie MURPHY, Walter MURPHY, Ola WHITTINGTON, Sam WHATLEY. Marshall FERGUSON, (third row) Billie WALKER, Jeffie Walker FONTENOT, Harbert WHITTINGTON, Garnet MURPHY, Hardie CAUSEY and Murray CAUSEY.
NOTE from Bryant WALKER, transcriber: Many of the people in these articles are part of my ancestral family and I have added highlighted numbers to click on for my family names for references. I believe there was an error in the printing concerning Jeffie Walker Fontenot in the above photo group. Jeffie Walker was Thomas Jefferson Walker, my paternal great uncle and he is standing next to his brother, Billie Walker. I also want to note that Miss Mabel Thompson was my first teacher in the first grade at the Bayou Chicot school in 1948. I walked to school from the "Old Hawkins Place" where we rented part of the mansion along with Joe and Jane Foreman. Joe Foreman and my father Van W. Walker were carpenters and built the first Masonic Hall in Bayou Chicot.
