| A History of STRUM and the TOWN OF UNITY by Roy Matson |
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| find reference to it in 1874 as being an “old, unpainted, frame structure”, undoubtedly erected some years earlier. This description told of the one room having a stove in the center and long benches without backs furnished seating for the pupils. A further mention is made at early meetings of the purchase of tamarack timber cut in 2 foot lengths for heating. Early minutes show that John Klungseth was elected clerk at the August 31, 1874 meeting. $350, a high sum for those days, was raised for conducting two school terms, one of three months and one of two months. $300 was raised the next year with two 3-month terms approved. Teacher’s pay seemed to be either $25 or $30 per month. A 7-month school year was voted the next year with a reduction in the tax to $100. There was probably too much money in the treasurery. A male teacher was requested for the first term, a female for the spring term. It seems as though the bigger boys were busy with farm work in the spring. There was also some trouble. At a special meeting in May, 1878, the teacher was dismissed and a vote to hold no school carried 13 to 5. The district always had an ample treasury. In 1886 the annual meeting authorized the board to build a new brick building and permitted the borrowing of $500 at 7%, repayable in five installments. Teachers seemed to have slightly better pay in this district but a few unruly pupils must have attended as repeated statements about hiring male teachers or strangers to the district appear several times. The board was conservative in some manners also. A move to build a belfry appears during the latter 1890’s, no more than $5.00 would be paid. No bids were received and a later entry shows $8.00 was expended. In 1903 Bertha Dahl, daughter of Lars Dahl, a board member, was hired as teacher because her certificate was the best of all candidates. A 1906 meeting notes that board member Ole Halverson did not attend because he was busy harvesting grain, but “he would consider any agreement made.” Clerks’ entries are not in chronological order and thus difficult to trace. Annual meetings are referred to as “last meetings” and a district gathering on July 19, 1945 bears this designation. $1150 was raised to conduct school for the coming term, however, and we find several teachers taught after that time. A 75th anniversary observation was held in 1961 with Alice Engan listed as teacher. Johnson Valley District #4. Town authorities ordered the organization of a school when an area seemed to have enough settlers to warrant a tax to support a teacher and enough pupils to keep one busy. Esten Johnson Dahl had lived in section 29 nearly two years when we find a notice served on him by W. W. Thomas and N. F. Carter, supervisors of Sumner, ordering circulation of a notice for a school organization meeting to be held at his home on September 26, 1870. The notice was to be read to every qualified voter of the potential district. We find that Esten appointed Sam Hogue to serve this notice which he did on September 20th. The settlers in the area were predominantly Norwegians but by that date their written intention of applying for land entitled them to vote. The first meeting was held as scheduled at 1:00P.M. on the 26th. Sam found himself elected chairman of the gathering and wound up as clerk of the district. Oley Johnson was elected director and Dahl treasurer. It was voted to hold 5 months of school and a $60.00 tax was levied on the district. A conversation many years later with Gilbert Dahl, son of Esten, cast additional light on the happening. He remembered the 5 months of school were divided into two terms, that classes were held at their home that first year, and that children from the west valley of the district arrived by a road that split section 29 leading from the so-called “bluff” road to the valley road that bordered the east side of the Johnson land and extended north along the east rim of the valley to where the cemetery was established in 1877. He recalled also, and the records verify this, that a school building was erected in time for the next fall term and the location was on the west side of the creek and a few hundred feet south of the hill road. It was a very small |