History: White School, Hixon Township
Contact: Helen Vater Blaha
Email: feasantman@pcpros.net

----Sources: Transcribed from a 21-page booklet entitled MEMORY TRAILS, printed and bound by John Isaacs Printing, Withee, WI. Mrs. Vieno (Nieminen) Keskimaki collected and edited the articles, 1962. No copyright indicated. On the contents page thanks are given to the Owen-Withee PTA; Page 2:

WHITE SCHOOL by Arno Vater

The first school was held in what is the wood shed of the White School. This was a term of three months in the summer of 1901 or 1902. The teacher was Lynn Joseph. The following the present school was built. The lumber was sawed and furnished by Robert Vater who lived one-half mile west of the school. This lumber had to be hauled a distance of 8 miles because the road west of the school was made impassable by a creek. The lumber was hauled south along a logging road to the Murray (Andrew Miller farm) farm then on through Frenchtown to Withee and north four miles to the building site. The cost of the school was $1,000.00.

Arno Vater and John Hemminger were pupils in the new White School and are residents of the district at the present time.

The school consolidated with the Owen-Withee district in 1960. The lower grades are still taught there.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Vater are 92 years of age and celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary on November 11, 1961.

The Chas. Andersons, whose home was directly across from the White School, moved there as newlyweds in 1905. He had come at the age of 18 (in 1893) with his parents from Racine. Mrs. Anderson came from Iowa. Mr. Anderson helped build 3 miles of County Trunk T south of the Taylor Co. line. Mr. Anderson is 87 and his wife 81. They presently make their home in Withee. Some early White School teachers were Alice Fisher, Mayme Hemminger, Edward Jerry, and Ida Funk.

(Transcriber's note: White School is shown in Section 11 of the 1920 plat map of Hixon Township on the southeast corner of the intersection of T and what is now Hickory Road.)