It felt freezing, below zero. Henry Wilgus and his two kids May, eight and
Bill, seven arrived at the little one-room school at nine AM. The school was across the street from the
High Woods Reformed Church. The building
still stands there today. Henry arrived
to find there was no fire in the stove.
Other little children were huddled together in the cold. It would be some time before the room could
heat up enough for lessons to begin.
Starting a wood fire can be a dusty
business, so the windows stood open while the teacher and an older student
tended to the fire. This was the moment that galvanized Henry’s resolve to make
rural education better for his and all the children in the community. It was 1924, and Henry had been living in
High Woods for five years. He was twenty-nine.
He was the owner of a small store and gas station and was
in the process of adding a restaurant area with a dance floor. His house had indoor plumbing, and was properly wired even though electricity was
not immediately available in High Woods..
Henry loved the country, but he had urban ideas about plumbing and a
definite vision of sound education for his children. This made him a city slicker, an outsider
whose ideas were not worth “a row of pins.”
He bristled at being labeled an outsider. He said his family had been in America for
three hundred years on his father’s side and ninety years on his mother’s side,
so he was not an outsider to American ideas.
Those who did not stand for good education were the outsiders in his
mind.
During his long struggle to improve
education in the area, he wrote many letters and was often quoted in the
paper. His own words tell the story.
My own education was
limited by the death of my father, leaving six children for our mother to raise. This is why I have taken an interest in
school matters and no one can alter my determination to do all I can for the
children.
He made up for his
abbreviated formal education by being an avid reader. He also studied mechanical drawing on his own
and became certified as a mechanic. He
had the talent of quick scrutiny, so it was not a challenge for him to conclude
that rural kids were being shortchanged by having to study in an unsuitable
building.
Thus began his effort to
build a new school in High Woods. The
new building would enhance and improve the community, and keep the local school
from being swallowed up by the oncoming movement towards consolidation. There was a chance that other bordering small
communities such as Veteran and Daisy might join them to keep the elementary
school close to the vicinity.
The fact that the children
are required to attend school…requires that we should provide the agencies
essential to the development of healthy, vigorous bodies, refined cultivated
minds, good habits and morals. Examine
our school library. There hasn’t been
any money spent on library books in a good many years.
I wonder how far back one
would have to go to find a high school graduate who received their schooling in
this building. (June 28, 1927)
Henry lost this battle when
the vote tallied 22 for the new building, 29 against. However, He was not
done. Next, he began and, this time, won
the battle for bus transportation for High Woods kids to attend high school. Prior to this, few if any were able to go
because their families were responsible for transporting them. For some, a high school education meant
living in a boarding house during the week, an expense not many country
families could afford. Because of his
success, neighboring communities such as Blue Mountain, asked him for help in
securing bus transportation to Saugerties High School for their children.
There may be setbacks, but
the American boy or girl raised in the rural sections is not going to be
deprived of an opportunity of going to high school. For a high school education is essential
today, and is readily provided for the village and city child.
We have a hard
battle. Economy is the sign of the
times. Perhaps they will even try to do
away with fire engines because there are no fires to put out, just as some
folks don’t think it is necessary to educate children because there are no jobs
for them. (April 10, 1933)
At
one point, Henry received a threatening anonymous letter, and one signed rant
from the Board of the Blue Mountain School insisting that he take back his
statements, or there would be dire unspecified consequences. This letter appeared in the paper to support
Henry. Its author is unknown because,
oddly enough, the paper allowed it to be signed “anonymous”.
Anyone who knows Henry
Wilgus is dead sure that no insinuation about lawsuits will frighten him. He is an old fashioned battler in rural
school matters, and he takes nothing from anyone, and those who think they can
scare him have barked up the wrong tree.
Unknown, unknown, Shirley Van Bramer and May Wilgus, Unknown
Unknown, unknown, Shirley Van Bramer and May Wilgus, Unknown
May Wilgus age 90 in front of the old High Woods School with her grandson Michael Stern