One-room schoolhouse to get second life thanks to Mechanicsville woman

MECHANICSVILLE - Twelve-year-old Hunter Jones doesn't mind the big, old, empty building her mom brought into their backyard.

She's actually quite excited about it.

'I'm hoping to have picnics out here sometimes, and to camp out here with my friends,” she said. 'Eventually I'll be able to have the attic, so I can have friends over and we can hang out up there.”

The old building - an 1870s schoolhouse - is a new addition to the homestead Hunter shares with her mom, Vicki Eaton-Jones, in Mechanicsville.

'For years I've been looking for a one-room schoolhouse to bring to my property, but they aren't easy to find,” Eaton-Jones said. 'I had one ready to buy but the owner decided to keep it.”

It will be awhile before Hunter gets her wish of using the restored schoolhouse. Eaton-Jones has applied for three schoolhouse restoration grants for projects for each of the next three years. Her hope is to have it completely restored and ready to use in three years.

She estimates restoration will cost more than $30,000 - most of which she hopes is funded through grants.

'It does break my heart when people ask why it's not done yet,” Eaton-Jones said. 'I just don't have tens of thousands of dollars to do it all at once.”

What she does have, though, is a lot of friends who are willing to help.

'People in the area have been awesome,” Eaton-Jones said. 'Someone donated siding, which was an exact match. Someone donated a schoolhouse bell from Tipton, and we believe it may have originally been on this building. We've gotten a huge stained glass window, electrical boxes and wiring, and a real slate chalkboard that came from another one-room schoolhouse.”

Eaton-Jones is excited to get the project moving. Her interest was partly historical - she's always loved the one-room schoolhouses and wanted the chance to restore one herself - but also practical. Eaton-Jones owns an antiques and vintage gift shop, Melon's Primitive Patch and Antiques, and runs it out of the first floor of her home.

'It's in my living room, dining room and one of the bedrooms,” Eaton-Jones said. 'I love hosting events but I haven't been able to host anything for a long time, there's just no room.”

Her search for the schoolhouse started more than a year ago, when she went on a field trip with Hunter's class to the Historical Society in Tipton.

'Someone said someone had wanted to donate an old schoolhouse but the Historical Society didn't have the money to move it,” she recalled. 'Someone else had the woman's name, but we couldn't find her number anywhere.”

Several months went by and Eaton-Jones continued her search, posting queries around Cedar County, hoping to find something.

In January she got the call - or calls - she'd been waiting on. Someone had posted that they were giving away a one-room schoolhouse on a social media sales forum. The only caveat was that the new owner had to pay to move it.

Eaton-Jones looked up the posting - it was the same woman whose number no one could find.

Having power lines moved was going to cost thousands of dollars, so Luke Oberbreckling, of Luke Oberbreckling Construction, offered up another alternative.

'He suggested we cut the schoolhouse just below the windows and move it in two parts,” Eaton-Jones said. 'That lowered the load and made it so we didn't have to move any power lines.”

On February 15, the schoolhouse was placed on her property, and the two pieces had been put back together.

'I can't wait for it to be done, it's going to be beautiful,” Eaton-Jones said. 'And it'll be nice to have my house back.”