School began in 1845; third version now Town Hall
Sussex Sun,
The Town of Lisbon came to be in October 1842 when the first pioneers staged an organizational meeting in a schoolhouse on Lisbon Road where the Halquist Stone Co. office is today .
The community quickly turned from its founding to the building of a series of rural one-room schoolhouses, including Lisbon No. 7 School in 1845. The log cabin school, later covered with clapboard siding, was on the north side of North Lisbon Road, tucked between the Brown and Jeffery farms a quarter-mile east of Woodside Road. Today it would be just west of the Wooded Ridge Preserve subdivision.
The school’s first commissioners were Timothy Palmer, Richard Cooling and L. Rupile, who also served as the commission’s clerk.
The big noontime attraction was a back-lot pond some distance from the school. The school kids would trek to that frozen pond in winter and slide on the slippery surface.
The schoolteacher, Albert Griswald, rang the end-of-recess bell early so the children had time to trudge back to the log cabin for the afternoon session. The one time they returned late after his bell-ringing, he met them at the door and bodily threw them into the school into a big heap. The kids learned the lesson, and it didn’t happen again.
Griswald earned $180 in 1867 for teaching 42 students for four months. Mattie Black taught the summer term for $80.
The new North Lisbon School was built in 1887-88 a half-mile west at about N88 W23767 North Lisbon Road for $1,085, including the land purchase. The school would have to wait until 1889, however, before it bought its first flag.
The old log cabin school was sold to a nearby farmer who used it for many years as a woodshed, with the blackboards still on the walls. It eventually fell over and disappeared completely.
Long-serving officials of North Lisbon School included John Connell, clerk, 12 years; John Watson, treasurer, 17 years; and William D. McGill, treasurer, 45 years. McGill also served several terms as Lisbon town chairman and in 1911 helped start Sussex State Bank, the village’s first bank, which evolved into the Farmers & Merchants Bank and today Associated Bank.
The school bought a new teacher desk and chair in 1925 and a hectograph (copier) in 1926 for the teachers. It added a basement in 1927 and a merry-go-round, swings and a teeter-totter in 1929. The school got electricity in 1930 and built a new well in 1931. By 1947, the teacher’s salary had risen to $250 a month.
The second North Lisbon School was abandoned in 1958, and a third red-brick school was built on Woodside Road a quarter-mile south of North Lisbon Road – that time with indoor plumbing. It graduated its first class in 1959 and its last in 1963, when the Hamilton School District took over. It closed off upper-room classes after 1963 and the school altogether in 1969.
The district reopened the school a few times later on for overflow classes from Willow Spring School, until it sold the building to the Town of Lisbon in 1975.
Lisbon Town Board and Hamilton School Board member Don Holt remodeled the former school into today’s Lisbon Town Hall. The adjacent land has become Lisbon Town Hall Park, with a pavilion, playground equipment, a soccer field and a little-league diamond.
An all-school reunion was staged in June, including the entire 1960 graduating class: Sharon Rolfs, Jon DeCaluwe and Sandra Schroeder.
North Lisbon alumni share memories; 40-plus grads hold summer solstice all-class reunion
The first day of summer, June 21, brought another annual North Lisbon School all-class reunion at the old schoolhouse (now Lisbon Town Hall).
JUST THREE - The entire eighth-grade North Lisbon School graduating class of 1960 - Sharon (Rolfs) Taylor (left), Jon DeCaluwe and Sandra (Schroeder) Kietorkus - meet with about 40 other alumni for an all-class school reunion June 21 at the old two-room schoolhouse (now Lisbon Town Hall). The school's history dates back to 1845, when it opened in a log cabin as Lisbon School No. 7. The Hamilton School District took it over after the 1962-63 school year and closed it down in 1975.
The first day of summer, June 21, brought another annual North Lisbon School all-class reunion at the old schoolhouse (now Lisbon Town Hall).
The 40-plus eighth-grade graduates shared and celebrated memories from 1958 to 1963, the last year the school taught all eight grades in its two rooms.
North Lisbon School began in a log cabin structure in 1845 as Lisbon School No. 7. A new one-room version was built in 1887-88 a half-mile west on North Lisbon Road. That school served until 1958, when the modern North Lisbon School was built on Woodside Road.
Two teachers initially taught all eight grades, first through fourth grades in one room and fifth through eighth grades in the other. All told, 48 students attended the two classrooms in 1960.
One significant recollection the students at the reunion shared was that when they transferred from the old one-room North Lisbon schoolhouse (today a residence at N88 W23767 North Lisbon Road), the new school had his and her indoor bathrooms, a welcome improvement over the outhouses at the old school.
The new school had a short history after it was built in 1958. The Hamilton School District took it over almost immediately, and the school stopped teaching eighth grade after it graduated its last eighth-graders in spring 1963.
The school closed in 1969, though it was revived for a few years for overflow from Willow Spring Learning Center until it was shut down altogether in 1975.
Soon after that, the Town of Lisbon acquired the building for a town hall and the land nearby for Town Hall Park.
The school's reunion June 21 brought back the three students who were the entire graduating class of 1960, the school's second. Lisbon farm children Sharon (Rolfs) Taylor and Jon DeCaluwe, plus then newcomer Sandra (Schroeder) Kietorkus, were 14 when they graduated and are in their early 60s today.
Sharon said she was "jealous" back in 1958 when Sandra joined the class, because she had been "the only girl in the class, and now I wasn't."
The three were all impressed by their teacher, Lorraine Peterson. "She was unbelievable, amazing, the best teacher I ever had," Sandra said. "I went on to UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison, earning a bachelor and master's degree, but she was the best."
Sharon said the style of clothing back then was "sweatshirts and slacks," with the boys wearing denim.
The clothing hit Sandra with a bit of culture shock. She had gone to St. Michael's Catholic School in Milwaukee before her family moved to Lisbon as she entered the seventh grade. St. Michael's had required her to wear dresses, and she wasn't used to the casual farm clothing.
Jon DeCaluwe was from a farm almost a mile south of the school, at Plainview and Woodside roads. He had enjoyed being the only boy in eighth grade, he remembered. He used to find arrowheads on his family farm, including a copper spearhead, but all those family treasures disappeared as the family dispersed, he recalled sadly.
The reunion crew also remembered the old PTA meetings. Every parent went to them, and each meeting was preceded by a presentation of some program by the children for the adults.
They also remembered the all-school presentations they had staged for the parents, with all 48 children taking some part in them.
"This was our home," Sharon said, "our home away from home," Sandra added, emphasizing how close the students were to their teachers and their supportive parents.
The reunion was in the park shelter, comforted by beautiful temperatures and a soft wind. Old memories were jogged, and old stories were retold and savored.
Sharon, Sandra and Jon all went on to Germantown High School. Hamilton High School would not open its doors until fall 1962.
Probably the most remembered student who did not make it to the reunion was Mike Wilson, who graduated in 1962. He went on to become an outstanding wrestler and football player at Hamilton, but was killed in a fire fight in Vietnam almost immediately after graduation in 1966. (The Sussex-Lisbon Area Historical Society has his U.S. Marine medals, including his Purple Heart.)
A bronze plaque of Mike Wilson now adorns Veterans/Tetzlaff Field in Sussex Village Park.
North Lisbon School picture from 1912 gives glimpse into the past.
an excerpt, edited by Michael R. Reilly
Fred Keller wrote an article in the Sussex Sun, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2001 about the school. In it he says your "home" was completed in 1888 at a cost of $1,085. In 1889, a well was dug. IN 1927 the basement was dug. In 1929, a merry-go-round was installed on the grounds. Electricity added in 1930. New deeper well in 1931. Insulated and ceilings lowered in 1938. Abandoned in 1958, then sold to the Unverrich family who had ownership thru 2001.