Duane Bernard's early memories (November 2019)

I do not know exactly when the Doraville School was started but Joe Hackenberg Senior (Butch Hackenberg's dad) told me years ago that it was built on his dad's homesteaded land. And also, that the name Doraville was derived from his dad's wife, Dora. Joe told me that the teacher always boarded with his folks, so his teacher walked home and to school with him each day. He said the school was active there for several years until they had a shortage of school age kids living close by, then it was idle for several years. I have a picture here taken in 1906 when it was active. When it became necessary to start it up again their neighbor, Mr. Headlee donated one acre of land just across the property line from Hackenberg's land for a new and better school.

The new one was called Rock Hill School, and if you ever visit there it becomes apparent how they arrived at that name. Part of the foundation and the front steps are all that remain today. an interesting sideline here, when my folks decided to build their home on Apiary Road in 1941, my dad decided to use part of the school's foundation for part of the foundation for our home. Because there was no rebar used in the school's foundation, he was able to drive his pickup there and use a sledge hammer to strike the outside of the above ground portion of the foundation in an approximately 30-inch circle, then go inside and hammer away at the other side of that same circle. soon he was able to push the concrete chunk to the outside. He'd then load it and several more in his pickup and take them up the road to where he had scraped off a level area for the house. he placed these around where the outside walls would be and also under where the main stringers would be under the house. Then he used round cedar chunks on the concrete to support all the main beams under the floor. I remember going with him to get some of those concrete blocks and they still support that house now, almost 80 years later. at that time the old road up to the school left Apiary Road right where the road sign is now pointing up Pellham Hill Road.

Years later when I built Wolden Road on the 90 acres that Mr. Headlee had once owned, Herb Wolden went to St. Helens and got the county to relinquish their interest in that one acre.

On a recent hike to the old Rock Hill School in 2018 there was not much left, just the front steps and part of the above ground foundation and many large round boulders.