San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Working to preserve historic Polly’s Schoolhouse
Group cleans up one-room site in Bandera County
The sounds of restoration rang out on Bear Creek Road as Flo Hopkins stepped into an old oneroom schoolhouse that served generations in a Hill Country community.
Hopkins marveled at how the structure, built in 1892 by her ancestor Jose Policarpio “Polly” Rodriguez, seemed as solid as when she attended the school in 1940. The dusty floorboards, many original, barely made a squeak when she walked around the room.
There were old, tiny desks there, like the ones in her firstgrade class. The students learned the beginnings of their education from Ms. Norma Davenport, a stern, bespectacled teacher who often drove Hopkins and other children from nearby homes to school.
The retiree recalled how some parents brought their kids to school on horseback and how her teacher enlisted the older children to help with the little ones.
“Polly wanted everyone in the community to have an education,” she said.
Then came the decades of dense cedar overgrowth that blotted the historic schoolhouse from the world. For a time, the limestone school was forgotten until relatives and the Polly Texas Pioneer Association began restoration efforts to help the school reclaim its place in Texas history.
On Saturday morning, the association hosted a cleanupter.ofPolly’s
Schoolhouse, which was designed for the children of Tejano, Italian and Polish families in southeast
Bandera County. The next cleanup is scheduled for October.
The restoration project began in that 2016 included with a group the descendants of volunteers of the school founder, community members and members of the ment. Castle Lake Volunteer Fire DepartThe nonprofit association acquired the school from Bandera Independent School District. Prior to the acquisition, the association had obtained and restored Polly’s Chapel and Polly’s Cemetery. The association’s schoolhouse committee hopes to raise $70,000 to fully restore the structure. Future plans include establishing the schoolhouse as a micro museum and community center with an outdoor interactive learning cenVice Chairman Rudi Rodriguez said the project was a collaborative effort. “We’re bringing awareness, education and celebrating the Tejano heritage and legacy as it applies to early Texas history,” he said. “And we’re proud that the community, its officers and residents have seen fit to invest their time and effort to help us because we’re a part of their community.”
Rodriguez called his ancestor Jose Rodriguez a Tejano son of Texas and a renaissance man.
The Hill Country landmark is one of several structures that the town’s founder established in the area.
The association’s website, pollytexaspioneerassociation.org, said Jose Rodriguez served as a scout for the Army to help develop forts, towns and roads across Texas. He was a rancher, a justice of the peace and a Texas Ranger.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Jordan Rutherford worked near volunteer Jesse Escamilla, clearing away weeds and debris near the gravel road as a loader scooped up piles of cut brush and timber.
“He championed the people,” the commissioner said. “He was extremely smart. He would get something done, and then he would move on to something else.”
Descendants of Jose Rodriguez also came from other counties to take part in the project.
Donna Valverde pulled off a floppy hat she had worn to protect her from splinters and slivers of high grass flying from weed trimmers.
“I might as well get involved,” she said, “because it is part of me.”
Rhonda Herrera Phillips drove more than two hours from Round Rock to help with the cleanup. She donated an old stove to the school to help bring back its original look.
“The fact that we have been able to actually see it come back to life has been such a joy,” she said. “Being part of re-creating it has been a joy.”