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The Lovells School

The Lovells School building still stands on Bald Hill Road where it was moved from the Judge settlement before 1906. It now serves as the headquarters of the Cheerful Givers Club.

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The Lovells School building on Bald Hill Rd was moved to Lovells from the Judge settlement, a tiny community located northwest of Lovells, in 1906. This provided a school on the North end of town for children to attend. 

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Louise B. Niles was the school's first teacher and taught from the beginning of school until October when Ruth Stillwagon Caid's aunt, Margaret Husted, became the teacher. According to Ruth, after a teacher had taught for three months, she was re­quired to write for her teacher's certificate. Once she received her certificate, she was able to teach for another six months. Twenty-one students were enrolled at the Lovells School the first year it opened.

 

Before the Lovells Schools consolidated with the Frederic Rural Agricultural School it was almost impossible for young people to go to High School. Students in the 7th grade who wanted to go beyond had to write for a state examination, which tested their geography and health knowledge. The examination was taken at the county seat in the Grayling High School gymnasium. Ruth Stillwagon Caid was one of those students who took the exam in 1917. "Uncle Ed (T. E. Douglas) probably took us into Grayling for the test," she said. "He was the only one who had a car."

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"I can still see that Miss Hoyt," she said. "I probably had never been out of Lovells except to go to Grand­ma's. We walked into the gym," she remembered, "and I had never been in such a large room in my life." Ruth said the teacher sat on a raised platform so she could oversee the exam and make sure they did not cheat. "Which probably a lot of us wished we could do," she laughed. "The whole process was intimidating and a terrible thing to do to children."

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If a student passed the test in the 7th grade, he did not have to repeat the exam in the 8th grade, ex­plained Ruth. When all the examinations were pass­ed, the student's tuition was paid for any high school in the state of Michigan.

"This was great," said Ruth, "but if you didn't have someone to stay with while you went away to high school, the paid tuition didn't mean a thing. You didn't get the money unless you went to school." "Now remember," she continued, "you were a kid 14 years old, you were going to have to go away from home, possibly staying with strangers, working for your board if your mother and father weren't able to pay for it, and many weren't able to pay for it."

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She passed the exam and went on to attend High School in West Branch where she could stay with family. She later moved back to Lovells and became a lifelong resident.

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The school building is still in use. However, today it serves as a clubhouse for the Cheerful Givers. This group of mostly women do chartable work in the township for shut-ins, people recovering from illness and sometimes serving meals for families after a burial and also to provide a meal for the volunteer fire department after they return from an extremely long run.  Although the membership has dwindled over the years, the building is still serving as a valuable purpose for the community!​

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