TALKING TRAIL

The story of Blaine Township’s school began with David Hall who dreamed of being a teacher. In late 1883, as winter was setting in, Hall traveled on horseback to Clifton, then the county seat, to be examined by Superintendent David Staples. After successfully completing the examination and earning his teaching credentials, he returned to his 3-room house and opened his door to students right after the new year, as the second school in the county. Just a few weeks earlier in nearby Clifton, Mrs. V. M. McFall had started school, giving them bragging rights as the first school in Sully County.

As the population grew, the residents of Blaine Township decided it would be more efficient to build one large, modern school and formed the first consolidated school district in Sully County in 1921. Onida Construction Company started building in May 1921 and the school was dedicated on September 27, 1921, during the annual Teachers’ Institute. In 1922 the school was accredited to teach one year of high school, though, by 1926, the accreditation extended to four years. By 1976, the enrollment had dwindled down to 8 students, the final bell rang after the school year and the buildings were sold and torn down.

Back in 1921, when the population was increasing in east Blaine Township, it was largely driven by the arrival of several Mennonite families from Hutchinson and Beadle counties. Initially the families gathered to worship in a schoolhouse in Buffalo Township, then moved to a schoolhouse in Blaine Township. The school was located on rather low ground making the yard a quagmire of mud in the spring. But no weather was severe enough to stop worship! The men simply pulled their buggies right up to the porch so families could enter church without getting all mudded up.

In the fall of 1921 the congregation decided to build a simple frame church building six miles east of Onida. The Emmanuel Krimmer Mennonite Brethren Church rang with beautiful music as the choir, quartets, trios, and other groups raised their voices in harmonious praise.

In keeping with Mennonite tradition, funerals were very plain and many graves, particularly those of infants, were unmarked or marked with wooden markers that deteriorated over time. In 1960, reorganized as the Emmanuel Mennonite Brethren Church, the congregation built a new, larger building in Onida. Most of the people interred in the cemetery were moved to the cemetery in Onida. However, at least four who had died of diphtheria were left in the cemetery to avoid any possibility of disturbing and awakening the disease.

Over the years the church building disappeared and the memory of the cemetery faded. Then, in 2008, workers laying fiber optic cable discovered two graves. Unfortunately, incomplete church records made it impossible to identify the individuals. The remains were reburied and the corners of the cemetery marked and a stone marker erected to identify the cemetery. There may be as many as a dozen individuals left in unmarked graves in the cemetery.