102-year alumna recalls teaching in schoolhouse
By KELLY ROHDER, Published August 3, 2009

Marie Ghilain, age 102 and the oldest living alumna of Joliet Junior College (JJC) in Illinois, made a special visit to the college last month.

The trip was especially important for Ghilain because she also visited the Cronin School—a one-room schoolhouse that is preserved on campus—where she started her teaching career in 1928.

The summer heat wasn’t enough to keep Ghilain, who was accompanied by her son Russ, from touring the renovated structure, where she said she taught 27 children during the 1928-29 school year, one year after graduating from JJC.

The nearly 145-year-old schoolhouse was moved to the Main Campus of the nation’s first public community college in 1987, where it has served as a living history museum. The effort to restore it was spearheaded by two former JJC agriculture professors.

To help the restoration effort in the late 1980s, Ghilain made a donation of $1,000—her annual salary the year she taught at the school.

“I taught second-graders, I think, one third-grader, seventh-graders and no eighth-graders,” she said.

Once inside, Ghilain recalled heating the school in the winter months by stoking the fire with corn cobs in the large black stove near the teacher’s desk.

“When school was over, I put compound on the floor and swept it up so the floor was always clean,” she added.

The original interior included only desks, a coal-fired stove and chalkboards. In 1935, the original building was remodeled and equipped with electricity. After the college acquired the building, it was restored to its pre-1935 condition with materials replicating that era in the school’s history, according to a JJC history book by Robert Sterling.

One of Ghilain’s lasting memories is how her students always wanted her to join them in a game of baseball at recess, knowing that if she did, she would lose track of time. And, she said with a laugh, “I usually did. The farmers would go by, and they would tell on me.”

Rohder is a communications and media specialist at Joliet Junior College (Illinois).