The travel route of the one-room schools of the Guilford Township takes us this week south from Van Buren’s Corners to yet another corners – Windsor’s Corners which to all who are unfamiliar with the area is approximately 2 1/2 (county road 36) miles from Guilford Center. Once again this writer is referring to documentation written by the late Walter Ubele and is basically quoted as he wrote it.
“Among the several schools that were still teaching the Three R’s well into the 1930s was the school known as Winsor’s Corners School. This was the schoolhouse of District #16. It was still in operation as late as 1931, perhaps later.”
Not to be repetitive - the school was located at what is now the first crossroads of the Guilford Center-Norwich Turnpike. The area was well populated, considering the time. Families living within a short distance were the Winsors, the Youngs, the Gridleys, Sheltons and Reynolds. The Ireland family and the Weidman family also lived nearby. As a matter of fact, Syrena Ireland and Doris Weidman were students in that one school term ending June 1931.
Of course, there was studying, work, and learning, plus exams in this school as in any other. Scholarship was important! But there were good times, too. The biggest highlight of the School year in the District Schools was the Annual School Fair. The following is a direct quote from the 1931 issue of “The Pinnacle.”
“The first highlight of the school year was the School Fair. The sun was shining brightly when we got on the bus and went down to Guilford. The bus driver took the High School students to GHS (Union School) and then took us down to the fair. There we were allowed to do what we wanted to. We looked at the exhibits, among which were ducks, chickens, and vegetables. Some of these exhibits had been brought down by the pupils of our school. After we had looked at the exhibits, there were some races. Three of the girls from our school entered. One of us won a second prize and two of us took a third prize. At noon, we came together for a picnic lunch. In the afternoon we went to the movies. After that, Mr. Cass read off the names of the children who had won prized. At four o’clock, the bus came, and we went home feeling we had had a most delightful day.” This was written by Helen Bush, Syrena Ireland and Doris Weidman.
In spite of the slowly diminishing school population, the Winsor’s Corners School survived the closing of the smaller District School. It lasted until the end of the of the school year in 1935. That was when the final consolidation took place. It was then that the Guilford Central School opened its doors. At that time the State of New York mandated the closing of the smaller school, and told the Districts that no further individual District State Aid would be forthcoming. The Guilford Central School would be the focus of all such State Aid allowances. That was the end of the “Little Red Schoolhouse.”
The Winsor’s Corners school remained vacant for a period of time, it was later sold to Charles Stanley who wanted it for a garage and still later Archie Hubbard owned the building. It was taken down so I am assuming that Archie Hubbard owned it first and then took the school down and sold it to Charles Stanley. If this is in error, I will stand corrected.

School Days Memories
Early on in the research for information for this current series of “Schools of the Past” articles this writer had contacted Ruth Kaufinger Seeber (now living in Clifton Park, New York) regarding her late mother Ruth Aldrich Kaufinger. This is what Ruth Seeber forwarded to me, to be included in the article regarding Winsor’s Corners School. “Yes, Mom went to Winsor’s Corners to the one room school there. There were pictures at one point, but I have all the pictures and photo albums from her, so I suspect when she was sorting things out, she must have thrown them out. I found nothing! But she always told us she rode her horse to school. It was a pinto and I remember seeing a picture of her sitting on her horse.
“I believe it was located on the back road to Guilford. You would turn to go toward Camp Oxford-Camp Guilford (Jewish summer camp) and there was a dirt road to the left before going up the hill where Chester Weidman lived. I do not know if that road is still there or not. Nor, do I know how far up the road it was before coming to the school. Note: this road she wrote of is now Furnace Hill Road and paved.” Ruth went on to say she had e-mailed her older brother George (now living in Florida) and his memories were as scarce as hers other than he believed Verna Weidman Raphael also went to school there. She was Chester’s daughter and a cousin to Mom. That relationship was through Ruth Aldrich Kaufinger, as her mother was a Weidman.
The photo(s) that accompany this article show two views of the school. The early one is approximately the early part of the twentieth century and the later one was taken around 1928 when Edna Franklin was the teacher and the lad in the photo might have been Milton Spencer.
Thus we conclude yet another chapter of Guilford District one-room schools, to be as has been said, continued next week.