Willow Leaves September 13

School Has Started This year's statistics of students enrolled from Willow Township in public schools is as follows: Elsie Hewitt Elementary Kindergarten: 14, First Grade 12. Taught by Mrs Tomlinson, assisted by Miss Chapman Second Grade: 16. Taught by Mr Phelps Third Grade: 18. Taught by Mrs. Trickle Fourth Grade: 13. Taught by Mrs. Fites Fifth Grade: 15. Taught by Miss Williams Sixth Grade: 18. Taught by Mr. Graves North Manchester Junior High Seventh Grade: 12 Eighth Grade: 15 North Manchester High School Ninth Grade: 16 Tenth Grade: 17 Eleventh Grade: 11 Twelfth Grade: 9 Total public school enrollment from Willow Township is 186. Enrollment at Elsie Hewitt Elementary is 106.

Elsie Hewitt Elementary School

Elsie Hewitt Elementary School was named after the first school teacher that settled in Willow Mills back in the 1880s. she was the daughter of Bernard Hewitt who built the old train station and grain elevator. Both have long since been torn down and the elevator replaced. But the legacy of his daughter Elsie lives on.

She began teaching in 1882 when she was 18 years old. She continued for fifty years. She fought a tireless battle through the turn of the century and World War I to see that the children of Willow Mills got a fair education. She led the prohibition movement in Willow Mills, and the fight for women’s suffrage. There not having been much alcohol in our town, she was obliged to do most of her campaigning in Wabash. She was known to stand in the middle of Main Street just south of town and hold a sign forbidding men to go to Wabash on Saturday nights. The thing is that most of them had become so used to blind obedience toher in school that few had the courage to defy her. So Willow Mills was a dry community right up until the time our soldiers came home from World War II.

Elsie died in 1932, a spinster, late one night int he school that would come to bear her name. Her influence on the community was so profound that 30 years after her death—when the school board decided to close their high school class and buss grades 7–12 into North Manchester—the most seriously considered objection was when one member said simply, “I don’t think Elsie would have approved.”

The children these days don’t know much about the namesake of their school—even though among their grandmothers Elsie or Elizabeth is a more than normally common name. They do know, however, that even though their school is among the oldest school buildings in the county, it is a matter of community pride that keeps it well-maintained, freshly painted inside, and filled with both students and teachers.

Because that’s the way Elsie would have wanted it.