Kevin Riordan: Maple Shade's little red schoolhouse is a story worth telling

Until I interviewed first-time author Emma Brooks, I hadn't paid much attention to Maple Shade's one-room school.

To be honest, I hadn't noticed it at all.

Brooks, however, has long found the 200-year-old Chesterford School fascinating. And her self-published children's book, The Little Red Schoolhouse in Maple Shade, should deepen public appreciation for the restored landmark. It certainly has mine.

"My mother-in-law, Rachel McElwee, went to this school in the late 1800s," Brooks, 82, says, surrounded by vintage desks in the restored classroom. "She was one of six children, and they all went to this school."

Students from what was then rural Chester Township attended classes at Chesterford from 1812 until 1909 when it was replaced by a larger building - with two rooms.

The spare, but solid-looking, brick structure on Main Street will be one of eight single-room Burlington County schoolhouses featured on a Nov. 13 tour.

"I'd been thinking about doing a book for years," Brooks says. "But I got serious when the 200th anniversary of the school was coming up."

The author, who worked as a telephone operator and later as a secretary, moved from Philadelphia's Kensington section to Maple Shade in 1948. She later married Frank Brooks Sr., whose family went back generations in this part of Burlington County.

She became enthralled by her mother-in-law's tales of farm life in the days when Main Street was part of a turnpike.

Rachel's family farm was nearby, and she and her sister were assigned the task of hand-pumping and carrying water to the school every day, "regardless of the weather," Brooks says.

The Little Red Schoolhouse includes this and other vignettes based on conversations Brooks had with her mother-in-law, who died, at 79, in 1965.

The charming illustrations are by Brooks' sister, Nancy Wahl. "Aren't they sweet?" Brooks says. "They go with the stories so well."

Wahl, 71, lives in Collingswood. "I've sketched all my life, and I wanted to help my sister," she says, adding that the toughest part of the task was to ensure the clothing and other details were correct.

"Working on the book was an adventure for both my sister and I," Wahl says.

The adventure began about two years ago, after Brooks met Barbara Sherf, who lives in Flourtown, Montgomery County, but has Maple Shade roots.

"Emma had always wanted to write and publish this book," says Sherf, a professional publicist and "personal historian" who volunteered to manage the project.

"We got together several times at the Cherry Hill Library to do research. We put the pieces together. And now Emma is living her dream."

The school building had been closed for years because of structural problems and opened earlier this year after it was partially restored.

Architect and preservation specialist Margaret Westfield, of Haddon Heights, handled the project. The $125,000 partial restoration "stabilized the building. . . . The floor joists were gone, and there were termites," she says.

"The cool thing is, Chesterford shows there was a very clear evolution of school building over time in New Jersey," she continues.

The building's front porch and another small addition to the original 1811 structure were done in part to control the temperature in the room.

"It shows the impact of school reform," Westfield says.

And while hardly a grand architectural statement, Chesterford does reflect the influence of the Federal style in vogue in the early 19th century.

The freshly painted interior looks terrific; as I chat with Brooks, it is not hard to imagine the room filled with children. And the author says she hopes today's students will realize "how far education has come" by reading her book.

She'll be at the school autographing copies from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. during the Nov. 13 tour.

The Little Red Schoolhouse in Maple Shade is being sold for $5. Proceeds benefit the Maple Shade Historical Society.