The old country school era around Owen and Withee was nearly over by the 1960s. The 18 rural school districts in the future Owen-Withee School District, across northern Clark and southern Taylor counties, were closing or being absorbed into larger systems. Those districts were more than collections of pupils and buildings. Each was a community of farms, churches, cheese factories, taverns, and family loyalties, which helps explain why consolidation was not welcomed by everyone—and why neighborhood-scale schooling still resonates. Their disappearance seemed to mark the end of the one-room school age. Yet the idea itself did not disappear. Within two decades, the small rural school returned to the Owen-Withee area in a different form.
Holy Rosary Catholic School in Owen was not rural, but it belongs in this history because for more than 50 years it offered a significant local alternative to public education. The parish school opened in 1954 for grades 1–8. Grades 7 and 8 were dropped in 1971, and the lower grades continued until the school closed in 2005. Its education was shaped by faith and community, while its pupils eventually entered the public-school system—first after eighth grade and later after sixth grade. That history provides an important bridge to the present. For decades, Catholic education was the area’s most visible parochial option for younger children. Today, Mennonite schools represent another substantial local commitment to education outside the public system, though the traditions differ in important ways, including whether children later enter public high school.
The modern rural school story was also shaped by a major legal development. In the landmark 1972 decision Wisconsin v. Yoder, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Wisconsin could not apply its compulsory attendance law to require the children of the Old Order Amish and Conservative families involved in the case whether to remain in formal school beyond eighth grade. The Court based its decision on the families’ demonstrated religious beliefs and their established pattern of continuing informal vocational education within family and community life.
The decision did not revive the old public country schools. Six years later, a new chapter in the Owen-Withee rural school story began.
Black River Parochial School opened in the Owen-Withee area in 1978, with Anna W. Horst as its first teacher. The first school operated in an old house trailer, which burned in 1981. A permanent Black River School was built in 1983 on the Longwood-Reseburg town line. From that beginning, private rural Mennonite schooling grew steadily across northern Clark County. Black River, Frenchtown, Lone Oak, South Fork, Sterling Ridge, and other school names are included on a printed 2025 Mennonite map.
The school map shows why direct comparisons are difficult. The Owen-Withee Public School District has a precise, if zigzagging, boundary covering about 220 square miles in north-central Clark County and part of southern Taylor County. Mennonite communities and schools are organized differently. My study of the 2025 Groffdale Conference (sometimes called Wenger) map of northern Clark and southern Taylor counties identifies nearly 30 private rural schools across a large area. Those figures describe Groffdale, not every Mennonite school in the region. The smaller local Weaverland Conference is also part of the story. Weaverland Mennonites—locally known as “Black Bumpers”—drive automobiles but, like Groffdale Mennonites, do not send their children to public schools. The area also includes homeschoolers, though I do not know their numbers.
The historical point is simple: the Owen-Withee area has long included families willing to support education outside the public school system. Holy Rosary served generations of Catholic children who later continued into public schools. Today, Groffdale and Weaverland children attend schools outside the public system and do not make that transition to public high school. These newer schools differ from Holy Rosary and the old public country schools in governance, religious foundation, demographics, and community purpose; the comparison should not be forced. Still, the historical echo is hard to miss. In the Owen-Withee area, education has not simply moved forward. In some ways, it has circled back home.
Sources: Local interviews; Dirt Roads and Dairy Farms, compiled by Elva Martin (privately printed, 2023); Clark County Mennonites, by Irvin N. Shirk (privately printed, 2025); and the 2025 Groffdale Conference of Mennonites of Central Wisconsin map.