Emily Corona loved kindergarten so much that she wants to keep the memory–and the Schmuhl School building in New Lenox Township that housed that memory–alive.
Emily, 7, has started a one-girl petition drive, gathering more than 90 signatures from those who share her sentiments.
The small, brick school at the southeast corner of U.S. Highway 30 and Schoolhouse Road was built in the early 1920s. It has held three kindergarten classrooms in recent years. But it won’t be needed in the fall, when New Lenox Elementary School District 122 opens its new kindergarten center in Cherry Hill School.
Schmuhl did have a homey atmosphere, recalled Emily’s mom, Jennifer Corona. “It was just like a little family,” she said.
Emily is among those supporting a plan to move the oldest classroom space in the township to forest preserve land across the street and turn it into a museum.
A plan drawn up by the Will County Forest Preserve District has been approved by the New Lenox Historical Society, which is seeking funding for the proposal.
“I’d just like to see it standing still,” said Emily, who takes her petition wherever she goes.
Quiet, but determined, she asks politely, “Would you please sign to save Schmuhl?”
More Top Picks Drop Cloths
“Maybe we’ll break the 100 mark today,” said Jennifer Corona as she and her 5-year-old son, Mitchell, accompanied Emily on a recent signature hunt in the Schoolhouse Manor subdivision.
Emily has already taken her petition through her own subdivision, Chessington Grove West, to Mitchell’s T-ball game and to a meeting of the Historical Society.
Jennifer Corona isn’t sure what turned Emily into an activist. “I just think it’s something from her heart,” she said. “She thoroughly enjoyed kindergarten.”
She added, “I think she gets it because she’s at the age where we’re reading `The Little House (on the Prairie)’ books, where the kids went to one-room schools.”