In this June 1980 photo taken at Sunrise Farm School, Donna Rickabaugh helps a student solve a math problem in a sunlit schoolhouse.
Mrs. Rickabaugh moved to a farm near Seymour, Missouri, in the mid-1970s with her husband and two daughters in search of a more spiritual life. Formerly residents of Hawaii, the family trekked across the United States before deciding the Ozarks were the place for a lifestyle independent of society. The Rickabaughs faced hardships as settlers, but found community in local Quaker and Mennonite groups. Mrs. Rickabaugh would later write the book "Toward the Sunrise" detailing her family’s journey.
In 1980, Sunrise Farm School had three students, including the younger daughter of Donna Rickabaugh, the only teacher. The
eldest Rickabaugh daughter attended a Quaker boarding school in Ohio. The family’s primitive home doubled as the schoolhouse. Planting seeds, working outdoors and singing were part of the curriculum, along with grammar and arithmetic. Activities like checking on the chicken flock, swinging on seats hung from trees or playing with the family’s goats made up recess.
Core subjects were graded, but Mrs. Rickabaugh avoided grades for music, art, and religion in an attempt to eliminate competition between students and praise individual expression.
This image is part of a much larger collection of historically rich photographs from the News-Leader’s photo archive. Each week, the Springfield-Greene County Library will tap into this vast collection and present an interesting image “from the darkroom" and share its history. This image is presented in partnership between the Springfield-Greene County Library District and the Springfield News-Leader. For more historical images of the Ozarks, visit: thelibrary.org/fromthedarkroom.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: From the Darkroom shows learning at Sunrise Farm School
