Round Mountain School • Leander

Round Mountain School • Leander

By Karen R. Thompson Friday, 20 March 2009

Editor's note: Easter Wade Whitt will speak about her years of teaching at the Round Mountain School at 7 p.m. March 24 in the Leander Public Library, 1011 S. Bagdad Road. The Round Mountain one-room school operated at the close of the Great Depression and just before WWII. For more information, call Karen R. Thompson at 923-0010 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

In 1937, 18-year-old Easter Wade arrived at Round Mountain School hoping her year of study at Daniel Baker College in Brownwood had prepared her for teaching.

Texans had established thousands of one-room schools throughout the state by the mid- to late 1800s. In the 1870s, the first Round Mountain School, a log cabin, was built 8 miles west of Leander just across the Travis County line. In 1888, a new lumber structure was erected. That school burned in 1929, and a new school was built. Fire destroyed that school in 1935, and the last surviving building was constructed that year.

The school was not fancy. All the students walked to school, some traveling several miles. Desks, benches and tables were plain. The teacher’s salary was $65 a month. One outhouse served as the restroom for the whole school and teacher. It was during Easter’s tenure that President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration sent laborers to the school to build a second outhouse. Easter immediately claimed the new facility for the girls and made the boys use the old one. The WPA laborers also increased the use of the water well and added a new hand pump.

In Round Mountain’s one-room school, the 15 students ranged from first to eighth grade. A wide range of subjects was taught. First graders learned reading, arithmetic, writing and drawing. By second grade, phonics was added. In the third grade, students also had geography, language and spelling. History was added in fifth grade and by the eighth grade, students learned algebra, English and Spanish.

The oldest students were just three years younger than their teacher. Easter was born April 20, 1919, Easter Sunday, to John and Emert Wade on their Possum Hollow farm near Brady. She was the youngest of nine children who all helped their parents raise crops of oats, cotton and Johnson grass. After they graduated from Brady High School, Emert demanded her children attend college or trade school.

After her year of college, Easter taught at Round Mountain School from 1937-1941. During those four years, she lived with Bob and Amy Faubion, who charged her $15 a month room and board. Bob named a horse Easter in her honor. After the 1941 school year, Easter went to work for the bank in Leander. In 1943, she married Millard Whitt.

Now, Easter is retired in her home north of Liberty Hill. She still fondly recalls her students at Round Mountain School.