Dorothy White remembers almost everything about her days at Butler School, where she enrolled as a 1st grader in 1943.
She has helped identify fellow students in annual photographs. She has described the pencil sharpener that was along one wall, a miniature-sized store that was used to teach commerce, and a picnic basket in which a classmate used to pack her lunch.
Six decades later, her insights are proving instrumental in the restoration of the two-room school for use as the Oak Brook Historical Society museum.
“Not in my wildest dreams did I think I would do something like this,” said White, who attended the school through the 6th grade. “It’s just a little payback to Oak Brook.”
White is among a core group of volunteers dedicated to re-creating what the school was like, from a cozy library with a fireplace on the east end to what was known as the “little room” where younger students learned commerce among other lessons on the west end. Named after Frank Butler, who donated the land and money for the school, it opened in 1921.
After the school closed in 1961–increased enrollment prompted the construction of a new elementary school on York Road–the 6,000-square-foot building housed the Village Hall, the Police Department and the public library.
It’s empty now, though, and while the historical society has much work ahead, it has made enough strides that it is holding an open house from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday.
The museum is northwest of 31st Street and Spring Road on the same grounds as the village government complex.
