For generations of rural children, school was a single room, one teacher and about 20 students, where 6-year-olds learned alongside children in their double-digits. While one group worked quietly at their desks, the teacher moved between reading, spelling, arithmetic and geography.

John Anderson of Butler, who turns 100 on Monday, Feb. 9, remembers those schools well — not from his childhood, but as a leader of them. In a life that now spans a century, education would be only one chapter.

In the early 1960s, Anderson served as principal of six one-room schoolhouses across Butler County, including schools in Slippery Rock, Brady, Franklin and Worth townships. At the same time, he was principal of the Slippery Rock Laboratory School, a two-story building on the Slippery Rock University campus that housed first through sixth grades.

Anderson did not attend one-room schools himself. Growing up in East Brady during the 1930s, he went to a more modern elementary and high school, with one classroom per grade. Like many young men of his generation, his early adulthood was shaped by war. Drafted into the Army in 1945, Anderson was stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., where he instructed West Point cadets at the Infantry School.

“It was there that I learned I liked teaching,” he said.

His college education at Clarion State Teachers College was later interrupted when he was called back to serve during the Korean War. In 1952, Anderson began his formal teaching career in the Mehaffey School District in Clearfield County, teaching fifth- and sixth-grade students. Geography was his favorite subject.

During those early years, Anderson took a yearlong sabbatical and traveled across the country with his wife in an RV. He followed the rhythms of the American economy — farming in Montana, fishing in Washington state, logging in the Pacific Northwest and visiting Indigenous communities in the Southwest.

“I wanted to be sure what was shown in the classroom was true,” he said.

In 1956, Anderson moved his family back to East Brady, where he taught for five years, before relocating to Slippery Rock to take on a principal’s position. His final assignment was at Bellevue Elementary School, where he worked until retiring in 1982.

He was 56 years old.

What followed would be many new chapters in his life.

In the 44 years since his retirement, Anderson has volunteered as an elder in his church and participated in outreach efforts, including serving meals to people in need. He and his wife, Jean, to whom he was married for 62 years, spent winters in Naples, Fla., with friends from the Syria Shrine. Jean died in 2013 at 81.

As he celebrates his 100th birthday with family and friends, Anderson reflects not only on his years in education, but also on a childhood without modern conveniences.

His family home in East Brady had no electricity or indoor plumbing, no television and no hot running water. Water was heated by gas for cooking and bathing, and laundry was done by hand. Ice was chopped from the river to keep food cold.

“We were just getting used to the radio,” he said. “We had one, but had to borrow a battery from my grandfather, who lived close to us.”

The family’s first automobile arrived when he was a teenager.

“You had to have money to have a car,” Anderson said.

He remembers the excitement when dirt and gravel roads were paved with asphalt, known locally as “Pinchot,” named after former Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot. The paving grew out of Pinchot’s “Getting the Farmer Out of the Mud” program, a state-funded effort that covered thousands of miles of township roads with a light, inexpensive bituminous asphalt, making travel more reliable for farmers, school buses and everyday life.

Some of Anderson’s fondest childhood memories involve his mother, Ella Anderson, whose kindness extended well beyond their home. Because Anderson lived just a block from school, he walked home every day for lunch. Some classmates lived too far away to return home.

“I would bring them home with me,” he said, smiling. “And my mother would give them lunch.”

When asked how the world has changed most during his lifetime, Anderson does not hesitate to mention technology. Watching people walk down the street staring at their phones makes him “wonder what they are looking at.” He has never owned a smartphone and relies instead on a specialized landline and a wristwatch that accommodates his low vision.

He is also troubled by the persistence of conflict.

“You’d always hope that the world would get better,” Anderson said.

He noted that in his youth, wars were fought with rifles and basic artillery. He is concerned that humanity has created weapons capable of destroying the world many times over, even as nations continue to fight and one country tries to take over another. He wonders whether future generations will learn to live together more peacefully or whether the pattern will continue.

Over the years, Anderson has been honored by civic groups and local and state officials for his contributions to education and military service. Plaques and commendations fill his home. The group that restored the Foltz School, a one-room school in Brady Township, presented him with a plaque, and Butler County Veterans Services has assisted him with adaptive equipment to help him remain independent. According to his son, he also receives “great medical care” from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Reaching age 100 remains rare. According to the U.S. Census, there were about 80,000 centenarians nationwide in 2020, roughly two or three for every 10,000 Americans.

As for the secret to his longevity, Anderson offered a simple answer.

“I don’t really know,” he said. “I ate the same things as everyone else.”

Genetics may have helped — his father lived to 99 and his mother to 81 — but Anderson also credits a lifetime of walking, something he still enjoys today with the help of a walker and family support.

But even as evidence of accomplishments fills his home, Anderson’s proudest legacy may be the relationship he built with his two sons, Jon (Marc) and Steven.

“He was loving and kind, and he was always there for us,” Marc said. “When we made a mistake, he would ask, ‘What did you learn from that?’”

Anderson’s 100th Birthday, Feb. 9, has been designated by the Butler County Commissioners as “John Anderson Day” in Butler County. His family hosted a surprise dinner for about 75 relatives and friends on Feb. 8. Butler County commissioners and state Rep. Marci Mustello, R-11th, attended and presented proclamations honoring the centenarian. Guests reminisced and shared favorite stories of a long and well-lived life.

There is one story, though, that Anderson especially loves.

Several years after his retirement, while living in Bellevue, a middle-aged man stopped him on the street and asked whether Anderson had once been his teacher. Anderson said yes.

“Mr. Anderson,” the man said, “you were my favorite third-grade teacher.”