CRANBERRY TWP — The idea for an annual schoolhouse reunion began in the early 1950s when John Ott came home from a 20-year career in the U.S. Navy.

Ott, now deceased, wanted to get in touch with the people he went to school with, said Ralph Lyon, of Lancaster Township. Lyon, Ott and three others conceived a reunion for students who sat through long school days in the six Cranberry-area one-room schoolhouses that closed by 1952.

About 50 former students of the Graham, Sample, Hoehn, Bear Run, Johnston and Garvin schools met Saturday at the Plains United Presbyterian Church to reminisce and to reconnect with each other.

They remember walking each morning to school, where one teacher taught grades one through eight to about 30 to 40 children. The Sample school closed in 1951, and the others in 1952.

Before athletic fields, individual education plans and computer classes, there was a yard outside for recess, a chalkboard for instruction and a single pot-bellied stove for heat.

"People say those were the good old days. But they were also hard days, let me tell you that," said George Yerger, who went to Sample school from 1928 through most of the 1930s.

He remembers rough games at recess, cold mornings before the stove heated up and walking down Route 19 when there were farms as far as the eye could see.

"I remember (a classmate) who had to walk about two miles down Route 19 to get to school. She would come to school with her muffler on, and her hands blue from the cold. You warmed up your fingers in a water basin next to the door," said Yerger of Cranberry.

He spent Saturday afternoon catching up with schoolmates, some of whom he sees throughout the year but others he only sees at this event. They looked at old photographs, talked about recess games and ate a potluck dinner.

Lyon said attendance was a little down this year from the 75 people who came last year. Before that more than 100 would attend.

"You see less and less people here, because of age and health," he said.

But those who come enjoy the visit.

"When we started this (in the 1950s), it took a while for people to learn about it. Now you couldn't stop them coming if you tried," said Lyon, who went to Sample school during the 1930s.

He remembers the complicated lesson plans it took to teach eight different grades in one room.

"By the time I got to seventh grade, I knew everything the eighth grader did," he said.

Jeanette Meeder of Cranberry also attended Sample school in the 1930s. She recalled the 1¾ miles she walked to school each day at 9 a.m.

"School always started with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. During recess, we went out and played ball," she said.

Beverly Magill, president of the Cranberry Historical Society, came to catch up with old friends. She attended Sample school for the school's final five years before it closed.

The historical society in 2002 renovated Sample school after it had been moved from Rowan Road to in front of the Cranberry Municipal Building on Rochester Road in 1999.

Tours are available for that school, which stands for the Cranberry way of life before highways, subdivisions and stores came to the township. But for these classmates, the people they met at school are more important than the schools themselves.

"They say your first friends end up being your best friends," said Magill.