The Millersville Area Historical Society (MAHS) will host a slideshow presentation on "Garfield School - From Community Resource to Residence" when it meets on Saturday, Feb. 8. Doors will open at 8:30 a.m. and lock at 9:15 a.m. This is the second of three presentations devoted to one-room schools that MAHS has scheduled for the first three months of 2025. It will be presented at 9 a.m. in the Millersville Borough Administration and Police Building, 100 Municipal Drive.

The speaker will be history buff and researcher Kelly Williams, owner of the restored Garfield one-room school located near Mount Joy. Williams will outline the history of the school when it was part of the Rapho school district, from 1884 to 1950; its decline after its use as a school; and its authentic interior restoration as a schoolroom that became the Williamses' home for the past 20 years.

Available for purchase at the meeting will be copies of two books. One is Mary Virginia "Ginger" Shelley's 190-page volume titled "Lancaster County's One-Room Schoolhouses and the History of the Common School Movement," which received the 2016 Award for Scholarship and Artistry from the Country School Association of America and features the Garfield School on its cover. The other book is "The Diaries of Peter C. Hiller, Conestoga, Pennsylvania, 1875-1898," a reflection by Hiller on the life and times in Conestoga during the late 1800s when he was a one-room school teacher in Pequea and Conestoga townships.

Williams was employed by Armstrong World Industries for 33 years as a software developer and testing engineer, and he now spends time working on steam cars and conducting research on individual surviving automobiles produced from 1900 to 1915. A veteran of the U.S. military, he grew up in Elizabethtown and attended Elizabethtown College, where he earned a degree in computer science.

Although admission is free, donations will be accepted. For more details, contact one of the co-chairs: Phil Gerber, MAHS president, at 717-872-8837 before noon or at pge8507@aol.com or Kathy Brabson, MAHS secretary, at 717-682-5903 or at kathybrabson@comcast.net.