WiNK

Last week, Evie Zahner shared her story of what it was like growing up at Wooster, in on-campus housing. We know there are currently two houses being occupied by faculty and their families, but there used to be more. By taking a tour of campus and the woods surrounding it, we were able to explore a bit more about the history of houses that used to be on campus for faculty and staff.

As one pulls into Wooster, you may notice the white house across the street from our barn. That was the first official Wooster building. In 1925, Reverend Aaron Coburn and a few of his friends were given $30,000 to buy the Hodshon Farm (our campus now) to build up their school.

In September of 1926, Wooster officially opened with ten students and three teachers.

Many students know of the lone-standing old Zahner house up by Tiedemann Field. This was actually one of many on-campus houses that existed over the years. Wooster owned roughly two faculty houses; the few still standing are the Art center house now lived in by the Sullivans, the old Zahner house, and the Head's house.

When we went on our tour of the Wooster campus, Mr. L (who tagged along to give us a more intimate tour) showed us the lot of house #1, where he used to live. Mr. L shared stories of spending Christmas with the Zahners when he first moved in and living alongside our old chef, Chef Ian. He showed us many of the now-vacant lots and rattled off the various names of faculty members that lived in those houses during that time. Although the random walkways leading nowhere and driveways that veer off straight into the woods may seem a little strange, we believe they show how deep our community really goes. We are interested to see what Wooster will do with these plots of land in the future.

Walkway up to an old house on Tiedemann Road

Tiedemann Road plot

House One plot

House One plot look at the back of the Zahner house

Mr. L where Plot One used to be

Suspected well on Tiedemann Trail

Structure from when Wooster used to be a farm, possible a feeding spot for animals?