Despite rains, rising creeks and a chilly April cold snap, close to 100 visitors turned out for an open house to celebrate the restoration of the old Castell School.

Now the home of the Castell Community Club, the schoolhouse that dates to a one-room beginning in the late 1890s has been preserved in the last few years with about $110,000 of work top to bottom.

In addition to organized fund raisers and private donations the project enjoyed grants from the Lower Colorado River Authority, the Moore Foundation and the Exxon-Mobil Foundation. The latter was represented by Lonnie Wilerson and Tom Fain at the event.

Credit for the fundraising is largely given to the efforts of three club members, Patty Pfister, Hatty Sagebiel and Margaret Rode although there is a community- wide interest and participation in the center for public meetings.

The event opened when Club President Dorothy Schuessler rang the large old brass bell from the teacher’s desk in a recreation of that first school that includes desks that were there when the school closed in 1948. Later, a group of former students gathered for a picture.

Drucilla Schneider Banner was one of the former students that attended. She said she loved her memories of the end-of-school events when the whole community gathered to hear students perform and shared a picnic on the grounds.

Harold Schuessler was another former student. Dorothy said with a knowing look that the desk positioned right beside the teacher in the recreated classroom had been her husband’s.

“I remember one time when a bunch of us boys were smoking in the boys' bathroom,” he said. “Mrs. Billie Graves and her husband Ropy both taught school here.

“The first thing we knew, she walked right on us. She told Warren Coatman, ‘You’re expelled for a week’ and the rest of us she said she would tell our parents. And, of course, that was worse.

“Vernon Evers lived right down the road here and he got to walk home for lunch, so he was lucky that day to be gone.”

For the most part the crowd was made up of people whose German ancestors who had shared their childhood under the roof of the old school. A few local officials like Precinct 4 Commissioner Jerry Don Moss, Llano Mayor Roger Pinckney and Main Street Director Sarah Oatman were on hand.

The rest are newcomers, finding their place in the new, old Castell Community, proud to share the modern kitchen and meeting areas with close-knit neighbors who remember it “when.”