#thibodeaux

Built at the turn of the 19th century and refurbished in 1866, Willow Creek’s Schoolhouse has served the children of the area’s planters and farmers for over sixty years. Under its eaves the children of land-owners and their servants learn and play together freely, and for a long time that was as radical as things got around Willow Creek. 

The school has been stewarded by a local Pastor since its original construction and was latterly attended to by the late Reverend Grayson Ward. The school faced closure in 1860 when Reverend Ward fell ill and this, along with the shortages created by the ensuing Civil War, kept the school’s bell silent and its doors locked for a further six years. In the intervening period, the building and its contents fell into disrepair and with all the losses of the war, things certainly looked bleak for the school’s future.

There was hope on the horizon though - in the months following the culmination of the war, a contingent of the concerned in the Willow Creek community sprung into action, convening to offer their own services and whatever coin they could muster in order to refurbish their school. With considerable effort on the part of the townspeople, the Schoolhouse reopened a year later in 1866. Now built across two floors with a separate classroom for boys and girls each, the schoolhouse was made complete with a fresh lick of paint, carefully hand-hewn desks, dozens of the latest educational volumes, and a brand new Schoolmaster.

Since its refurbishment, the Schoolhouse has been led by Willow Creek’s Minister James Thibodeaux and his wife, Marie Anne Thibodeaux. Master Thibodeaux holds responsibility for the schooling for the town’s sons, and has charged his wife with oversight of its daughters. This arrangement greatly pleased their mothers - Mrs Thibodeaux was well-known to have been a socialite in Paris prior to her marriage and was thus sure to make the ultimate tutor in proper poise and refinement.

As in many areas across America, misogynist attitudes prevail in Willow Creek and this had long limited the education of women there. Mrs Thibodeaux was therefore expected to keep her students to a strict curriculum of lessons in manners and deportment, the arts, music, singing and sewing skills. Although the girls were expected to be made literate enough to read the Bible, it had long been decided that anything further than this was simply unnecessary.

Unlike her society contemporaries in Willow Creek, Marie Anne had received a thorough education growing up as a child in her Orléanist father’s household in Paris. She disdained her new neighbour’s sensibilities around a women’s education, but was nevertheless too sensible of the local mood to think them open to debating the matter. And so, within weeks of assuming her new post, Marie Anne set about using her wit and considerable social influence as a Minister’s wife to effect change. She hosted every mother in Willow Creek at her home, and appealed to their fears about their daughter’s marriage prospects in a society now dealing with an excess of debutantes. Well, in the era of telegraph and the new postal service, their daughters surely must be taught penmanship in order to be of proper use to prospective husbands? The mothers left afternoon tea on a mission to make the same case to their husbands. Begrudgingly, the men relented to their wives’ pleas, and since then all of Marie Anne’s students leave her classroom knowing how to read and write in perfect cursive English, as well as how to sew a pretty sampler.

Regular classes take place between 9am and 2pm, but from time to time nearby residents report seeing candles lit in its windows all through the night.

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Marie Anne Thibodeaux (née de Villeneuve) was born on 11 Aug 1830 in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France. She is the wife of James Thibodeaux, preacher to the congregation of Adamshill Parish Church. James and Marie met in Paris in late 1850 and were married before the following spring. Quite the scandal was caused when Marie gave birth to a son, Gaspard “Casper” Thibodeaux, only a few short months later and the couple promptly moved south to Melun to escape the judgement of Parisian society and raise their son in peace. The Thibodeauxs lived in France for a further seven years before family duty called James back to America. The Thibodeaux family would arrive in Willow Creek in 1866 following the death of the previous parish minister, Grayson Ward, with the family taking up residence in The Manse in the same year.