Vale Schoolhouse Earns State Historical Designation

When the application for Vale Schoolhouse was to be considered for a spot on the Virginia Landmarks Register, members of the Vale Club and Friends of Vale Schoolhouse wanted the reviewers to know just how much it meant to them.

So they loaded up the caravan with about a dozen people to sit in on the March 17 presentation.

"Because it's a community landmark, it's really nice that so many ladies wanted to come down and share that event with us. It's not what typically happens, and it shows how much they cared," said David Edwards, director of the Northern Regional Preservation Office in the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

And the review board did not disappoint. Vale Schoolhouse is now on the Virginia Landmarks Register and has been passed along to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places. A decision on the national designation should happen within 45 days.

Constructed around 1884 as a one-room schoolhouse, the building expanded to two rooms in 1912 and was closed in 1931. Four years later, the Fairfax County School Board allowed the schoolhouse to reopen as a community building for the Vale Home Demonstration Club, founded by Florence Jodzies, who had just recently moved to the area. Vale Club, which exists today, is a direct descendant of the home demonstration club.

"When I think of that time, I imagine the community desperately seeking a place to gather and a way to use that schoolhouse," said Carol Cross, president of Friends of Vale Schoolhouse, a nonprofit that works to preserve the building. "Then comes this woman, an outsider, who recognizes that and knows just what to do with it."

Demonstration clubs came out of a program started around the turn of the 20th century to help poor farmers learn techniques for running a self-sustaining farm. Demonstrations for homemakers started in 1913 to teach farmwomen "lessons in cooking, sewing, sanitation, and beautification," according to the application Cross filed on behalf of the schoolhouse.

Jodzies brought a home demonstration club to Oakton. And under Jodzies' leadership, in 1938, the Vale Home Demonstration Club became the first demonstration club in Fairfax County to own its own building.

"We were especially interested in [the schoolhouse] because it was a rare example of a demonstration club. I don't think we'd ever received an application for a home demonstration club, so we learned all about that movement for women in the early 20th century through the 50s," Edwards said. "And we were especially intrigued that this clubhouse was still in use for the club that succeeded the home demonstration club."

To earn a place on the Virginia Landmarks Register, an application must reach one of four criteria. Vale Schoolhouse met three of the four: 1) It is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history (Vale Home Demonstration Club and its previous function as a schoolhouse), 2) It is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past (Florence Jodzies) and 3) it embodies the sgnificant characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction (a rare and well-preserved schoolhouse.)

Once Vale Schoolhouse earns the national historical designation, Cross said she knows of no other commendations or recognitions to seek. But, though they're nice, the recognitions are not the mission. The mission is preservation.

"Before there was Friends of Vale Schoolhouse and before there was an actual concerted effort to preserve it, the ladies of Vale Club did it just because they loved it," she said. "It was then, it has always been, it is still the center of this community. It's kind of a hokey slogan, 'A place to tie to,' but it really sums it up."