Back in the 1850s there were five or six one-room district schools in Eldred Township. All of these were classic, one-room schoolhouses.

Today there are only three such schools still standing. Two of these, the Kleintop and the Smith schools, have been converted into homes.Some of the others are completely gone, like the Barlieb School. Until recently the Gowers School still stood, but it collapsed in the past year or so.For 10 years Tony and Renee Giordano would pass the Frantz Schulhaus on their way to and from their Kunkletown home, and they often thought that it was a waste that the one-room schoolhouse sat in a state of disrepair.Tony Giordano taught in the Brooklyn, New York, school district for 34 years. The teacher in him was drawn to the building. Both Tony and Renee had worked on historic restoration projects in New York, so last year they took steps to make sure that the little one-room schoolhouse on Church Road in Eldred Township would survive."I want to know that when I am gone, people that I never knew would be able to use this building," Giordano said. "I don't want to close the door on the history of this property."On Oct. 31, 2014, the Giordanos closed on the 25-acre property that houses the school. They will be unable to do a historic restoration of the building since the roof and siding were in such a state of disrepair that they needed to take immediate steps to replace those."We had to remove the slate roof, it was so heavy," Giordano said. "We couldn't afford to replace it with slate, so we found a shingle that resembles slate and used that instead. We also replaced the clapboard with siding this spring. What is truly amazing is how sound the basic structure is."Local resident Earl Meckes stops by the schoolhouse often. In fact Meckes recently asked to cut the grass when Giordano was under the weather and unable to do so."My older sister, Irene Meckes Hawk, was the last teacher here at the Frantz School," Meckes said. "She attended the school, and after she graduated she went East Stroudsburg University and got her teacher's certificate, then came back here and taught for about two years before the school was closed in 1946."According to Meckes, Irene, who was born in 1921, would have to walk about three-quarters of a mile on a path through the woods to get to the school. Meckes was 5 when the school closed because the district started using school buses. Meckes was bused across town to the Gowers School.Meckes also explained how the schools came to exist and be named."The families, usually the big ones, would build the school on their own property," Meckes said. "Once the school was no longer in use, the property would just revert back to the family."The Frantz Schulhaus was built by the Frantz family in about 1850. The school was used for a short time as a residence after it was closed, but amazingly the interior remains very much the way it did the day Mrs. Hawk dismissed her final class in 1946.Other than the old potbelly stove that was replaced at some point with an old porcelain cook stove, the furnishings are still there and in incredible shape. The teacher's desk, the student's desks and the shelf where the children hung their coats and left their lunch pails are all still there."There used to be a woodshed on the property," Meckes said. "The teacher would come in in the morning and start the fire in the stove and then add coal to keep it going."The woodshed is gone, but the boy's outhouse can still be seen off the south side of the school.The Giordanos picture the building as a place where local residents can come together, hold meetings or picnic on the lawn."We really don't know what we are going to do with it for sure," the Giordanos said. "That is one of the reasons that we are holding the open house on Saturday. We welcome people to stop by and give us their ideas and suggestions on what we can do with the building."The open house will take place on the property Saturday starting at 11 a.m. The family is suggesting that those attending bring a blanket to sit down and just enjoy the beauty of the area."We want to encourage people who have lived here all their lives like Earl here, to bring their memories of the stories handed down by their families or pictures of the school," Giordano said. "We were thinking of having family tree charts on the walls so people could add information to them."The event on Saturday is free and is not a fundraiser for the building. To keep up to date on the progress of the school you can go to Giordanos' Facebook page Frantz Schulhaus and request to be added to the group.The Frantz Schulhaus is located at 485 Church Road in Kunkletown.