By LINDA KELLETT

C-S-E News Staff

CANAJOHARIE — “Remains” discovered during recent cleanup efforts at the former West Hill School were prominently showcased during an open house at the Otsego Street  landmark on Saturday. Among the items on display included the railing of the building’s missing staircase as well as some of the original window frames, which were recovered after being sold.

There were other unexpected discoveries in store for visitors flocking to the site, as well.

Historic West Hill School Committee member Dolores Jacksland commented on one of the surprises, flashing a knowing smile as she counted heads and ushered visitors into the gloomy interior during the mid-day event.

Among the first things they encountered was a sign: “Francis Avery: To be Mayor of Canajoharie is definitely very scary. You use all your might and win a good fight, but eventually you will be buried.”

“Lying in state” in a nearby casket was the nearly motionless Avery, who waited patiently in the gloom to give a Halloween scare to unsuspecting youngsters.

Occasional gasps and frequent giggles were participants’ responses to the pre-holiday prank, which helped take the edge off visitors’ reactions to the stripped halls and classrooms as they moved deeper into the building’s shadows.

Committee member Janine Nelson said, “It’s disturbing to see [the building] in this condition.”

Jacksland said, “We’re trying to stabilize the building. Any plans for the building are yet to be determined. There are holes in the roof and leaking drains that need to be addressed.”

The building is currently owned by the village. Officials hope to be able to convey ownership of the property to the ad hoc committee that’s trying to save the once-stately structure.

Among volunteers working behind the scenes to clean things up and make improvements are Scott Bicknell, Stephen Young, Steven Bern, Victor Shear, Adam Bermas, Tim Shepard, Dave Hayes, Rich Strunk, Bob Smith (donated use of his generator and tools), Janine and Bill Nelson, Alice and Chris Duncan, Jacksland, John Walsh, Hein Kraak and Tolga Morawski.

Other volunteers working to raise funds for the undertaking include Chastity Hislop, Beth Snyder, Karen Dimond and Paula Hayes.

One hour into the two-hour event, about 160 people had ventured back to the former halls of learning.

 “A lot of people went to school here. Some went through 6th grade, some kindergarten,” Jacksland said.

A surprising number of visitors to the site included some of the building’s last students. Kindergarteners, whose classrooms were located on the ground floor of the institution, passed through the doors one final time midway through the 2001-2002 academic year.

Over the course of one weekend before Christmas, furnishings and equipment for  those classes were moved to the recently enlarged East Hill School, and the doors closed forever on that chapter of the building’s history.

Connor J. Sierra, 15, of Canajoharie, who toured the first floor with friends Alex Hayes and Jared Leamon, both 14, said he was one of those students. “My mom would drop me off here. I was here for five months. After December break, we went to the East Hill School,” he said.

Alex recalled the bus ride from the West Hill building to the East Hill complex.

While Jared wasn’t a student at the time, he had suggestions about its future use: “They should make a museum in here,” he said.

Connor agreed, adding a suggestion of his own: “If every October they open this up as a haunted house, they could charge $3 at first, and as it got more popular, they could charge more and make some money for the village.”

Canajoharie resident Douglas Dusold, another of the school’s last students, peered into a stripped classroom with his mother, Linda Nielsen.

“I remember there was a water fountain here,” he said.

Kate Boshart, of Canajoharie, said she attended kindergarten and first grade at the site. She said, “My mother was a teacher aid for BOCES, so I used to visit here sometimes.”

She recalled getting her “first kiss” in one of the classrooms.

The children of Canajoharie resident Joan Cimino both attended classes at the school. “MIchael was here for first grade; Alicia for kindergarten,” she said.

Among her memories of that time was that the building lacked a cafeteria. “They ate in the hallway,” she said.

Palatine Bridge resident Vernon Wagner, who moved out of the building in 1947,  was one of the older alumni walking though the dark and empty halls. He recalled a science project that he’d once made for a class.

It was a pendulum, he said. “It had a washer on one end of a string. I tacked it up with a tack, and the hole from the tack was still there.”

He also recalled painting a robin in art class. “Across the street we did all our art projects. The people that owned the property let us use their lawn,” he said.

Red-rimmed eyes welled with tears when he was asked if seeing the building in its present condition was emotional.

“Yeah,” he said. “It looked a lot different. What’s been lost can never come back,” Wagner said sadly.