Gorham preschool prepares for move into historic schoolhouse
The old schoolhouse on Ossipee Trail in Gorham is being transformed into House of Parker Preschool's new home. School leaders are looking for volunteers to help on Saturday to prepare for the first day of school on Sept. 8. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)
GORHAM — Mary Hanscome attended preschool in 1983 at a schoolhouse at 175 Ossipee Trail in Gorham, like her mother and grandfather before her.
Now, she’s a preschool director and teacher transforming the 120-year-old building, which has been unused for over a decade, back to its original purpose.
“I think it’s such a cool story for me to share with my preschoolers, like, ‘Oh, I kept my backpack right here, where you’re hanging yours,'” Hanscome said, pointing to a line of hooks that have remained on the wall since she was 3 years old.
Those hooks, though, are almost all that’s left of Hanscome’s school days. When she bought it last October as the new location for House of Parker Preschool, dense vegetation she likened to a “haunted forest” covered the lawn, the walls were rotted and old junk had piled up inside.
For months, Hanscome and a team of her family members and friends have been working tirelessly to clear the yard, install new electricity systems and plumbing, and finish construction work to prepare the house for the 12 students starting school there on Sept. 8, with an open house scheduled for Aug. 30.
“It’s been complete chaos, but the right people keep showing up and helping us move a little bit closer to that goal line,” Hanscome said.
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A crew made up of Mary Hanscome’s family and friends work at the former Ossipee Trail schoolhouse, installing drywall and landscaping. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)
Still, the team has a lengthy to-do list.
Hanscome is hosting a “Saturday at the Schoolhouse” event this weekend and is seeking community members — especially those with carpentry and construction skills — to come to 175 Ossipee Trail to help out on Saturday to ensure they can open on time. She took out a loan to pay for construction costs, but it can’t cover all the help her crew needs, she said.
Hanscome has been running the preschool for the past two years in the Gorham home of her sister-in-law and co-teacher, Tanya Hanscome, on Huston Road, always with her eye on the Ossipee Trail schoolhouse as an ideal location.
“We just kept putting it out into the universe,” Hanscome said. “I actually put it on my vision board.”
James Bauer, the schoolhouse’s previous owner, told Hanscome when she approached him about the sale that he remembered her from when she was a student.
The move will mean expanding the school’s capacity to 21 students, allowing it to add programming and several play and learning amenities recommended by the biggest stakeholders: the preschoolers.
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“We had a suggestion line at the preschool this year where we had a phone and it actually recorded messages so (the students) could leave their suggestions,” Hanscome said. “It’s been so awesome to have that and then be able to implement that, to show their voices.”
Hanscome’s 9-year-old daughter, Gracie Hanscome, and two of Hanscome’s students, Rosie Sarno and Finley Sarno, played on the swings while their parents and grandparents worked on landscaping and construction Thursday morning.
Five-year-old Finley, who will move onto kindergarten this fall, served on the “advisory board” for the new site and suggested more swing sets. Other young members requested more glue guns.
“I said, OK, all right, we’ll add that,” Hanscome said.
Greg Sarno takes a break from landscaping to push his daughter, Rosie Sarno, on the swings at the site of her new preschool. (Madeleine Kaptein/Staff Writer)
With money Hanscome is raising through the House of Parker Preschool fund and with help from local organizations, she hopes to develop the outdoor space to add a play “construction site,” a garden, sandbox, picnic tables, mud kitchen, a trail leading to a brook behind the property, a small basketball court and more.
Indoors, there will be a library room, writing center, art space, mailboxes for each child, magnet walls, and more, that will need time to come to fruition.
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The school offers public preschool for Gorham children through a contract with Gorham School District, as well as a private “transitional kindergarten” program for students who don’t live in Gorham and a two-day-a-week program just for 3-year-olds. This year, it will begin offering after-school and school vacation programs.
Part of the funds Hanscome is raising will go toward scholarships for the private programs. She has already offered two scholarships to students from families living in Buxton and Standish.
“It’s always been a goal of mine to be able to offer tuition at no cost to these families,” Hanscome said.
Hanscome said seeing the progress is especially meaningful for her because she had often talked with her late husband, David Hanscome, about opening their own preschool in the area near where she grew up on Rust Road. David died of cancer in 2021, and the Aug. 30 open house will fall on his birthday. He worked in construction, and the play construction site in the yard will be named after him.
“This would have been his dream, to help build and do all this,” Hanscome said.
Hanscome has already heard some community members who say they will come by on Saturday. The crew will need the most help with putting in stair railings and drywall, as well as cleaning up construction debris from the yard, she said. There will be a free barbecue lunch.
“There’s the curiosity aspect of it, of people wanting to get here to help and see the progress and see where we’re at with it, which is pretty cool,” Hanscome said.
She said some older community members remember attending “epic” Halloween parties in the schoolhouse’s basement.
“That’s what I keep hearing. We just love seeing life there again,'” she said.
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Tagged: education, history, preschool, volunteering
Madeleine is a community reporter for Gorham, Buxton and Standish. She started her journalism career in Vermont, where she reported for Seven Days and served as the editor-in-chief of Middlebury College's. More by Madeleine Kaptein
