By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
It is hard to imagine what this area was like 100 years ago.
In 1926, World War I was in the rear view mirror, and, unknown to many, the Great Depression loomed in the future. In the big cities, the roaring ‘20’s held center stage, but the majority of the United States, especially the midwest, was farmland, and for the most part, was enjoying the time of peace.
Campbell County was founded in December of 1794, and other counties, like Boone, Kenton, Pendleton, and most of Grant and Bracken counties were formed from Campbell County.
In 1926 AJ Jolly School was built in the California and Mentor area to serve the children of the farmers in the area. When the school was built, a time capsule was created to go into the concrete cornerstone of the building. It contained newspapers of the time, and letters, many handwritten items to commemorate the time, and members of the graduating classes.
Glenna Malloy was not yet born when her family moved from Covington to California, but she was born soon after the family settled, the youngest of 8 children. She remembers that all of her siblings, including herself, went to AJ Jolly school.
Fast forward to 2026.
“Back in September, we were all sitting around at the Stables event center and Butch Moyer, who owns the place, happened to mention that the time capsule in the cornerstone at AJ Jolly had turned 100 years old this year,” she recalled. “He wondered if we wanted to do something about it, and we said yes.”
She said Moyer, who owns the school also, had heavy equipment come and extract the over 400 pound cornerstone, as well as the concrete envelope that contained the actual time capsule, from the school building, and put it on a display table at the Stables.
In the meantime, Malloy, who is a natural organizer, put the word out on social media, and by last Sunday, October 25, over 300 people attended the opening of a century old time capsule.
“Unfortunately, when the time capsule was put in the cement, they had drilled holes in the box to stabilize it, and over the years water was able to seep into the box,” Malloy explained.
“So the documents and papers were wet.”
Jan Lester, a board member from the Campbell County Historical and Genealogy Society, was present at the opening, and she noticed the damage and was disappointed like everyone else.
“The school is in a flood plain,” she said. “We had the flood in 1937, but we also had many other floods, I think there was one in 1964 that was particularly bad too. In the 1937 flood there was a notation that the flood waters got to the ceiling of the first floor of the two story building, so the concrete did nothing to keep the water out.”
Moyer confirmed that most of the documents and papers and pictures were wet, but he said Steve Battistone from the Historical Society told him a lot of the information can be recovered through AI and modern techniques.
He thought an interesting item was a savings bond, something that was important to people last century, especially after the first World War and during and after the second World War. “Steve said he didn’t think the bond had any value,” said Moyer. “All of the items were very interesting from a historical point of view.”
What Moyer was most impressed with was the people who came to the event.
“There were several women who were in their nineties and that meant a lot to me,” said Moyer. “There were principals from the school, and people who actually went to that school. This was an important part of their past.”
Malloy agreed that seeing so many people who had an interest in what was important enough to put in the time capsule a hundred years ago was fascinating.
The weather was perfect for the ceremony.
“We set the time at 1 p.m., but people were coming at other times,” Malloy said. “This is a church community, and people came over after church. We sang some songs, some church songs, and sat and talked. We had a committee who helped to put this on, and the other
members were Rebecca Kirchhof, Keith Daniels, and Debbie Kuss.”
Ralph Martin and Keith Daniels were emcees for the event, and Moyer pointed out that Rebecca Kirchhof was instrumental in paying for the event center rent, all of the drinks, two beautiful cakes, and the banners. He said she attended the school for two years, from 1968 to 1970.
Moyer said the school building itself is not in good shape, and he keeps boarding it up, but vandals keep finding their way in, despite his best efforts to keep them out. He has no plans to tear the building down, and hopes someday someone will want to restore it.
His more immediate plans are to get good copies of the documents from the time capsule, and put them back inside the 12 by 12 by 6 inch box, and then add some documents from 2026, and seal it back up, laminating the box, and vacuum sealing it, hoping to keep the water out, and then putting it back inside the cornerstone for future generations to uncover.
Malloy and Lester both mentioned that there was a cannery, a building used to can foods, across the parking lot from the school, that was used during the war for people to can their food, and Malloy remembered that her brother said they used to have classes in the building at times when it wasn’t busy anymore as a cannery.
They also confirmed the presence of a few ladies in their nineties that had gone to school at AJ Jolly; Joanne Moore, who is 96, and Shirley Dicken Frank, plus Ann Painter, who was the principal when the school closed in the early 2000’s and Ron McCormick, a principal whose father had been the superintendent at the school. Another principal, Bill Voelker, had to leave early, but he was there for part of the ceremony.
Each person was impressed with different aspects of the historical moment. While Moyer loved seeing the older people who attended, Mallory was impressed with the savings bonds, and Lester enjoyed seeing the patina on the old box, and knowing that people in 1926 put these important photos and documents in the box as a message to people in the future.
Before long, new messages for more people in the future will be securely tucked away, and maybe in 2126 there will be a similar Sunday afternoon ceremony where old and young people will marvel about things that happened in times long past.