Stone family album shows children with West Side School classes during the transition to new school building

We have been sorting pictures in the genealogy room and come across photographs of West Side School pupils taken in the early 1920s. 

The photographs came from the William and Anna Stone family album and show the Stone children in various pictures. The photographs were not dated but we can estimate the date by using the birth year of the children and the history of the West Side School.

The West Side School house was constructed in 1892 and originally consisted of six rooms. More classrooms were added as the years went by. The school was destroyed by a fire on Feb. 22, 1926. A new school house was constructed that same year and opened on Sept. 18, 1926.

All but one of the West Side School photographs in the album were taken outside of the original school house, with the other taken outside of the replacement building.

William and Anna Stone owned and operated Stone’s Grocery, located at 916 W. Daugherty St., for 37 years. They were the parents of three children, Mary, William and Elliott. Mary Stone Osborn has been written about in the Sentinel, most recently as a former teacher of Twin Grove School. The Stone brothers were both killed in World War II.

William “Bill” Stone and his brother, Elliott Stone, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the same time. Bill was trained in California and was a lieutenant. He was killed on Aug. 26, 1942, while he was a passenger in a bomber plane that crashed during training. Bill’s death, at age 26, was the first death in Webb City from the war. 

Elliott Stone was also trained in California and became a second lieutenant and served as a bombardier. In 1942, he was transferred for service in England. While returning from a bombing mission over Germany, his plane crashed on the western coast of Great Britain on Jan. 22, 1943.  

The brothers, along with their parents and sister, are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery.