Five generations of Merrill's family, with Eunice 'Granny' Andreas at center, in front of the Ford School.
Eunice Andreas, while daydreaming at her desk inside a one-room schoolhouse during the 1920s, would never have imagined her future great-grandson would be kneeling in the same spot a century later installing a wood floor. But that's exactly what happened when Toby Merrill, owner of Walk on Wood in McHenry, Ill., and one of "Granny's" 30 great grandkids, was asked to help restore the Ford School in nearby Lake in the Hills. The schoolhouse, built in 1886, was used for various purposes until it was left vacant during the recession of 2008. In fact, Granny's husband, Weldon, was the last teacher in the building, which stopped functioning as a school in 1936. The Lake in the Hills Historical Society sought to restore the building a few years later. Merrill initially approached the project like a typical paying job but decided to volunteer his time when he heard Granny attended the school as a little girl. Merrill installed, sanded and finished around 650 square feet of 3Âź-inch maple inside the schoolhouse in January 2015, even employing the help of his son, Connor, age three, on the job. Then he invited a guest of honor to see his handiwork for herselfâGranny, who passed away a year later at the age of 102. "She was so proud that I had taken part in it," Merrill says. "It meant a lot to her."
Merrill and his 3-year-old son, Connor, at work on the school job site.
