When I first met up with Charlotte McMillen and husband Mark this spring, they were part of a bustling group of over thirty kids, parents, preachers, teachers and friends from here, West Virginia, and Ohio. The Speiro Academy of Fine Arts and Ministry in Martins Ferry, Ohio, had come out today for a very special field trip—“re-dream Dreamer Park”—just in time for Memorial Day. Armed with mowers, chain saws, clippers, baggers, stick gatherers, flower planters, sign painters and plenty of elbow grease, they were doing what needed done.
If you ever decide to take that exquisite back roads road trip to the furthest northwest corner of Richhill Township, you will see what makes locals love this long-lost piece of America’s Pride. Dreamer Park is home to a thirty-five foot granite obelisk on a seven-foot base, topped by a soaring eagle and dedicated to the “soldiers and sailors” who fought for the ideals of Freedom and Democracy: The American Revolution 1775-81 – “Bravely they fought and founded a Nation”; Civil War 1861-65 – “Preserved their purpose to free the slaves and preserve the Union of States; Spanish American War 1898 – ”To help an Oppressed People – Theirs a Successful War “ and lastly “The World War 1917-18 On Land, Sea or Air At Home or Abroad They Served Heroically – Erected in their Memory.”
Those of us who live in the western end of the county love stopping by for a contemplative moment or three, glad when it gets mowed to keep the forest at bay, happy when someone swaps out tattered flags for new.
(Here’s looking at you, Patriot Dreamers Motorcycle Association!)
When the McMillens moved to Veterans Road in 1983, Charlotte remembers, “I drove right past in on my way to work and for years I kept saying to myself, someone really should be taking better care of Mr. Dreamer’s dream!” That somebody, she finally realized, was her.
Charlotte and I stood watching as students and parents spread the last of the mulch around the monument’s base, arranged benches, mowers made a last trim on the rescued lawn, and kids stacked colored stones at the other markers, including I.N. Dreamer’s big rectangular stone that watches over him, his mom Rosanna, and sister Rebecca. Tools were gathered, as the newly planted flowers were watered. “When we called the county this spring and said we’d mow and fix the place up, they were delighted!” Charlotte said. “We’re excited about what we can do next. I’m hoping we can get support from the gas and oil industries over there,” gesturing to the compression station infrastructure on the West Virginia side of the hill.
Then she added, “I love this quote from Goethe: ‘At the moment of commitment, the entire universe conspires to assist you.’”
As we watched the happy thrum of activity around us, Charlotte explained the teaching lesson that Speiro students were getting on this last field trip of the school year. “We’re sowing seeds with these children. Our name for what we’re doing is DEFT: making this a place to Dream, Educate, find Freedom and Teach.”
I again caught up with the McMillens at Dreamer Park on July 3 for some Independence Day prep that included a new picnic table and a portable toilet for summer visitors (there’s great cell service at the park, BTW). Husband Mark, a carpenter and private contractor told me he chose the name DEFT for the foundation he envisions with a nod to his favorite wood finish. “We’re here to protect and preserve and complete. We’ll continue to make Mr. Dreamer’s dream pristine again and see what else the county wants us to do. There’s plenty more that we could do with this park if we work together.”
I returned to the McMillen farm a week later, ready for a road trip with Charlotte to visit Speiro Academy that she and Mark helped build, where their youngest son Daniel went and where their grandkids now attend. A new school year is coming up and the extended families who administer, work and volunteer to help maintain the school will be there to get the classrooms ready. With Charlotte at the wheel we took the slow meander from the farm to Dinsmore Crossroad and down then up a few the twisting miles of Day Road past Dreamer Park, across the bridge to Majorsville, Washington County, then a left onto Majorsville Road into West Virginia. Our journey would take us past massive compression stations and through tunnels of trees to #2 Ridge Road to Dallas Pike Hill Road and onto the bustling 21stcentury Interstates that lead to the Ohio River and Martins Ferry. The drive took less than an hour, an hour made fast by the stories we were sharing. Charlotte worked at Speiro, helping with the youngest students, from 2017 until 2021. But she and Mark still make the drive every Sunday to attend Pastor Kline’s New Heart Covenant Christian Center that holds service in the converted gym at the school that also doubles as a staging area for theatrical performances and pageantries. Some of these performances have won trophies and awards for the school both locally and at Disney World.
The McMillens met school directors Pastor Barry Kline and wife Susan while attending Praise Family Fellowship Church in Glendale WV. “We heard about that church on a radio station and decided to attend. It was the right church for us.” The McMillens found a common bond of trust and Christian fellowship with the Klines – along with a shared dream. Both families had children to educate, both wanted something they felt was missing in public schools. Taking a step beyond classic home schooling, they wanted their kids to have other kids to learn from and grow with, and other parents ready to be involved in the learning process.
Charlotte told me “I just love Susan’s energy! She’s an entrepreneur and worked 80 hour weeks. Plus she’s so creative in the arts.” When husband Barry, a mine operator in Mingo County, suffered a massive heart attack at age 33 it upended the family’s fortunes, with massive hospital bills after months of what would lead to a remarkable recovery. But returning to the mining industry was no longer an option. When one of the people Susan worked for offered her a job near Wheeling the Klines took the chance, pulled up their deep family roots and made the move. “They didn’t know anyone but they were really good with meeting people,” Charlotte told me as we took a detour at Elm Grove WV to see the home the Klines were finally able to buy, and then up another driveway to the first school they had built by the Amish that was outgrown as more parents became part of this fellowship of likeminded folks who liked the family friendly education and Christian values being offered. Something compelling was at work. Charlotte admits she felt the spiritual doorway open that continues to open for the academy we’re visiting today. Building a school while raising a family is a dream 24 years in the making. In the process, her daughter Sylvia married the Kline’s younger son, Youth Pastor Barry Jr. “We call him Bear!” and the couple now live near his parents in Elm Grove. Their two children Willow and Selah attend Speiro Academy, where education stresses hands-on learning the old fashioned way, with the 21stcentury tools that the Internet and today’s technology offers. Playing in the creek to learn modern science, studying the bible together as a family, helping each child’s unique strengths blossom both in academics and preforming arts, learning to write skits but also use their hands to build sets and costumes, then learning to film, edit and record what they create for the world to see is how students learn at Speiro. Learning music and cursive writing at an early age is promoted, along with learning at an individual pace without labels, in classrooms grouped in grade clusters like schooling used to be, as large families used to be; the younger learning from the older, the parents there to learn along with them while teaching them the lessons of Old Testament living, including volunteering to help in the community and at home.
For some parents being involved is a chance to revisit their own childhood dreams.
“When we have pageants, some parents are right there here making costumes and joining in. They love being cheerleaders!” Susan Kline told me me with a laugh after we arrive.
The sturdy brick building that was once a masonic lodge, then Old North Elementary School, now Speiro Academy and New Heart CCC, has an inner courtyard, perfect for keeping pre-schoolers safely corralled. The tiled halls bring back vivid memories of how schools used to be, except now there’s an explosion of colorful tools of creative learning in every classroom, classrooms that still have chalk boards on the wall and learning posters promoting cursive handwriting at every grade level.
When Covid sent kids across America home in March 2020 to do school online, Speiro was already ahead of the curve. “We were already doing individualist home study days especially during bad weather, so our students were already taking their tablets home and working online at their own pace. We didn’t miss a beat,” Susan Kline said.
The school curriculums for state standards in learning are followed for Ohio and West Virginia and the Kline have hopes that the students who want to attend from Washington County will allow the Academy to include Pennsylvania’s educational requirements for home schooling as well.
“The students are excited we’re having a float in the Jacktown Fair parade to let people know about us,” Charlotte said.
“Next year will be our 25th anniversary,” Susan noted. “I just heard from a student who is 40 years old who thanked us for the educational platform that we gave him. He’s now in Nashville Tennessee doing studio work and he says we taught him to just be himself.”