It’s been a year and a half now since Joey Feek, one half of the country/gospel duo Joey+Rory, passed away after losing her rigorous battle with cervical cancer.
Since losing his wife, Rory Feek hasn’t been focused on much else besides raising the couple’s three-year-old daughter, Indiana.
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Still, he details the happenings of life with his daughter on his blog, This Life I Live.
In his most recent blog post, Rory reveals that he’s pulling Indy—who has down syndrome—out of her “wonderful school,” because that’s what Joey would have wanted.
He explains that he’s building a schoolhouse for Indy right at home on their farm in Pottsville, Tennessee, so that she can learn with friends, and learn in the same place she lives.
Rory wrote that although Joey would have loved both of the schools their daughter is currently attending, he’s confident that his wife would have chosen to homeschool Indiana herself.
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“Partly because she would want our little one here at home with her, growing up and learning on our farm,” Rory wrote. “And also because she would be way more interested in Indiana learning to be a good person than being a good reader. To love God and the life that He’s given her, more than what a lot of the world is telling us to love. And in her mind, home is the best place to learn those things.”
With the help of family, friends and neighbors, Rory began building the one-room schoolhouse “just across the field” from where Joey’s cross sits. He hopes it will serve as a farm school, where kids are taught reading, writing and arithmetic as usual, but also get hands-on learning with rural life skills.
For Rory, it’s more than just a schoolhouse, it’s Indiana’s future.
“Who knows, maybe someday when she grows up, she’ll want to teach there. Or turn the building into a vegetable stand or business where she works. Or maybe even a house where she lives. I have no idea where it will lead. Just hope in where it might lead. To be a blessing to her, and to other little ones like her.”
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The hope is to open the school in January to a class of 3- and 4-year-olds, and the plan is for the class and materials to grow with age, like Indiana.
