BILLY SHIELDS: So a recent question from a listener took us down the long and winding history of a relatively short road.

It all started with Kristen Donovan, who works at Chippenham Hospital.

KRISTEN DONOVAN: I wanted to know where the German school that German School Road was named for, where is that- where that was and a little bit about the school.

BILLY SHIELDS: German School Road runs loosely north-south for about a mile BILLY SHIELDS: German School Road runs loosely north-south for about a mile on the south side of Richmond.

It's a street Donovan drives by every day on her way to work.

It's a street Donovan drives by every day on her way to work.

But what happened to the school that it was named for?

We started our quest at the Chesterfield Historical Society.

We've got two different strains.

One of those competing theories is that there is no German school.

But the idea that there was no school turned out to be untrue when we learned who owned the land that the road was on A German immigrant named Ignatius Schutte.

And we tracked down a descendant.

DANY SCHUTTE: My legal name is Dana Marie Schutte, I do go by Dany.

And German School Road is where I was raised.

BILLY SHIELDS: A descendant who is interested in genealogy.

According to Dany Schutte, According to Dany Schutte, DANY SCHUTTE: Family legend says that my grandfather's generation went to primary school there.

BILLY SHIELDS: And there is a potential reason for the impression that there might not have been a school.

The historical society took us through a couple of leads that turned out to be red herrings.

LILIANE MULLANE: I found out that, one of the books that we would rely on, has the wrong person as donating the land that became the German School Road school.

BILLY SHIELDS: One apocryphal blurb indicated the road was named for the Bauhaus School, the famous design school in Germany, but the road was there by 1900, and the Bauhaus wasn't founded till 1919.

LILIAN MULLANE: I like a mystery.

You can always say that.

BILLY SHIELDS: Lilian Mullane continued to dig.

And in the meantime, we came across another Schutte, whom we met at the Schutte grave site in Barton Heights.

DONALD TRASER: And there are several more behind there, at least three that are back there.

BILLY SCHIELDS: That would be Ignatius great-great-grandson, Donald Traser, who lives in Richmond.

Traser says Ignatius Schutte was a prosperous asparagus farmer who died in 1896.

Traser had a conversation with an aunt who described a Saint Ignatius school.

DONALD TRASER: She remembers the school standing into the 1950s.

It may not have been in use as a school by that time, but she remembers the building.

BILLY SHIELDS: And that's about the time when we heard back from the Historical Society who found mention of the school.

LILIAN MULLANE: And it says another school connected with Saint Mary's Church is kept in Chesterfield County, near Granite Station.

A lady teacher is in charge of it, and the pupils number 20.

BILLY SHIELDS: But where was it?

We got one of the society members to show us a map.

LIESS VAN DER LINDEN-BRUSSE: If you look closely, you'll see the names of all the people we've been talking about, including right here, is Ignatius Schutte.

And in this little crescent here, we believe, is where the actual German school stood.

BILLY SHIELDS: I visited the site.

As you might expect, it's now apartments.

Any trace of the old Saint Ignatius school, long gone.

The historical society says the school ran for about 20 years, from the beginning of the 20th century, when Central Virginia's German population began to assimilate.

But Schuttes descendants are still around, and the road's name still bears evidence of the school their ancestor built.

For VPM News, I'm Billy Shields.