ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY SCHOOL SPRING 2017 NEWSLETTER MEMBERSHIP Our membership drive is going very well. Please check your membership designation on your return address labels. If your label says 16 then please renew, since that membership expired in Dec. 2016. If you are renewing, please send your dues to AAUS, 587 Fox Lane, Worthington, OH 43085; $15 for snail mail, $10 for e-mail.
worked for Raytheon at some time & probably knew him. Thanks for the article.”
ANNUAL MEETING AND REUNION Annual Meeting June 24, 2017, Ramseyer Hall, 12-4. Recognizing the 50th Anniversary of the closing of University School.
FAREWELLS We extend our condolences to all the family and friends of the following list of friends now gone.
This is going to be our huge celebration to honor the wonderful educational experience we shared at University School. There are still some plans to be finalized so expect some pleasant additions to the planned activities. First, we will have a short general meeting and then several different types of activities following that. Since this is the last communication prior to the meeting, there are several items to note.
*Barbara Craig Thatcher, ‘49 *Jane Forster Humphrey, ’51 sister-inlaw of Carol Haskins Foster, ‘50 *Jim Sexton,’65
COMMENTS Penny Dix Barnard, ’60 (who lives in Cape Canaveral, FL) sent in this comment about Bob Butche’s 3 part story on Keifer Newman.
*1. Since we are anticipating a larger than normal group, I have reserved several rooms for us: The general meeting, most of the activities and refreshments will be held in Rm. 59. This room is in the basement level where the cafeteria, storage and clean-up space were and is quite large. We will also have Rm. 100, the old music room, for you to have mini-
“I LOVED the article about “Super Doc” and am going to share it with some of my space shuttle & before engineers down here! Many of them
1
reunion space and small group meeting space. In addition, Tiffany Murray the building coordinator, the keeper of the keys, will be available from about 1:00 to 4 to help with access for tours. We will also have several unusual types and genres of memorabilia available to see, some of which you may be able to take home with you.
846-6494) if you plan on attending. If you are organizing a group, a designated member of that group can contact me. I would really appreciate this information to be able to provide enough nibblies, beverage, and cake for all. Deadline for this is Mon. June 19th so I have time to shop and order cake. *6. PARKING: Parking at OSU has changed incredibly over the last decades. The only visitor parking available anywhere near University School is the Arps garage which is located in our old field behind the building. Luckily it is very close. Follow the parking directions into the garage. The daily parking max on this day is $7.50. Payment will be made upon exit and the machines at the exits take all forms of payment. There is also a machine located by the elevator at the south end of the garage to pre-pay. This way the exit runs smoothly and in less time. This elevator stops on all levels for wheelchair access as well. You will have to go to the north end street level to exit the garage and enter the back entrance to University School. The back entrance (south west side) is also wheel chair accessible and gives you a straight shot to our general meeting room. One wonderful change to the building is that there is now an elevator, accessible to all, to go from floor to floor. Contact info for the parking folks is 614-6888-0000 or osuinfo@campusparc.com.
*2. Please be sure to sign in on a tablet, print please, which will be located on a table in the general meeting room, Rm. 59. We want to document every one in attendance and get contact information. *3. Since there is still very much to learn from and about each other, please consider leaving with us at this time, in some format, some of your memories of University School, your achievements and stories of interesting lives of others you know and were also part of the University School experience. Or, if not at this time, send your stories or comments to jswhaueisen@yahoo.com or snail mail to AAUS, 587 Fox Lane, Worthington, *4. Send any group photos you take, group identified please, to my e-mail address above. The August issue of the newsletter, is going to be devoted most, if not all, to this event. We would also, for this issue, appreciate any class reunion write-ups since many of you are having class reunions or mini-reunions at the same time. Send in photos, comments, or reunion write-ups to either the e-mail or snail mail address above by Friday, Aug. 18th.
*7. For those who wish to have a little more reunion spirit, Gary Page has reserved the Garden Room at Champps on Olentangy River Rd. from 5:30 on. This is open to all.
*5. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Please make an attempt to let me know, via e-mail, snail mail, or phone (614-
2
REFLECTIONS
MORE HISTORY
At this time of reunion and in preparing the photo collages of our history, I have thought a lot about all of the THOUGHT which went into the creation of University School; the building, the faculty, the goals and procedures. The early students were the trailblazers; no wonder they became known as the “guinea pigs,” and two books were written about them.
In the late Spring 2016 newsletter, from their yearbook, I published the Class history of 1937, which was the first one done. The class of ’38 didn’t do a class history, they had the Guinea Pigs book. We still have no copy of the 1939 yearbook, the classes of 40 and 41 chose to not do a class history, so now here is the next one in line. The writer or writers was(were) very imaginative!
We received this timely entry from Warren Mathews, ‘38
(P.S. If any of you can find or has a yearbook from 1939 to give us, we desperately need it – it is our only hole in our whole collection.)
“Please add my boundless kudos to all the rest! I was part of the "Guinea Pigs" class of '38, actually starting in the fifth grade in Laura Zirbes' school over on Frambes Avenue then moving to the wonderful new building in the fall of 1932 as part of the first class to go all the way from 7th through 12th grades there. Although that's 84 years ago now, my love and admiration for University High School has never diminished, and your excellent newsletter is central in keeping that feeling fresh!
Class History, Class of 1942 Hear ye, may it be known that we are the first progressivites to have affected the sleep of every teacher from grade one to twelve. We’re true guinea pigs. Strange as it seems, progressive education has done more for us than we have done for it. Let us explore the details of our “crazy quilt” past. Here is the quilt on display. Can’t you see the conglomeration in your mind’s eye? Notice these four patches which look a bit older than the rest. They are the property of Nate, Geney, Ed and Carl who became attached to the grouping at the at the Frambes Avenue school-house.
Actually, my connection with University School goes back even farther because my Dad got his PhD in Education and my mother her Masters, also in Education, at Columbia University, the birthplace and focal point of the progressive education movement. So when Dad joined the faculty at Ohio Wesleyan (up in Delaware) in 1927, they both were thoroughly aware of the 30s school experiment and were eager to get me into it.
Although few threads of thought are still left in-tact, the boys can recall the log cabin which a group of them built only to have it wrecked soon afterwards by their fellowmen. The girls can best remember being “patients” when “the stronger sex” put their energies into an ambulance service. All this was back in second grade. (Our friends skipped the
Again, many, many thanks for your tremendous effort and wonderful newsletter.” 3
first and spent double time in the second grade. Crowded conditions were the only cause.)
were in order, was a much anticipated event. Another class affair, “Pinafore”, was a record-breaking operetta. Dot Tucker forgot where she was on day (it happened to be in the middle of High St.) A truck came along and knocked her down and out. It was a hard way to bring the importance of safety to everybody. Something else that will bring a frown to the faces of athletes of the time was the outstanding loss of the season. They came out on the bottom after striking for tackle football. They stayed out on the front steps one whole morning! A sixth grader’s trick was to disappear from rest period and show up at the dark room. No, it was hardly connected with photography. The janitor’s cubby hole was the location. Strange, but everyone insists nothing exciting really happened.
The third year, five pieces in the next two rows of the quilt were begun when they joined up when the present building was in its first year. Dory Jordan’s block was begun at this time too. University definitely brought her out from the corner. Progressiveness is good at that. Competition began in the fourth grade when two more boys started to join the next two pieces, class plays written spontaneously as a result of class trips must have been something! Of course, there was always a hero. The fourth year, Sammie (Gluck) started the design of his intricate patch. It took no less than four years to break him in. And, fads come and go. A good one was the “Truth and consequences” session after lunch. The fourth graders would sit silently at their meal composing lines and questions which were sure to be revealing.
It looks as though elementary “daze” were enjoyed generally. With Junior High coming up, the fourth and fifth rows were added to our “crazy quilt” with the addition of 12 more. With the seventh grade came the end of four years of special reading in the life of the Hoags. No one knows the why of it. Lessons were beginning to mean more (and be more mean) to everyone.
In the fifth year, the combination of classmates was altered. Andy and Cooke are on record as the perfect little devils. They were separated from the others when half the class stayed on in the fourth-grade room and the above mentioned went to the sixth. “It is not that we failed,” says Ed speaking of extended fourth grade classes, “there just wasn’t room enough for us all.”
First year Science arrived in the eighth grade. The boys were particularly interested in the buzzers. Three more quilt pieces were added. One of the girls had a slight accident in math class one day. The habit of conversing with the boy who sat at the next table brought disastrous results indeed; they were caught. The punishment: they had to sit and stare at each other for five minutes, both at the height of blushing.
With two more additions everyone got together again for the sixth grade. That was when things begin to happen. Pee Wee Johnson was the ruling power that year. The annual picnic in the grove when lunch boxes and chocolate milk
Martha had always gone to University School but it was not until the freshman
4
A FINAL REFLEXTION
year that she skipped into our class. Then three others joined the pattern in the same year. Studies in the 9th grade stressed levers. Remember?
before our Annual meeting… If you have not seen, or rarely visited University School since 1967, you will find it different in look, but not in our spirit.
In our sophomore year the crowd descended and 14 more joined in the work. The Home Ec. Girls put across a grand welcome in the form of a River Ridge Riding Club picnic and CORE was introduced to us.
This piece was written by David Curl, ’50, and published in the February, 1989 Association newsletter.
The next year 3 more brought ideas for their patches and one, ¨Tag¨, revolutionized the girls´ sports program. Our Community study in CORE from which the Pataskala and Chicago class trips grew will be long remembered. Who could forget Chicago!
WALLS CANNOT CONTAIN A SCHOOL Walls cannot confine our dreams And walls did not contain our school. After nearly forty years they look the same, The weathered brick and greenish copper.
New York and Ramseyer did a last for us too! In our senior class, two more joined their patterns in with the rest. That last year much fightin´ spirit was present. We put across a real Christmas program…Queen Victoria and all! And, didn´t we persuade those in doubt that our class trip should be taken, with success!
The field where we played is now a seven-story parking ramp. No children run and play there anymore. But I hear their voices laughing in the afternoon and familiar faces smile from the shade of trees that still stand. In our “Mid-Century” class of University School There were forty-six of us to do great things. But in 1950, We were builders of dreams.
The real fight was put up by Captain Cooke and the track boys who came home with flying colors and four champs cups. This was one of the most super events in the University High´s history! The football, basketball, and swimming teams also left records to challenge the athletes of tomorrow.
Today our school seems smaller, To reach the drinking fountain When we were in first grade, We stretched and balanced on our toes.
All in all the twelve years of being ¨us¨, there are no other words possible, have produced good results. When our 46 unique patters of living are placed side by side the result is this crazy quilt. Don´t you agree that crazy quilts can be fascinating!
The halls we ran in were longer then. Now they’ve turned our classrooms into offices And our gymnasium into a media center.
5
The little gym With its brick walls right up to the edge Of the basketball floor Seemed enormous to us then. And the entrance Rotunda Was a place were we met before school And between classes and after school. The Rotunda was a place where we played games With one another and laughed and teased Like all the other kids In all the other years. Each year our school grew smaller As we were growing taller In ways we weren’t aware of, then, we grew. But the best of our teachers knew That walls do not contain a school. There were forty-six dreamers In our Mid-Century class And each of us has lived some of our dreams. We became doctors and teachers and scientists And mothers and fathers And skilled makers of beautiful things. We became builders of businesses And builders of homes. We became builders of the minds and hearts Of those who will follow us In other times and in other places Beyond the walls of other schools.
6