School Memories

MEMOIRS by SUSAN DEAN

“Nana, you won’t believe this!” my 16-year-old granddaughter, Abby, texted me.

“They tore down John Wickes! There’s nothing there but rubble! Now all our memories are gone!”

John Wickes Elementary School in Warwick closed in 2018, when Abby and her cousin Anthony were finishing fifth grade. It was bittersweet watching them graduate, as I grew up in their neighborhood and went to John Wickes, too. The only difference was that I was there from first grade through sixth. By the time Abby, her brother Michael, and Anthony got there it was PreK through fifth grade. There was no PreK or kindergarten in my day.

Walking into the school back in 2018, I noticed that very little had changed. I glanced through the windows across the small courtyard and through the windows on the opposite side where the gym was. I was immediately transported back to second grade. I remembered wistfully watching the girls in the gym running around in their Brownie uniforms after school, while I was in my line waiting for the bus to take me home. How I wished I could be a Brownie Scout, too!

Eventually I did join the troop and I remember how excited I was to be on the other side of those windows, finally joining in the fun instead of heading home.

Back in those early days there was no cafeteria. We carried our new lunchboxes to school each September. I remember my pink and blue metal Cinderella lunchbox. My brother, Rob, carried a vinyl Beanie and Cecil - which, he tells me - he still has. Somehow…this doesn’t surprise me - Rob is the ultimate keeper of memories….

Rob remembers buying milk at three cents a carton. I remember bringing milk in my thermos. Rob remembers cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. I remember tuna fish and egg salad - all without refrigeration. Our mayonnaise and cheese-laden sandwiches sat in our coat closets all morning - with no thought given to the dangers of food poisoning. It’s a wonder we all survived! We had lunch at our desks because we were bus students. The kids who lived nearby walked home for lunch.

When I walked into the auditorium back in 2018 for Abby’s and Anthony’s graduation, it all looked the same. Even the piano - which, by the looks of it, may have even been the same one that was there when I was at Wickes in the 1960s! Except… everything looked much smaller. The stage - which seemed so huge when I was up there singing in holiday concerts, performing in ballet and tap dance recitals, and at my own sixth grade graduation ceremony - seemed tiny now. I felt transported back to my elementary school years, but in miniature.

When Abby told me about the school’s demise and about our memories being lost, I told her that, no - we will always have our memories. I remember walking in as a terrified first-grader and seeing a gray-haired lady who looked older than my grandmother. I was wary of her steely stern looks and fervently and silently hoped that she wasn’t going to be my teacher. But she was my teacher, and I grew to love Mrs. Eastman for her kind and caring ways. I remember my delight when I learned to read - I remember the moment when suddenly the letters fell into place and made sense - like a lightswitch suddenly turned on. I remember Mrs. Eastman delighting in that moment, too.

The principal was Miss Handel - also gray-haired. I thought she was at least one hundred years old - she was probably no more than fifty, if that. My second grade teacher was Miss Petrarca, who became Mrs. Hagopian halfway through the year. Then third grade was Miss Flynn, who became Mrs. Dunne before the year was out. My first male teacher was Mr. Calicchia in 4th grade, then Miss Taylor in fifth. My clearest memory of that year was on a November day in 1963. We were at our desks quietly doing math after lunch when Miss Taylor was called out of the room. She came back with tears streaming down her face and told us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.