Friday family photo—Tech Reunion June 8

Monday Memories—Our First Apartment 1960

        

We were in Indianapolis over the week-end to attend an Arsenal Technical High School class reunion at the Riverwalk Restaurant in Broad Ripple, and all class gathering on the campus (70+ acres).  On our way to the Tech campus we drove by our first home at 1311 North Rural (apt. 2).  My.  The neighborhood has certainly changed.  This was a very tidy 4-unit, probably originally built to be a duplex, then the upstairs 3 bedrooms were changed to a 1 bedroom, kitchen and living room apartment with a side entrance (not visible here).  It’s hard to say, but it may be back to a duplex.  We couldn’t see the side entrance. 

We were about 3 houses from a lovely park, and 3 blocks from 10th avenue which had a number of small stores.  I still have a few kitchen items I bought from a hardware store on 10th.  We can’t remember where we parked our car—there was an alley and garage behind the house, and the stairs to the street were extremely steep.  Every day I drove to my job at General Mold and Engineering, and Bob caught the bus to work downtown at Ayrshire Collieries on South Meridian (11th largest coal company controlled by Pierre Goodrich at that time). 

When we lived on Rural it was a working class white neighborhood, now it is mostly black with some Hispanic.  The condition of the homes is really awful, with many boarded up.  And as you can see, a couch on the porch is not a good sign in any neighborhood, even on college campuses studies show this is a serious indication of decay and trouble.

We never thought to take any photos when we lived there, but I’m pretty sure it was painted white and the owners, who lived down stairs, were careful with the property.

Our first Christmas in that apartment

                                

A few months later, my college graduation photo from 1961, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Yearbooks and Annuals

I don't know what generates the ads on the right side of my screen on Facebook, but this morning noticed one for yearbooks. I have my four high school yearbooks, The Mounder, from Mt. Morris High School in Illinois, two Illios from the University of Illinois (I was married by the time I graduated and couldn't afford one for that year), one from Manchester College, The Aurora,  in Indiana, and three from Mt. Morris College, Life, 1929, 1931 and 1932, my uncle Clare's, my mother's and my father's. The college closed in 1932 and merged with Manchester. We also have my husband's yearbooks, The Arsenal Cannon from Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, a school that was larger than the town of Mt. Morris, and Tech's memorial yearbook for the first 50 years. One of the best things about yearbooks is reading the crazy stuff people wrote in them!

Ten Random thoughts about Aging

1) I think I'm looking pretty darn good. Got on a new dress and the hubby says "you're beautiful" (actually, he tells me that every day no matter what I'm wearing). Then I look around the narthex at church and I'm one of two or three women under the age of 90 in a skirt.

2) I remember something in the closet that always looked good. It was fun to wear. Full of cats (not just cat hair). I pull it out. I started the mental adding machine. Hmmm. Probably bought it in 1995 or 1996, but I have an old photo and it might be even worse than that.


3) To go with that cat vest, I decide on brown jeans. They fit before Palm Sunday, just two weeks ago. But I had a lot of pizza Friday night, and a Philly cheese Saturday night, and now the zipper will barely function. Must be the salt. Couldn't be the calories, right?

4) I've got a new hi-tech thingy I thought I just had to have. It's been sitting on the desk since early February, and I've yet to download (upload?) the guts to make it work. It doesn't help that instructions are on-line instead of in the box where they should be.

5) I got a new version of genealogy software for Christmas. No matter what, I can't get it to print the wonderful lists I used to make with the old version, but it sure will wrap fancy frames around photographs.

6) On our trip last week we found out about a new baby niece no one had told us about. My software can't begin to explain this one. What do you do when it's not even a "significant other" but the mother is still around--some place.

7) Has this ever happened to you? You look in the mirror and find someone else's arms (legs seem to be familiar) attached to your shoulders? The last time my arms looked toned was when Nelson Jr. and I did the egg toss at the senior picnic.


8) At the 2007 Tech class reunion, we have to ask the MC to make an announcement because my husband and one of his closest friends from the 1950s didn't recognize each other so they can meet and talk about old times.


9) And I probably wouldn't know Murray, Guest Blogger of Collecting my Thoughts, if I passed him on the street. (He's the one holding the trophy.)


10) I feel a bit smug about our clean garage--not only will it take two cars, but there is room to spare. Then I take a walk in the gorgeous weather around the grounds to photograph some spring color and see that Joan and Jerry's is clean enough to put ours to shame--and they are cleaning it again! Show offs!

I'd know those legs anywhere

When my husband was a teenager, he ran cross country and lettered (block T) at Arsenal Technical High School, a huge school in Indianapolis larger than the town where I grew up. Today we were looking for a classmate in the 1956 Cannon (no index) and I came across this photograph, with an incorrect caption. The book says it is the football eleven, but I noticed these guys weren't the football team and there sure were more than eleven. Then my eye fell on the guy in the foreground (#2), and I just knew it was my husband. You just never forget legs like that! Nowadays he's just a skinny guy who leads a bunch of ladies in an exercise class, but back then. . .

I can get a bit envious when I leaf through his yearbooks. I had fine teachers and a new high school building (the town no longer has a high school), but then I look at the opportunities Tech kids had (in addition to a wide range of sports): service clubs, Future Nurses Club, Chemistry Club, Music Club, Nature Study Club, Drama Club, Future Teachers of America Club, Radio Club, Square Dance Club, German Club, Art Club, Home Economics Club, XYZ Club (no idea what this was, but it was very large), ROTC, all sorts of musical groups which included a string quintet, concert band, dance band, brass ensemble, madrigal singers, boys octette, concert orchestra, woodwind ensemble and to top it all off, they even got to play Christmas music! Tech had 48 people on its cafeteria staff, a staffed bookstore, and 47 people on the custodial staff including 7 engineers! A display of "The American Way of Life" in October 1956 in one of Tech's main buildings drew 9,000 visitors. Would teenagers today even be allowed to host such a patriotic display? They had 140 different courses in Shop and a class in Stagecraft that built the downtown Christmas display on Monument Circle. Tech had classes in intelligent voting (although voting age then was 21), posture, recognizing marijuana and other drugs, and keeping their campus and property clean. I don't think I ever thought about that in high school.

One of my favorite things to read in my husband's yearbook is the full page note from his girlfriend. She too knew a good man, but she lost.

Monday Memories--Thank you, Indy Barb

Last week we received a DVD with photos of my husband's class reunion prepared by Indy Barb the reunion committee. My, oh my! What a lot of work they put in on that! At least I think it was her [she says in the comments it wasn't]. By the time the disc got to my hands, it was out of the envelope. Just adding all the names to the photos must have been a huge task. Reunions are only as successful as the committees, and we both graduated with people who are willing to work hard at it. Not only did it have the reunion photos (3 days--a dinner, an alumni gathering on the campus, and a picnic), but she'd also scanned a large part of the important class photos from the yearbook. We have the '57 yearbook, but many people have lost theirs over the years, so I know they will be thrilled.

BMOC. A class officer. I think I might have been too, however, his high school was larger than my town.



My husband on the far right--credit says they were having a mock political campaign. Looks like it was Ike and Adlai.

My husband always knew he'd be an architect, and Tech was certainly the place to go! Here he is (on the left) with one of his models. I remember this one well. It used to travel around with us from apartment to apartment when we were first married incorporated into a table.

Tech alums are teaching at Lakeside

Duke Low, class of '56, is teaching a poetry class at the Rhein Center this coming week, and my husband, Tech class of '57, will be teaching perspective drawing.





Update: 14 signed up for perspective drawing yesterday, so there will be a lottery (and at a Methodist camp!) for seats in the class; Duke has 5 or 6, which is just perfect for a writing class.

Monday Memories of Memories

The Tech Reunion

The Committee for the Reunion did a fabulous job. From the nametags, to the dinner to the visit to the campus, it all ran smoothly, and we saw lots of old friends and heard many, "Do you remember when we. . ." I do wonder though what's happening to the classes behind us. There was no 25th or 40th for those classes, even though the other years we've attended there have been. Where are the classes of 1967, or 1972 or 1977?

For some reason, we don't have a copy of my husband's senior picture--red hair and sparkling green eyes.

These two friends hadn't seen each other since 1960, and without an announcement, probably couldn't have found each other at the dinner. My husband became an architect and Ron (on the right) became a very successful commercial artist. Now in retirement, they are both painters.

My new Tech friend Barb (on the right) who loves RV-ing, seeing the country, and reads my blog! Check out her reunion site for more photos and memories.

The Tech campus has 76 acres with many new buildings since the 1950s, but this landmark is called Stuart Hall, opened in 1940, named for the first principal. The first students arrived September 11, 1912 and classes began 5 days later.


My husband earned a letter in track and cross country. It is one of the few schools in the country where you could run cross country and not leave the campus.

The class gathered on the steps of the Arsenal Building for their class photo. There were more people at the evening event, and some here that didn't come to the dinner. If I'd been in charge, of course, I'd have asked all the ladies to put aside their purses and papers, and tell everyone to take off their sun glasses. However, no one appointed me to problem solve for the class photo. The Arsenal Building stored military supplies during the Civil War, and today has administrative offices.

The Awards Ceremony was held in Anderson Auditorium (1975), and the Alumni Choir sang below an American flag with 34 stars (found in the attic of one of the buildings).

Three members of The Slobs (social club) standing on the second floor of The Barracks, which at one time was under the command of the U.S. government (which owned the entire site). It was the building in which these guys had ROTC. One of The Slobs, Scott, brought his mom to the Alumni awards ceremony and lunch--a Tech grad of 75 years ago. And she's still beautiful!
Good-bye Tech. Maybe we'll see you 5 years for the 100th anniversary of your founding.

3882

We're on our way

to the Tech reunion. The class meets tonight at a private club, and all the classes get together tomorrow on the campus. That's when we'll see most of the guys my husband hung out with--The Slobs. Arsenal Tech isn't your ordinary school. It's awesome--or was when my husband and his parents attended. Bigger than the town I lived in.

At the last minute, my husband decided to wear his tux--I'm sure he'll be the only one--so I had to change my attire to a dress. But that's fine. We love to dance, and no lady looks graceful dancing in slacks or jeans. They just don't swing. And I have two outfits for tomorrow--one if it is cool, one if hot. Our weather has ranged from 40 to 91 in 48 hours here. And I'm taking along "Digging to America" by Anne Tyler to read in the car, and some old radio shows on CD, so we're all set. The cat, of course, is in hiding, thinking we're going to throw her in the car, but she isn't going on this trip.

Catch up with you later.

3003 Family Living Courses in High School

Although I have no recollection of a course like this in high school, it may have been a component in the home economics course in the 1950s. If you were aiming for college, you took Latin (our only foreign language), math, all the sciences, and the required social sciences--with maybe one or two electives. I had to battle with the principal to take second year typing, but I think typing and Latin were absolutely the most useful courses I had in 12 years of public education--one taught me to read, spell and write, and the other how to get it down in lightening speed. Computers have slowed down my typing speed, but I can't recall a job where I didn't type for some reason.

But back to my point--family living courses. Today I came across an article "Family Life Education Survey" by Reuben H. Behlmer, in Marriage and Family Living, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Aug., 1961), pp. 299-301. What makes it so interesting (to me), it was offered in my husband's high school, Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, which in student enrollment was larger than the entire town where I went to school (76 acre campus with 5,000 students). I asked my husband if he was aware of this course, but he'd never heard of it.


The survey probably came to just the right conclusion for the author to get a grant--that's why people do surveys. But the other perk is you then publish them to pad the resume. Less than half the 950 returned the survey, but of those who did 98.2% said the course should be continued and 67.6% said they would not have received the information any other way, and those who got the information in other ways, said it wasn't very accurate (yeah, I can imagine!) Although the survey didn't provide for comments, they got them anyway, with some of them suggesting it needed to be offered before the senior year--maybe freshman--because values and attitudes about sex were pretty well established by senior year. And to think now they want to introduce sex education around first grade.

I've written about his school before--the 1997 reuions, and The SLOBS (social fraternity).

family life courses, surveys, Marriage research

2417 Today's writing prompt

Our writing group rotates the responsibility for snacks and prompts. Two weeks ago we received the prompt that we read today, and it is on reunions. The prompt writer suggested 14 possible topics, each broken into even more narrow options.

I've written a lot about reunions, so I've really been scratching for something new to say. I've written an oral history that I gave to relatives at a 1993 reunion and I've expanded on the story about how that oral history came about; I've written about a cookbook for a family reunion and about a recipe in that reunion cookbook. I've written about our 40th class reunions; I've written about my husband's club (the Slobs) reunion; I've written about other people's reunions. If I dig around in my files, I'll find a poem I wrote about reunions. I've written about reunions of books and reunion of furniture, long separated. One of the first pieces I had published was about books long separated that had a reunion of sorts in a computer database, Bruce, Norma J. "A Bibliographic Field of Dreams," AB Bookman's Weekly for the Specialist Book World, 94, no.14 (1994): 1290-1302.

Yesterday I was waiting for the washing machine to finish a cycle and pulled a small album of extra photos off the shelves. There were photographs in it apparently that had not been included in our regular album. But like an answer to prompt-prayer, there were photos of the SLOBS (my husband's high school social fraternity) at a mini-reunion at our house. As I recall, we first met downtown at a hotel for lunch. One couple had come from Kentucky, one from Indianapolis, one from Akron, and we of course, live in Columbus. How this was decided, I don't remember, but probably Columbus was central and the nearest for everyone. Then after lunch, we came to our house. This photo of Danny, Duke, Bob and Dick, may not represent everyone who was at the hotel. We all had grown children, some had grandchildren.

SLOBS Reunion at our house
Because these photos are extras, I don't have the dates recorded so I had to narrow it down by hair styles and clothing. Dating photographs is something genealogist do all the time. So using my incredible powers of discernment, I notice that the shelving behind us went into my husband's office in the family room about 1995. I have on a snazzy sweats outfit--the bright colors indicate it had probably not yet been washed. We bought our cottage in the fall of 1988, so this outfit was probably purchased during the summer of 1989. Duke (the tall guy) still has dark hair; he now has white hair. My husband, shorter red head, actually has hair in this photo, which also places the photo in the late 1980s or early 90s. I have a curly perm, which puts it after the summer of 1989. We all seem to have on warm clothing, so I'm placing this as maybe January or February 1990. Later, I'll go look through our albums and see if I can find a date.

My husband was the only one thin enough to get into his letter sweater

561 The Reunion of the SLOBS

Last night we attended the 50th anniversary of a high school social club called the SLOBS (they aren't supposed to tell their wives what the acronym stands for). The club was "chartered" (they kept a scrapbook and minutes of their meetings) in 1954 and my husband was the first pledge. The last meeting appears to have been in 1959 with the class of 1961, the class of 1956 being the largest and most active of the members. This all male club now has female members, the widows of some of the members, some of whom attended wearing their husbands' SLOB pins, and a sister of one member.

Entertainment after dinner was reading from the minutes and the scrapbook which included a lot of paper memorabilia and photos. With a few guys chiming in with the memories, the minutes were really hilarious, and I paraphrase a 15 year old secretary (they changed officers every quarter), "I'm not sure what happened because I was in the kitchen eating sandwiches." After dinner when the guys went in the next room to have their photo taken, I leafed through the scrapbook and found photographs of my mother-in-law who must have been about 39 years old, blond, leggy and glamorous as a movie star, with all the boys at my in-laws cabin in Brown County, Indiana.

I wrote about Arsenal Technical High School in 540 "Two Classes One Reunion," however, I learned last night that after a few years, the boys began pledging guys from other high schools in Indianapolis, like Washington, Manual and Scecina and a some lived out of the district but attended Tech. Considering the distance they all lived from the school (my husband rode a city bus) , a once a week meeting with fines for not attending seems pretty ambitious for a teen-age boys social club.

The schools sponsored many clubs for many interests--but these were under the radar. The main activity of the guy social club was having "exchanges" with girls' social clubs from Howe, Broad Ripple, Shortridge and Tech, and apparently the Indianapolis Star of that era included a column for "subdebs and squires" where they printed up the events the groups had. These little clippings were carefully pasted in the scrap book. The groups had names like PIMZ, CHIX, ZEBZ, SPARKZ, KIMZ, JINX, ZEALZ, PRIMS, MICAS, EBBZ, ALGES, ELITES, HUNZ, TARAS, TYTANS, CROWNS, COUNTS, FAROS, and BARONS. The dues for the SLOBS were a quarter a week, and with this money they had parties, and a few philanthropic events, and even bought one share of stock in the Indianapolis Indians baseball team.

After all the laughs, the men went around the table and in 3 or 4 minutes each told about their lives after high school--and being typical guys, careers were the story, not family, church or hobbies. It was a wide range--two architects, a few engineers, an airline pilot, an actor/poet, a civil war historian you can see on TV, the mayor of the town where we met, television and radio, and sales.

A really nice bunch of SLOBS.

-----------

Update 2007: The 1957 class reunion.

540 Two Classes One Reunion

At the end of the month we're driving to Indiana to attend a reunion of my husband's high school fraternity. I think the last time they got together was about 10 or 12 years ago, although we've seen a few individuals over the years. They all attended Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis. In 1997 I wrote about our 40th class reunions, and how two classes that had been so different 40 years before, had become very similar.

Our Differences

Our schools couldn't have been more different. His school--Arsenal Technical High School--has a beautiful 76 acre campus in the middle of Indianapolis. Founded in 1912 at the site of a Civil War arsenal, its architecture spans a century and a half, from the old officers' barracks and guard house to the concretely ugly contemporary. Its neighboring residential area, once the glory of Indianapolis, was already shabby in the 1950s, but is now experiencing a renaissance. Tech's course offerings from technical to college prep were breathtaking, ranging from stagecraft to orchestral instruments to Greek. The school had 8,000 students when my mother-in-law attended in the 1930s, but was around 5,000 when my husband graduated in 1957. His school was larger than my home town. He says, and his classmates confirm, that they were so well behaved that you could hear a pin drop when the entire student body met for assembly.

Mt. Morris High School where I attended had only 52 graduates in 1957, was even smaller when my father attended in the 1920s, and our school, as a high school, no longer exists. The building is now a junior high school and the senior high students are bussed to Oregon, Illinois, to attend classes with our former nemesis and biggest rival. Its low profile, 1950s style architecture neighbors a retirement center to the east, a cemetery to the west and a cornfield to the south. The only foreign language offered at MMHS was Latin (for which I'm thankful--it's an excellent foundation), and we had no art classes, unless you count "industrial arts." Tech's lunch room staff was larger than our entire faculty! And we were never as quiet and well behaved as those city kids.

Our similarities

Our reunions had more similarities than our schools. Hard working local committees make these class reunions work. If there are no local people committed to the project, it just doesn't happen. The Tech Committee has quite a challenge finding addresses for over 700 people, many of whom have changed names, addresses and careers several times. The MMHS class had a much better rate of attendance with 37 classmates attending compared to 85 from the Tech class of 1957. His class has lost 34 members in death (1997)--that the committee has confirmed. My class has lost four.

Both groups assembled a large table of memorabilia for the reunion--annuals, a confirmation class photograph, snapshots, athletic sweaters, personal items. Tech's publications were a little more slick--they had an award winning school newspaper published by their journalism classes which even after 40 years looks quite professional. The MMHS class, however, had a signature quilt made in 1954 with all our names, our teachers' names and the current slang expressions embroidered on cloth blocks sewn together. That was a far sighted 14 year old who organized that project!

Both classes gathered for a reunion photograph. Bob's group was rather dignified and well-behaved, squinting in the bright sunlight on their beloved campus the day following their evening reunion. My class had a few stand-up comics who played off each other and kept everyone laughing. They must have driven our teachers crazy 40 years ago. The smiles in our MMHS picture taken at dusk in the White Pines State Park, the site of many school-related picnics, certainly weren't forced.

The Classmates

Each class had couples who met in school, dated and then married. The difference is that in Bob's class if you ask, "How did you meet," she might say, "We sat next to each other in zoology." My classmates Sylvia and Nancy and Mary Jane can say they met their husbands in grade school. Our classmates' marriages produced many children and now they are showing pictures of grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. One Tech couple at the reunion needed to hire a babysitter for the grandchild they are raising. One MMHS classmate showed a family picture that was almost half the size of our class.

Tech and MMHS classes both had a girl who was equally a friend to boys and girls, probably not an easy honor then when the preferred status was "going steady." I chatted with Bob's classmate for awhile and knew immediately why everyone in the class loved her. "I wish we'd known each other in high school," I told her (even though she had dated my husband).

On Growing Older

Sad stories were told in both groups. I think I met more guys downsized out of jobs in their 50s at Tech's reunion, although I didn't ask the same questions of my own classmates. Like me, many of the women began their careers after child-rearing and listened with envy to tales of buy-outs and early retirements. At our 25th and 30th reunions, divorce was the major personal loss. At the 40th it was the loss of parents, with at least three of my classmates losing a parent within the past six months. One Tech man told me his father died 13 years ago and he misses him more each day.

Surgeries, cancer, heart medication and portable oxygen kept our groups from getting too frisky. Two Tech men told me about hip replacements and were thrilled to be walking with no pain. One construction worker who had traveled from Florida to be at the Tech reunion proudly showed us his first pair of athletic shoes because after surgery he no longer wears a built up shoe. A Mt. Morris classmate had postponed knee surgery to be there and traveled in pain from California.

When we stopped by the Alumni Dance at the Moose Lodge in Mt. Morris after my reunion, we left after 5 minutes because of the smoke and noise. Nor did we go to the Indiana Roof Ballroom for the Tech Alumni dance. We love to dance, but unlike 40 years ago, these two alumni like our sleep more when facing a long drive home.

One thing was clear at these reunions: success touches us in a variety of ways. All our classmates were successful. Some had achieved the traditional definition--money, power, status or recognition. All the people I met or with whom I renewed acquaintance had overcome adversity, or followed a dream, or achieved a goal, or had provided needed friendship and compassion, or had been a faithful caregiver. The two classes that were so different in 1957 had become one by 1997.

To a real swell guy

There's a nice article on yearbooks and Darilee Bednar, a woman bookstore owner who collects them here. I look to my right and see on my office shelves our little collection of yearbooks, four Arsenal Cannon from my husband's high school, four Mounder from my high school, one from Manchester College which I attended one year, The Aurora, two Illio from the University of Illinois which we both attended, three Life from Mt. Morris College, where my parents, grandparents and uncles attended, as well as the parents of many of my friends, a First Fifty Years 1912-1962, for my husband's high school published in the mid-1990s, and a War Record of the people from my home town from Alberts to Zumdahl who served in WWII, with single page biographies and photos, published in 1947. Yearbooks are a treasure, and I'm glad to learn that someone is making a special effort to preserve them.

On Father's Day this year we had dinner at our son's home. I brought along my husband's high school yearbooks to read to the children what his friends had said about him 46 years ago. We got the giggles reading how many times someone wrote "to a really swell guy," or "hellava swell guy," or "real swell fellow," or "it has been swell knowing you." In my school, we translated "swell" as "dill" and "dilly."

#21 High School letter sweaters

My friend Nancy is amazed that I was able to have a “vintage clothes closet” in our former home of 34 years. No attic. No basement. And the cleanest garage in town in which both vehicles were parked.

Among my vintage clothes is my high school letter sweater. It is a wool, deep red cardigan with tiny moth holes, and no block-letter black “M,” which was probably removed if I wore the sweater in college.

We also still have my husband’s high school letter sweater--a deep hunter green V-neck with a bold white block “T” sewn on the front. The difference being, he was actually an athlete (cross-country) and I was in the pep club. And his high school was larger than my home town.

In the early 80’s it was popular at our daughter’s school for the girls to wear their father’s clothing--blazers, top coats and sweaters. It wasn’t the grunge or the baggy look, but I don’t recall what that fad was called.

One day she wore her dad’s letter sweater to school. She was (and still is) very striking, with a “build” as we used to say. So you can imagine what the boys said about that letter “T” on her chest.

She got a little flustered, and couldn’t remember the name of the high school (Arsenal Technical High School), so she assured the young men that it stood for “Arsenical High.”

It killed them, I’m sure.