Submitted by: Jim
Im a: Former Student
Date: 09/12/2012
Left in 1955 fourth grade - Ms Horner 5 grade teacher? Looking for class pictures 54 - 55 fourth grade!
Submitted by: Peter
Im a: Former Student
Date: 16/05/2008
Lowell-Longfellow later known as Lowell-Longfellow Holmes was a school for the middle class, middle income youngsters living in south Harvey, Illinois. I attended all eight years graduating in the Class of 1955 as Salutatorian. DeLynn Caldwell was our Valedictorian that year. Mr. Frye was our Principal. Mr. Lee Morris was Superintendent of District 152.
My eighth grade teacher was Miss Olga Carlson; seventh grade Mr. Krizmis, sixth grade Miss Ragland, fifth grade Miss Little and first grade Miss Teigel. Can't remember second third or fourth grade names. (And I may have misspelled Miss Teigel's name). Mr. Krizmis was also the basketball coach. Miss Ragland ran the school plays, in one of which, "Green Cheese", I had the male lead (1955).
I remember when the school installed metal escape slides to be used in case of fire. These long two story enclosed tubes were later removed when it was discovered that metal herats during a fire. LOL. But we sure had fun during fire drills sliding down them. Mrs. Kemp was our art teacher.
The school had beautiful wood floors. There was a connecting passae between the building housing the lower grades and that of the upper three. Mr. Frye's office was up a three story staircase. The Gym was a rectangular building which was also used as an auditorium. It had a balcony around three sides about one story high. To reach the gym one had to go through a long tunnel.
There was an outdoor playground area on the Lexington Avenue side of the upper classes building and an even larger one in back along the Myrtle side. The back also had a basketball/tennis court with a very high chain-link fence.
White or chocolate milk was provided at a nominal cost everyday. It was painful if one forgot their "milk money" the day due because it meant no milk for that week. However, milk ordered by any student who was not in class that day was always
presented to a student chosen by lot.
We only had two or three African-American students in our class: Beverly Gunn and Ronald Coleman. Beverly was always well-dressed and proper; Ronald just the opposite. Today one would have recognized that Ronald had severe learning problems; that just wasn't the case back then. It must have been hard on both of them to be such a small minority of two.
Grades were given out as A, B, C, D and the terrible E. The report cards were manila at first, later white. Grades were hand-printed in each of several boxes conraining the name of the subject and running across the card, the time period covered. I think there were six time frames covering the school year. Parents signed the back.
There was a corner store at 157th and Lexington where we all "repaired" to buy candy, small pies in little boxes and other stuff. It was run by John and Della. I think there was another store west of the school too.
Patrol boys chosen from the upper classes donned white cross-chest belts and stood on the Lexington and Myrtle corners of the streets to protect their classmates.
Favorite students were also picked by teachers to go out after school to "dust" the erasers for the next day. All teachers used chalk on the blackboards. It was fun to smack two erasers togetrher generating a large cloud of chalk dust outside. We did not know then that breathing that dust might not be good.
I was very fortunate to have attended Lowell for those eight years. Those were the final hurrah of both the school and the town of Harvey. By the 1970s both were having trememdous problems as an influx of poor people came in from South Chicago "creating" a white flight south and west. Today, unfortunately, Harvey is a broken community and the school buildings dilapidated. What used to be well-kept apartments and private homes along Lexington are now boarded up ruined shells.
The uptown area (154th Street) is full of empty stores and empty lots where stores were torn down and not replaced.
It is sad that the children attending Lowell today do not know just how special the school once was. All that is now just a memory in the minds of a very old generation of folks like me.
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