Photo by Roger Mc Conochie, date unknown.
The aroma of cleaning fluids has dissipated and the building itself has vanished, hauled off in trucks, fire escape and all. The iconic tree has trapped its last ball in its wide-reaching branches. Perhaps it was cut up and whittled into statuettes of former teachers and students. The grounds have yielded to houses and backyards for residents unconscious of the many human years spent in that orange-brick building. In what is now the air (in classrooms) or under the ground (in the basement with its little gym-floor, stage, and furnace-room retreat of the only male staff member).
A few years ago one of our schoolmates, Roger McConochie, handed me a photo of Mrs. Grant’s first grade class. He and I met at the 50th reunion of the Glenbard West High School class of 1960, an event that included an impressive number of Hawthorne alumni. (He also gave me two colored photographs of the school itself, which I put in a place safe enough that I can’t find them.) As unofficial conservator, I post this series of memorabilia. It supplements my appreciation of Hawthorne School in Along the Waccamaw: A Yankee Discovers a Home by the River (1990).
Floyd, Virginia
September 30, 2013
Here is a note from Nancy Johnson Furey (Glenbard West High School, class of 1960):
I have such fond memories of Hawthorne School, as three generations of my family graced those brick walls and scary fire escapes.
When my father, Bernard, came to this country from Sweden at age six, he lived in a two-room cabin on Crescent Boulevard by the DuPage River just west of Finley Road. He walked from there to Hawthorne and back every day and his favorite teacher was none other than Frances Crisler. Then there was me; thank goodness I only had to walk three blocks. As you know, Miss Crisler was then our principal. A generation later my two daughters were also students there. I was their third grade room-mother and became good friends with their teacher, Mrs. Waytena, with whom I still keep in touch to this day.
Thus a long history and wonderful memories of that special school are with me always. (2013)
Mrs. Alice Grant’s First Grade Class, Hawthorne Grade School,
Glen Ellyn, Illinois (1948-49)
An as-remembered-roster follows the class photograph. Pupils were identified by Roger McConochie with the help of Randall A. Wells and probably Marjorie Craddock & Alan Grindal, 2010. Corrections or further identifications are welcome. randallawells@yahoo.com
Back row, left to right:
- Linda Miller
- Sandy Alabaugh
- Bonnie McChesney
- Nancy Johnson
- Karen Stevens
- Sandy Cottingham
- Mary Lynne Marquess
- Unknown
- Betty Kutilek
- Unknown
Middle row:
- Stuart Stone
- Unknown
- Jim Weissenborn
- Art Langeloh
- Dick Fauquet
- Tom Hollinger
- Dan Boyer
- Peggy Williamson
- Anne Moore
- Mrs. Alice Grant
Front row:
- Craig Standen (?)
- Stuart Dunkel
- Unknown
- Unknown
- Roger McConochie
- Jim Wright
- Wayne Winder
- Lee Lantz
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