The Class of ’53
Published 1:22 pm Thursday, October 6, 2005
By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
It was a simpler time, if not exactly the "good ol' days."
Twenty-two members and spouses of Dowagiac's 109-member Class of 1953, as it has done the first Wednesday of every month for years, gathered for lunch at Zeke's Oct. 5.
For dessert, a cake in honor of Olga Haney, who's moving to Ohio.
They converge from across Michiana.
Their lunches forge new friendships as well as renew old acquaintances, Charles Knapp said.
Marie Donker summers at Sister Lakes and lives the rest of the year in the Bahamas. Twenty-nine gathered for lunch in September.
Their school, Central, stands empty, but its uncertain fate doesn't dim their memories.
The year they graduated, Patrick Hamilton and Justus Gage were new elementaries. McKinley expanded.
Future administrator Dex Clough started as a teacher when they started high school in 1949.
In those days "country kids" attended rural one-room schools until ninth grade. Class members all came together for ninth grade at Central in 1949. Craven started school in town at McKinley.
Graduation was an entirely indoor affair on the stage in Central auditorium, although Eleanor Skibbe turned their tassels, too, just as they learned art from Margaret Hunter.
Miss Hunter and shop teacher Lee Neidlinger attended many of their reunions. Their principal was "Skipper" Dorgan, his late son Dick a classmate.
Muriel Burman, the home economics teacher, lives in Portland.
Some of the women keep in touch with her.
When the Daily News celebrated its 50th anniversary on Feb. 6, 1947, Greenwood's picture was published in the commemorative issue as one of its carriers who delivered the newspaper. His daughter, Robin Coffey, is city treasurer.
Craven still remembers getting booted out of study hall. "Somebody," she shoots a look at Greenwood. "Nobody ever owned up to it, but it was either you or Tony Caruso, put a thumb tack on my chair. I sat down on it and screamed and I got kicked out, and nothing happened to the guys. We had our pranks, but not like now. Nobody got hurt."
Knapp remembers getting a break as a farm kid. "Ag guys got to leave school to feed the FFA pigs. That was our excuse when we were playing hookie."
Perhaps the most outrageous stunt of all were the guys who caught cats and sold them to research labs in Chicago for experiments.
A couple of students spent their lunch periods test-driving cars.
Central "was our high school, and we used to walk from there every noon hour to Caruso's and have lunch," Craven said. "We didn't like the school lunches."
So did Kucko. Her dad tired of driving her back and forth to town "because I was in everything. We lived on a farm, but didn't farm, so he got me my license at 14 and I had a car from my grandparents."
Driving tests were rarely administered. If you went over to Cassopolis and your father would vouch to the sheriff that he'd taught everything a girl needed to know behind the wheel of a cattle truck, a license would be issued.
Only once a year, buying back-to-school clothing, would they travel as far as South Bend, Ind., for shopping. "That was a big deal," Craven said. "We got to go out to eat once a year."
They remember a central business district populated by three movie theaters, a five-and-dime, Harvey's, Gambles hardware store and a Dairy Queen.
Kucko fondly recalls the bakery where sticky buns awaited each morning.
Knapp remembers when telephone customers went into the office to pay bills. "When my dad would forget, they'd come out and disconnect it. He'd come in and pay the bill. They'd say, 'We'll come out and reconnect it,' and he'd say, 'Don't bother. I already did.' He'd get the ladder out and hook it back up."
Wives and mothers
After high school Kucko attended Western Michigan University, moved to Illinois, lived with her aunt and did some modeling. She's the exception. Most women of that era settled down and raised families rather than pursue careers.
Knapp remembers coming home from the national FFA convention to find his father had purchased their first television. Saturday nights they listened to radio programs such as "One Man's Family" and "Inner Sanctum," with its sqeaky door. Boxing and wrestling were broadcast staples.
She has four grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. One grandson in particular vexes her with his long hair and punk attire.
So what did Craven do to rebel in her teen years?
One of her friends had a boyfriend in Niles, but they only made it halfway before a flat tire and an agonizing call to her father.
Knapp has been married to Sue for 47 years. "My wife went to County Normal and taught school. My wife's twin brother married my sister. And my brother married another sister, so three of us married three of them - and we're all still married."
Knapp remembers another way he was "spoiled" living on a farm.
As if 12-cent gasoline wasn't enough, he could back his car to the farm pump and fill up. He had a job transporting students in his 1935 Plymouth. "Country schools at that time had to pay for transportation so I got paid to haul three other kids to the high school. I rode the bus when I was a freshman. I started driving when I was a sophomore."
A frequent comment from Class of 1953 members is the discipline instilled by their parents, whose mantra seemed to be, "If you get in trouble at school, you'll be in twice as much trouble when you get home."
Craven missed class once - on "senior skip day" at Warren Dunes.
Her family relocated from First Avenue to Frost Street, a half-mile from Indian Lake Road, "Buses didn't come by and pick us up. We had to walk. You thought nothing of it."
Kucko as a fourth grader at a one-room Decatur schoolhouse walked three miles each way to school. "I often think about walking that far that young," she said. "You wouldn't do that nowadays."