Dancing School in Detroit by Gertrude Snow

For two or three years before I got into high school, I went to Mr. Strasburg's dancing school on Friday afternoons. It was in Detroit upstairs on Adams about a block east of Woodward. I would be excused from school early, at two o'clock, then take the interurban into Detroit and walk up to the school. We would be through at five o'clock and I would walk down and take the street car home again. I carried my dancing slippers in a cloth bag and changed into them in the girls' cloakroom.

We learned a wide variety of dances, the waltz and two-step, polkas and square dances, how to curtsy or bow. Music was provided by a piano on the balcony. Mr. Strasburg was a German and he was assisted by his sister, Mrs. Hyde. I remember her son Eric, who was younger than I but attended there too.

I was not a natural dancer and Mother thought it would be good for me. She was right, and I was very glad later that I could dance. My brother Harry started earlier than I and was attending when I first started. We didn't dance together much. He was not a natural dancer either, and he preferred to dance with someone who was better at it than I. He stopped after a year and I kept it up alone. Some of the others from Dearborn attended, too. Edwin, who was eventually to become my husband, did for about a year.

Most of the students were from Detroit of course. There were quite a few in my class -- two lines along the length of a good-sized ballroom. Small children had a special class on Saturday mornings. Some of those that I played around with there were the O'Briens -- two William O'Briens (cousins), Irene and Adelaide O'Brien, Laurence Crawford, and a Marguerite whose last name I have forgotten.

In the middle of the year and again in May, at the end, we would have parties. We dressed up especially for these. Sometimes they were fancy dress parties. I remember one dress Mother made for me of China Silk. She sewed by hand strips of red and white silk together and made the body of the dress. Then she made a little blue jacket with white stars and embroidered around the stars. Once I got into high school, I didn't have time for dancing school, but I had a good foundation in dancing.