Dearborn -- school in the village c 1906-1916

Marie remembers:

Each room had two grades in it and it was often more interesting to listen to the class ahead than to be studying our own lessons. Tuesdays were special as the singing teacher came. Miss Lorsch came from Detroit and I can see her in my mind's eye as she stood in front. She was a fine looking woman and she was a fine teacher. The high school was one big room made by having two rooms made into one. Our English teacher, Miss Batchelor, was a very good teacher and I can still remember when she had us reading Chaucer and how well she would explain it to us. And she helped us to appreciate Shakespeare's plays.

When I was in high school a commercial teacher was hired and we used the attic for a small class room. There was a steep stair to go up and a trap door and a ladder going down to a closet off the big high school room. One day during classes there was a great commotion. Dorathea Blankertz had fallen through the open trap door, bringing pans, buckets, etc. with her. The teacher rushed to open the door and out emerged Dorathea apparently none the worse for the fall.

Most of the boys dropped out of school by the tenth grade. There were ten in my graduating class (1916) -- and only one boy. The high school was not accredited so anyone going on to college had to go to Detroit to high school. Some students went to the normal school to prepare for teaching. As with most schools, some of our teachers were gifted and many were not well qualified.

Ivadel remembers:

Across the daisy-covered field at Howe and Michigan, my friends Arline and Doratha Hall came from their home on the corner. In the early summer strawberries ripened close to the ground in the area where the pretty white and yellow daisies swayed in the breeze. Sweet clover made a wonderful jungle in a part of this field. We followed a path down Garrison to Military, then a narrow wooden sidewalk to the school that stood in the middle of the block where the Adams Junior High School now stands.

There were few homes along the way and the area on the corner of Howard and Garrison was often covered by water in the spring. Pussy-willows grew there in abundance and we gathered them for our teacher on our way to school.

The school was built on a terrace about five or six feet high and in the winter we made slides down the inclines and spent our recesses sliding down, much as the children enjoy the metal slides today.

The school had seven rooms, four on the first floor and three on the second, the high school occupied one large room made by combining two rooms. Windows extended along two sides of each room but as there was no artificial light you can imagine how difficult it must have been for the children to work when we had a cloudy day or when the days were short in the winter. The desks were fastened to the floor so we could not move them near the windows. We hung our wraps on high racks in the center of the halls. What a privilege it was to be allowed to ring the bell; the rope hung in the upstairs hall.

There was no running water in the building, so we went to the iron pump that was near the spot where the Salisbury school now stands. Our toilets were in the basement but there was no way to flush them.

The graduation exercises were held in the Methodist church, and it was enough for the small classes that we had in those days.

The Rouge River, Bob-Lo & Belle Isle before WWI

Here are some of Ivadel's memories of her childhood in Dearborn. Born in 1898, she began with quoting a stanza from a poem by Laura Van Dore.

"The sound of wheels, the beat of hoofs
Would travel far and clear,
As from the bridge that spanned the Rouge
The loosened planks we'd hear." -- Laura Van Dore

Ivadel:

Yes, the old bridge planks did rattle and the bridge on Military was replaced in 1910 by an iron bridge and later by a cement bridge, 1919. This bridge was removed in 1936 and the present bridge was built.

You may not think of the little stream as it is today as a river, but then it was much bigger, at least it seemed so to a child. The picnic spots were the Rouge River banks. We often had steak roasts there in the evening. Someone would go ahead to build a fire and as we approached we could see the welcoming flames shooting up. Perhaps on the very spot Indians had built a fire on which to roast a deer or cook fish that they had caught in the river so nearby. These roasts usually ended with everyone joining in singing and storytelling.

The high point of our summer was the trip to Bob-Lo or Belle Isle. We planned and saved our money for weeks and when it was over, we told and retold our experiences, the swimming pool, dance pavilion and contests won. We left home early in the morning with a lunch fit for a king packed in a basket, and returned home about nine o'clock in the evening. The interurban was our means of transportation to the boat and home again.

Sulfur Springs & St. Joseph's Retreat in Dearborn

Note: This letter was written in response to Katherine's request for Dorotha's memories of growing up in Dearborn. It is addressed to Katherine throughout. It is excerpted.

Dorotha remembers the Village of Dearborn in the early 1900's:

North of Dearborn on Military Avenue there was a sulfur spring near the River Rouge which erupted coninually with the most gosh awful smelling sufur water. Folks from Detroit would take the interurban street car out to fill bottles of the stuff -- for medicinal purposes I guess.

West of Dearborn on Michigan Avenue was St. Joseph's Retreat run by Sister Borgia. We loved her and she didn't seem to mind how many times we would walk up with some friend to show what the Retreat was like. The reason we had such an "in" I think was because of grandfather's connection with her. [Grandfather was Elba Howe of what is today Howe-Peterson Funeral Home] When anyone passed on, she would call grandfather, being the only undertaker (now mortician) in town regarding arrangements and such. Each Christmas Sister Borgia would send down to us the biggest most beautifully beribboned box of candy I ever saw.

The Retreat was sort of an AA I think because some would come out there with a drinking problem, as well as those border-lined depressed persons. I remember one good looking fellow coming to the screen door one hot summer afternoon asking if we minded his playing our piano. He played some of Faust Opera and left after mother gave him some lemonade. No one seemed to be afraid in those days. Mother said one time she thought our house must be marked in some way because so many tramps stopped at the back door for food.

Further west were the towns of Inkster and Wayne. The latter place was where mother had to take us on the interurban to the dentist. They didn't have the painless techniques they have now. Enough said.

East of our home on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Howe Street, you walked on planked sidewalks toward town, passing the old Schloss homestead on the corner of Military Avenue and Michigan Avenue. As I remember Mr. Schloss had a large department store further on in town. Later on, Mr. MGreachy, the banker, live there and I remember hearing one day he couldn't locate his little son only to find he was right under his avoirdupois stomach.

Center of town there was the usual meat market where the butcher always gave away the livers and soup bones and always gave us a wiener to eat when we purchased meat. then there was Lapham's Hall, a block off Michigan Avenue where the big boys like your Uncle Harry, your father Edwin, my brother Richard, Charlie Lathers (who later played baseball with the Detroit Tigers) and others played basketball on Saturday nights. We would stand up around the narrow balcony to watch. In this day and age it would be condemned as unsafe because it was far from the legal size and every time the boys would run up against the wall with a bang, the old building would shake and groan. We thought it was hilarious.

That was where the dances were also held. A little further on was the Wagner Hotel run by a Mr. Schultz (I think), a lovely wife and two beautiful daughters. I remember grandfather Elba telling about a dinner Mr. Schultz gave for a favored few after being questioned about wine, saying he could give a dinner with a different wine for each course and no one would feel the effects. And he did, but I question the effects part.

South of Dearborn on a hill was the Snow home. I will never forget those pleasant memories. Your grandmother and my mother were the best of friends. The Snows had a cow, which we didn't, and your grandmother woud invite mother, my sister Arline and I up for eggnogs. Mother would hitch old Doll, our horse, and away we would go. They were delicious.

Iceskating on the Rouge River

Marie and Ivadel remember the same incident c 1908:

Marie's story:

We lived at the corner of Garrison and Military and beyond the Rouge River there were only farms. We went coasting down the Long [family named Long] hill in the winter and skating on the Rouge.

One New Year's Day my two brothers, Ivadel Moore, Jessie Long and I went skating. It was a sunny day but the river was well frozen except for one spot at a turn where the sun hit the ice and it was "rubber" ice. Each time we would over it with our hands on the shoulders of the skater in front of us. It would give a little more until finally it gave way and down we went in the water!

My older brother got me to the shore and gave me a branch of a tree to hold on to, my younger brother was trying to swim and somehow we all scrambled to safety. Tom Long stood back at some distance and laughed and laughed. His sister started up the hill with her skates on. Tom kept calling to her, "Jessie, take off your skates!" but she would just groan and go on. We were a bedraggled looking group as we hurried home.

Mother dumped us in a tub of hot water, one after the other, including Ivadel Moore, wrapped us in bathrobes and fed us. We played games and had a fine time most of the day.

Ivadel's story:

In winter the river was frozen over and many of us learned to skate on its winding icy trails. I remember well the New Years Day in about 1908 when the three Van Dore children and Jessie Long and I were skating just east of the Rouge bridge where the big tree is broken off and bends over the river today. We were holding each other by the waist in column fashion and as we neared the tree I remember calling out "It will break, it will break!" The next thing I knew I was pulling the others out of the icy water.

The youngest boy, Wade, was being held up by his clothing or swimming, I am not susre, but we all survived. Jessie, who lived at the top of the hill, and still does, wore her skates all the way home and sort of groaned as she climbed the hill.

Memories of the River Rouge in old Dearborn

Ivadel (born 1898, grew up near Michigan Ave & Miltary):

The lowland along the Rouge was affectionately called "the Flats." Here we picked violets, spring beauties and adder tongues in the spring and wandered along the waters edge at all seasons of the year. Stepping stones had been placed across the stream in back of the [St. Joseph's] Retreat and we often spent happy hours there rearranging the stones. If we had had to lift such heavy weights at home, I am sure we could not have done it.

Henry Haigh wrote in his "Latter Days in Dearborn," "It was about the right kind of a stream for a boy -- a raging torrent in springtime when the freshet was on, but at other times a babbling brooklet over which in places one might almost jump."

One experience of the raging torrent I remember well. The boys of the neighborhood had gone swimming as soon as the ice was out of the stream and my brother, John, was among them. The current was swift and Hoyt Travers was being carried down by the surging water. John, who was much stronger and taller, grabbed him as he was yelling for help. There were probably many other episodes that were not told.

My mother had forbidden my brothers to go to the river but they were drawn to the water, just as most youngsters are today.

Dorotha (born about 1900, grew up at Michigan Ave & Howe St):

We had..a small duck pond where each Sunday the neighbors (four I think) would drive their children to the River Rouge a few blocks from the house for a good swim. We never minded the trouble it took to get them out of the water and on the way home again.

Marie (born about 1900, grew up near Michigan Ave & Military):

Dearborn was a wonderful place for children at the turn of the century. Looking back it seems like a different world after the first world war.

Each season brought its special delights. Most of the children went to the only public school. We all walked to school and most of us home again for lunch. We looked for the first signs of spring -- the pussywillows growing in the swampy land near the school, the first spring beauties, and after the usual spring flooding of the Rouge River, went on violet-picking excursions down on the "flats." We made May baskets to hang on doorknobs on the first day in May.

Michigan Ave in Dearborn c 1910

Born in 1898, Ivadel wrote this about Michigan Avenue in Dearborn:

My first memory of Michigan Avenue was not the ribbon of concrete it is today. It was almost impassable during some seasons of the year. It was a dirt road as far as Lonyo Street in the west side of Detroit and I remember how the farmer's horse seemed to enjoy trotting along the hard surface when it reached the pavement.

Michigan Avenue had been a plank road on which a toll was collected. This road was opened through Dearborn in 1850. The plank road did not prove successful because the planks sank in places and repairs were too costly to make the project pay.

After a few years gravel was used to resurface the road and until 1910 this type of road existed through Dearborn. Then paving was started in the eastern part of town and by 1913 concrete had been extended to the western limits of the city. [Dearborn]

All other streets of the village were dirt with shallow ditches alongside to carry the water off. In west weather water often covered the roads and spread over into the adjoining property. In fact, we often skated between the corn stubbles where Sacred Heart church now stands. We had many open places for play in those early days.

Dorotha is introduced

Dorotha is introduced. She was a descendant of the Howe in Howe-Peterson Funeral Home and wrote this about 1982. She was responding to a letter from Katherine asking her to write down her memories of growing up in Dearborn. She would have been in her 80's.

Dear Katherine:

We had a lovely childhood -- Ivadel, Marie and I -- and Marie never writes but mentions about it and how grateful we should be to have had such. We were brought up by the Golden Rule, "A man's word was as good as his bond." There might be a war with Japan in the far, far future and we must think of the starving Armenians and eat all the food on our plates.

As a small town it was closely knit in that everyone was interested in everyone else. We lived on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Howe Street (named after grandfather). A row of maple trees lined Howe Street which were bored with spigots and pails hung to catch the syrup which was later gathered and processed in a huge cauldron out in the orchard west of the house. I have yet to taste syrup such as that.

Also I have yet to taste the delicious Northern spy apples that we put down in barrels in the cellar each year to bring up during the winter to eat with popcorn before a roaring fire in the fireplace.

(to be continued)