I have been particularly interested in the schools of my youth. For more than 50 years, I have avidly sought anything and everything relating to my Kuser grammar school and Hamilton High school. Today, with the incredible changes which have transpired in public education, a look back at what I term "the golden years of education" proves to be quite interesting. Two of the most extensive folders in my local history collection revolve around my very happy years as an alumnus of Kuser Grammar School, and Hamilton High School, or as we call it today "Hamilton West." Indeed over the last 25 years, I have written numerous columns on my happy years as a student in the Hamilton Township educational system.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteI am a "graduate" of of Greenwood School 8th grade in June 1950, and I expected to attend HHS in the fall. But, my father was transferred to the Woodbridge, NJ area and graduated from Woodbridge HS in 1954. I had no contact with any of my Greenwood friends since I departed Hamailton Township in the summer of 1950. Our mutual friend, Alan Wildblood, tried to put me in contact with Jill Bebee, who was a classmate of mine at Greenwood, through her older sister, who may have graduated HHS with you in '51. That contact attempt did not work out, since I never heard back from Jill or her sister.
I have many, many happy memories of my first 16 years in Hamilton Township and Trenton! I wish I could meet you some time and discuss them. Perhaps we could do it on ham radio, sometime. My callsign is W4AA, but I very rarely work phone -- strickly CW!
Somehow, I got hold of a HHS 1954 graduation program, but that saw many of my Greenwood classmates were missing from the list of graduates -- many more than one might expect to be set back.
That finding left me very puzzled and caused me to do more research. I thought there might possibly have been another HS they may have attended, but the only possible one I came up was the Catholic HS, which I have never been able to check.
Through Classmates dot com I am able to find several Greenwood classmates from my then immediate area did not go directly to HHS, they seem to have gone to "Kuser Annex" for one year before transferring to HHS. I lived on Scammel Avenue, and classmate Parker Renelt lived on Joan Terrace (where Ernie Kovacs was frequently spotted) one street west of me. I know you must be familiar with those two streets, since they are just about across the street from the Township Building/Library.
All of my relatives on my father's side are buried in Greenwood Cemetary. I visited their graves last in 2014, when I returned to the area to attend my Woodbridge HS 60th reunion. I hate to admit that I was very disappointed to what found in the entire area between Olden Avenue and the old Fairgrounds (where I used to cool down the trotters and pacers after their workouts, combe the grounds on July 5th looking for unspent fireworks, and did a 24-hour on-air marathon with Ernie Kovacs; the fairgrounds was an easy walk of bike ride for me!)
Another Ernie Kovacs memory -- his Friday night singalongs at the RKO Lincoln, on Warren Street, I think it was. My mother, who worked at Bell Tel on State Street, loved taking me to the movies! Before, or between, movies, on Friday evenings, the organist would play old, familiar tunes, and everyone would sing along. While that was going on Ernie would walk the aisles and talk with the patrons. I would always ask my mother to get to the theater early, so I could grab an aisle seat and talk to Ernie!
Believe me, I could go on, and on about those very happy early days in Trenton, like, for example, how and where I bought my first radio -- a crystal radio kit, which led to me to my 69 contnuous years as a radio amateur!
Before I close, I have one request: could you please explain what happened to my missing Greenwood classmates, why some went to Kuser Annex, and were there any other seemingly "unusual" situations like that between the then many Hamilton Township "middle schools" and HHS. Was HHS the only HS in the Township at the time?
Sorry for the length of this comment, but as I said earlier I could go on, like for example, correcting you on some facts about Palombi's Grocercy Store on the corner of Joan Terrace and Greenwood Ave, and lack of any mentions of Thompson's Restaunt. The Thompson family lived next to us in the attached duplex house -- shared front porch, but with a rail and screen down the middle.
On and on.....
73, Art Wildblood, almost HHS '54