How sweet it was
for Ethan Allen grads

By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer

Jean (Ulmer) Gibson lives in northern California and doesn’t like airplane rides, but there was no keeping her away from a reunion of former classmates at Ethan Allen Elementary School.
"I don’t fly, but my eighth grade reunion is worth flying out to," the Sacramento, Calif., resident said. "I wanted to see all my old elementary school friends."
Gibson is among 35 people who graduated from the elementary school at Robbins Avenue and Battersby Street in Lower Mayfair in January 1952. Most of the grads started together in Miss Finger’s morning kindergarten class in 1943.
Their class never had any reunions, and many in the class had not seen one another since graduating from Abraham Lincoln High School in 1956.
When the Lincoln Class of ’56 held its 50th reunion last November at Somerton Springs, several of the Ethan Allen students were in attendance. They made fast friends again and started to make plans to stay close.
"We recognized each other and it went from there," said Ruth (Knade) Ballentine, who lives in Chambersburg.
The Allen grads who were at the Lincoln reunion exchanged information, and a few of them reached out to others who weren’t in attendance.
They thought it would be great to start their reunion with a visit back to their old stomping grounds. Current principal Jim Serpiello agreed that it was a terrific idea and welcomed back the former students on Friday, even though school is closed for the summer.
Twenty of the graduates made the return trip to the school, and some made side trips to their former houses. Four members of the graduating class have died, while a few could not be located.
A couple of other grads, along with 88-year-old former adviser Sidney Shotz, joined the larger crowd that afternoon for lunch at the Chickie’s & Pete’s on Roosevelt Boulevard. The party continued at Carol (Adkins) McInerney’s home in Huntingdon Valley.
The former classmates had a blast visiting the basement and all three floors of the aging building. They saw the library, nurse’s office, principal’s office, auditorium and classrooms.
"This is how seventy-year-old people are. They get giddy," said McInerney, who brought along old report cards and honor roll pins.
Others brought mementos, too. Arlene (Goldberg) Sobel had her roster and diploma, while Hanni Frank carried old Christmas, Hanukkah and Valentine’s Day cards and the graduation program from Jan. 29, 1952.
Serpiello, the principal, dusted off a plaque that the school’s seventh- and eighth-graders won back then for finishing in first place in the quarter-mile relay at the Penn Relays.
Erika Christy, an incoming first-grade teacher at the school, invited the grads back to speak to her classroom about their life experiences.
The current students will be able to thank their predecessors for donating $300 to help the school paint the auditorium.
The ex-classmates took plenty of pictures, including a recreation of a scene from the play Mother Goose.
They reminisced about dances in the gym, which is now a cafeteria. Back then, all of the students lived nearby in the largely undeveloped neighborhood and went home for lunch.
The grads joked that some of the shades looked like the ones that hung when they were in school and saw the markings on the wood floor where their permanent desks sat. They pointed out that the security bars on the windows weren’t there decades ago.
They recalled some of the students who started with their class, but transferred, including a man who was later jailed for hiring a hitman to kill his wife and business partner.
On wintry days, they used to throw snowballs across Levick Street at St. Timothy School students.
Memories of many of the teachers were fresh in their minds. They remembered Mrs. Green and her heavy perfume and that Mrs. Jackson was a favorite of the boys.
Back then, principal James J. Lamond read from the Bible during assemblies. The students, too, read from the holy book and even sung religious songs such as Faith of Our Fathers.
One teacher, Mr. Walton, would get a bit physical with any student who got out of line. None of that, of course, would be allowed today in a public school.
Looking back, the students agreed that they loved their experience at Ethan Allen.
"We lived in the age of innocence," said Bob Taylor. "It was a wonderful period."
Taylor traveled from Las Vegas for the school reunion and for a get-together at the Buck Hotel with old friends from the 2900 block of Robbins Ave. He was also in town to celebrate his mom’s 96th birthday.
In the 1940s and early ’50s, telephones, computers and televisions were not central to life. Young people played outside.
Two of the favorites in the Allen schoolyard were chink and hoseball, with Taylor joking that there are probably still pieces of hoses on the roof from home runs smacked off broomsticks.
Like Gibson and Taylor, Bob McCracken traveled a great distance for the reunion. He came by boat from West Palm Beach, Fla.
"I’ve been looking forward to this for months," he said.
Arlene Sobel, of Bustleton’s Sun Valley section, didn’t have to travel far for the occasion, but loved every minute of it. She hadn’t been back to Allen since singing there while a member of Lincoln’s choir.
"This was really amazing," she said. ••
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com