June 1924 “Islander” — the first Grosse Ile High School yearbook
BY TONY KRUKOWSKI
Sarah Overholt Shields of Maine, who has long family ties to Grosse Ile, recently was going through her late mother’s papers and found a copy of the June 1924 “Islander” — the first Grosse Ile High School yearbook. Looking through the yearbook, I found many interesting facts about those high school students and the school district of that time nearly a century ago:
The faculty consisted of a superintendent, Edmund Bremer, and two high school teachers, Vera Jones who taught history and mathematics and Frieda Harsch, who taught Latin and English and doubled as the principal. Seven other female teachers taught kindergarten through eighth grade, which meant that two staff members taught two grades each.
High school classes were very small. The senior class had 10 students, the junior class had two students, the sophomore class had nine students, and the freshman class had six students. The low number of students in the senior graduating class was attributed to “some dropping out and others attending schools in Detroit.”
The athletic program was very limited. The boys had baseball, basketball, and football. The girls had basketball. Today, high school boys have 14 sports to pick from and the girls have 15.
Apparently, the football team of that senior class only played in 1922. The team had 14 players and finished with a record of four wins, five losses, and one tie. In one notable game against Trenton, Grosse Ile scored a safety and won the game 2 to 0. Other opponents included Dundee, Wyandotte, Ford City (later merged into the City of Wyandotte), Cadieux School of Grosse Pointe, and Detroit University School.
The boys basketball team of 1924 was the first “to represent the school in a full schedule of games.” Their record for that year was 3 wins and 8 losses. A notable win was 12 to 6 against Belleville with close losses to Flat Rock 15 to 14 and to Belleville 13 to 12.
According to the yearbook, “the girls’ basketball team was a little more unfortunate than the boys,’ winning only one game out of eight.” The team only had six student players and so two female teachers were allowed to play on the team.
In the 1924 yearbook senior class Vice President Elenore Van Akin noted that the class “selected blue and yellow as our class colors, but in some way the yellow was changed to gray.” Sometime during the ensuing years, the color blue was also exchanged for scarlet.
The senior class established an alumni association of Grosse Ile High School graduates. They were able to identify 25 former graduates, most of whom lived on Grosse Ile or in Detroit. The alumni who no longer lived in the area had ventured to faraway places such as Ypsilanti and Olivet, Mich. and to Toledo, Ohio.
Some of the advertisers in the yearbook are lost to time such as the Furgason Lumber Company, Pardo Auto Sales, H.S. Amiot — Custom Tailor, and Armstrong’s — all Wyandotte businesses. However, some are still with us in some form such as Westcroft Gardens, R. J. Nixon Funeral Home, and Dodge Brothers Motor Cars-Genthe Brothers. Even Superintendent Bremer had an ad in the yearbook given that he was moonlighting as a representative for Merchant’s Life Insurance Co. of Des Moines, Iowa.
The school calendar lists some interesting events: on Oct. 17, the high school went to see “Romeo and Juliet” at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit. As an aside, the Free Press wrote that “the Garrick was an institution which was really responsible for putting Detroit on the theatrical map.” A notable celebrity, Harry Houdini, gave his final performance on Oct. 24, 1926, at the Garrick. He was suffering from a ruptured appendix, was taken to Grace Hospital the next day with a 104 temperature, and died at the hospital on Oct. 31. The Garrick Theatre closed in 1928, and the building was torn down in 1929. On Jan. 24, the high school held its mid-year examinations in what is described by the yearbook editor as “its usual dismal atmosphere.” The class attended a series of spellbinding movies during the school year on topics such as “The Story of Petroleum,” “Ammonium Sulfate,” and “The Telephone.” Imagine high school students of today attending a movie on “The Cell Phone!” The senior class vice president, in a section of the yearbook entitled “Class History,” also made mention of the fact that “some of the members of the senior class helped to install a radio set in the laboratory and we have heard a good many concerts from Detroit. We had the splendid opportunity of hearing President Coolidge speak at Madison Square Garden. This was formerly denied to many people but we are living in a wonderful age and I believe that we shall yet see more wonderful things.”
This same young lady had already lived through the horrors of the “Great War” and the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Later, she and her classmates would experience the Great Depression and see the world once again in flames in another World War. Hopefully, we will be able to see past this crisis we are currently experiencing and likewise believe that “we are living in a wonderful age and that we shall yet see more wonderful things.”