Memories of Lalor School...continued
by Gale Szajna

The sixties...

Formality of the PTA meeetings continued. Reverend H.H.Hunsberger resigned as PTA chaplin in September 1965 but others did continue to led the prayer.  Helen Catana told me " the Reverend is alive and well and living in Florida".  In the early 60's Grice Middle School opened and our school became kindergarten to sixth grade. One of our teachers, Miss Burrichter became the new Vice Principal of Grice.  Mr.Mitchell retired as our principal but was soon elected to the Board of Education.

My  fondest memories were of the Christmas and spring concerts.  The whole school was  involved.  Miss Nowack was in charge and played the piano.  Mrs. Wellslager seemed to be in charge of costumes (looking back she was quite crafty).  The fourth, fifth, and sixth grade were the chorus.  At least one hundred of us would be on that stage at once on big heavy risers, standing perfectly-no fidgeting allowed.  As a second grader I was one of the angels with a draping white gown, gold foil wings, and glistening halo.  With the auditorium dark we filed in to start the show with lit candles and proceeded up on stage and sang a song.  Lit candles, unbelievable!!!!! 

I  also remember the Safety Patrol.  It was a great honor to be selected to the Safety Patrol.  These were boys and girls in the fifth and sixth grade.  The boys wore canvas badges and served as crossing guards on the corners of Benton, BarntDeKlyn and Bow Hill.  We girls wore a circular metal badge that strapped around our upper arm.  Our posts were the front and back doors and the landings between the first and second floor.  My teachers were Ms.Gregor, Mrs.Wellslager, Mrs.Savko, Mrs. Hornyak, Ms.Nowack, and Mr.May.   Mr.Charles Mitchell retired as Principal when I was in the upper grades.  It was at this time Mr. George Wilson became Principal. I remember both men as kind and approachable (not that I spent much time in their office).


One of our illustrious alumni, who found us through a web search relayed the following as his fond memories:

My fondest memories of Lalor School:

- The assemblies, particularly the annual magic show, where the magician would always refer to the upperclass children as sitting in the 'cheap seats'.

- The Halloween celebrations complete with neighborhood parade (what a
crushing blow when once we hit 3rd grade, we could no longer 'dress-up' that day in third grade- or maybe it just wasn't 'cool' ).

- The cartoons shown on holidays (and the general 'un-political-correctness' of their being celebrated in school at all ).

- Being a captain of the school patrol (what a power trip!). I distinctly remember the 'windmill' swaying arm wave signal and chant we used to communicate to each other from street corner to street corner that our shift had ended ('ALL IN!').

- The little neighborhood store on Bowhill that had a gumball machine which would reward its patrons with the occasional gold foil-wrapped ball, meaning you won a candy bar (thus giving us our early casino training ).

- Playing a popular game in the schoolyard where you throw a ball against the wall and another person would need to catch it before the second bounce. It had a name- 'skyline', maybe?

- The tons of trivia I learned from Miss Nowack in 5th grade- everyday I would return from school and recount the flood of knowledge I had absorbed. I never learned more stuff that I valued knowing from anyone else since.

- The kindness of Mr. May, who though at the time, cast a tall, imposing-looking figure, made learning fun and unintimidating.


N., who prefers to remain anonymous went on to graduate Rutgers University and founded a computer consulting company in Manhattan.  The company has done work for,among others, Fuji Photo, where they developed a photofinishing QC system for their Summer Olympics sponsorship; Pepsi-Cola, where they mentored a group of software developers who were re-engineering the fundamental business operations of the company; Sony Electronics, where they created Sony Modern Rock Live, an alternative rock promo website and most recently, developed and licensed to Sony the internet architecture used in their current product catalog websites. His brother, who also went to Lalor, went on to literally become a 'rocket
scientist' - a few years ago, he was the chief avionics (flight computer electronics) managing engineer for a commercial satellite launch company based in Maryland. He now runs the engineering division for a company that develops and equips aircraft-based reconnaisance and surveillance systems for the government.

Halloween assembly in auditorium 1962

Memories continued...