If you unclick all of the boxes except Layer One: Hyde Park High School District, you will see the lines of the district, that extended from 43rd St. to 71st St., and from the lake to Cottage Grove. This outline is based on the testimony of our fellow classmates. I have been unable to find any documentary evidence of “official” school boundaries for 1952-56 Chicago. Before Benjamin Willis became Superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools in 1953, a relaxed atmosphere at the Chicago Board of Education did not investigate where students actually lived. Under Willis, school districts were more defined and after 1956 students were not allowed to attend schools outside of their district. Happily, our class was not restricted by the new policy.
In June of 1952, between our grade school and high school years, Arthur P. O’Mara became the new Principal of Hyde Park High. He was a former math teacher and elementary school principal and before Hyde Park High he was as an Assistant Principal at Lane Tech. The Assistant Principal was Ralph Small.
In 1952 Hyde Park High contained about 3,000 students, a number that would remain steady for the next four years. Our class in September of 1952 comprised 533 students and in June of 1956 graduated 354. Of our graduates, 253 attended all four years while 43 came in only for our senior year. The big change in our class came between our sophomore and junior years when 105 students did not make the next year. Where did they go and why? Some families moved away and some students probably transferred to Chicago Vocational School or to Catholic Schools. But it is also true that in Chicago you could quit school at the age of sixteen, and I think that this might have been a major cause of the difference. Jobs were plentiful in Chicago. My friend Penny Ryan, a White Christian who lived with his mother in a basement apartment in Woodlawn, quit school and went to work for Continental Can. By our senior year our class was 6% Asian, 39% Black, 33% Jewish, and 22% White Christian.
On the categories Black, Jewish, White Christian, and Asian: I deliberated and discussed with others whether to use these terms. Obviously some students did not quite fit. Should I have had a category for Greek students? There is no Hispanic category for someone like Juanita Nayla. Until Alice Newman told me, who knew that Robert Tafel was a Swedenborgian (look it up!) and probably should have had a category all his own. All categorization is flawed, but this was the best I could do.
In 1955 Arthur O’Mara had left the school and the new Principal was Neal Duncan, who had been Principal at Calumet High. He lived in LaGrange, commuting from the suburbs
Students came to Hyde Park High in the years 1952-56 not only from the diverse neighborhoods that made up the school district but also from other places outside the district, qualifying Hyde Park High as a “magnet” school although that term was years in the future (see map: students, click again and see race and ethnicity). The school had a reputation as one of the best, if not the best, public high school in Chicago and parents ambitious for their children figured out ways to get them there. Some parents found relatives in the district, some moved into the district for the sake of their children, and some made up addresses. The “magnet” students in our class—Black students from the west and north of the district and Jewish students from south of the district–contributed to the quality and liveliness of our school years. Our most famous classmate, the jazz musician Herbie Hancock in his autobiography Possibilities writes:
I had skipped a grade in elementary school, so I was young for a freshman—just twelve when I first set foot in the halls of Hyde Park. We weren’t really supposed to go to school there, since we didn’t live in Hyde Park’s district, so my mother was determined to send us there. We had an aunt and uncle who lived in the right district, so my parents used their address when they enrolled us.
There was a general feeling among our classmates that we were getting the best education available to public school students in Chicago. There were of course some mediocre teachers, but also some inspiring ones
When Jerry Ramsfield was hired in 1953, his salary was $3800 (comparable to about $35,000 in today’s money) but he supplemented his teaching income as Director of Music for Youth at the United Church of Hyde Park on 53rd Street. Teachers in the Chicago Public Schools during the 1950’s were very poorly paid and many supplemented their incomes in various ways.
There was an honor society and honors classes, clubs for French and German and creative writing. Seven of our classmates traveled to Roosevelt University each week for an advanced calculus class. In the state Latin contest Alice Newman and July Burleigh took top honors, in the state mathematics tournament Ben Cohen and Richard Newman placed second and third out of forty-six contestants, Ted Davidson won the grand prize at the citywide Science Fair and Robert Gerwin placed second. In 1955 Neal Duncan, the Principal, wrote an article for The Hyde Park Herald on the academic accomplishments of the school, “classes were organized for the above-average student.”
Duncan was responding to the criticisms coming from the President Lawrence Kimpton of The University of Chicago and Julian Levy, who was in charge of the area urban renewal. The University was in the process of raising seven million dollars for an expanded Laboratory School. Kimpton claimed that public education in Hyde Park, including the high school, had “deteriorated to the point where families in the area will not send their children to them.” Levy urged that a new private high school should be built in Hyde Park because “Our knowledge of the juvenile situation underlies our concern for better high school facilities.” In 1953 University of Chicago Professor Philip Hauser wrote “Hyde Park High School will be unable to accommodate the area children who will reach high school in the next three years.” On August 27th 1955 The Hyde Park Herald printed critical quotes from Hyde Park High students: “Teachers are too old-fashioned, they don’t allow freedom of discussion” and “Too many of our classes are run on a grade school level.” Students complained that the school was overcrowded, that the building “seems to be falling apart.” “Books don’t have covers” “Students should not be dropped for being tardy four times.” “Girls should be allowed to wear blue jeans.”
Yet in 1955 and 1956 The Hyde Park Herald, already critical of the university for the urban renewal project, vigorously defended Hyde Park High. In June of 1955 Mitzi Bergman and Jack Guthman, editors of The Hydeparker, wrote in The Hyde Park Herald that Kimpton’s belief that people were fleeing our neighborhoods because of the poor schools was “grossly exaggerated.”
On the contrary, if the racial harmony in the high school was carried out in every aspect of community living, there should be no mass exodus from this area. We believe fear of sending children to Hyde Park is an excuse for inability to live next door to one’s neighbor or sheer ignorance of the facts…./At Hyde Park High/ an aspiring leader doesn’t feel self-conscious because of his race or religion…..Hyde Park is proud of its homogeneous student body.
In September of 1955 editor Adeline Diamond of The Hyde Park Herald visited the school and reported
As I entered the building…I was impressed with the overall picture of a clean, well mannered and well run and alert school….I was impressed with the bright appearance of the school with its new system of florescent lights and the recent wall cleaning throughout….the school provides a differentiated program which enables each student to find his pace to achieve as much with his ability as he can. Everywhere we went we saw clean, well mannered, neatly dressed students.
She also went on to observe: “I saw a racially mixed student body peacefully, quietly and with some zest going about the business of getting an education. As far as I could tell there are representatives of all racial groups in all of the school sponsored activities.” In March of 1956 Mary Frances Harms was featured for her Girl Scout Brotherhood essay. In May of 1956 Adeline Diamond invited Ruth Knight and Roberta Feldstein to edit The Hyde Park Herald for one issue.
Our most courageous classmate was Diane Nash, who became an important civil rights activist and a leader of the civil rights movement. In high school she was unassuming and polite and even when she became a famous activist she refused to create a cult of personality around herself. She was jailed dozens of times, risked her life as a Freedom Rider and was instrumental in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. At a recent meeting I asked her how her time at Hyde Park High had influenced her life, and after a pause she said, “It showed me that different kinds of people could live together peacefully.”
All of the classes and activities at Hyde Park brought students of diverse backgrounds together, but three deserve to be singled out: Music, Sports, and ROTC.
Music is a universal language that transcends social and racial identity and the making of music brought us together at Hyde Park High School, where there were Boy’s Choirs, Girl’s Choirs, A Cappella Choirs, Bands, and Orchestras.
There was also a lively informal music scene, animated by Herbie Hancock and Don Goldberg, plus various informal vocal groups.
Herbie was already a well-known musical prodigy in Chicago when he entered Hyde Park and in his Autobiography he wrote of the influence of Goldberg. “I began to spend a lot of time talking to the few other kids at school who were into jazz, including Don Goldberg and a French horn player named Ted Harley. They were both good musicians. Don went on to become a professional composer and arranger, changing his name to Don James and working on big shows….”
When we were Sophomores Hyde Park High hired Jerry Ramsfield for the music department and he became the choir director. Jerry had been the director of music at a church in Austin, Texas and director of the Standard Oil Male Chorus. He quickly became one of the most charismatic faculty members at the school,and brought together all of us with his musical enthusiasm. I was in the Boy’s Choir and then in the A Cappella Choir and I can still remember Ramsfield trying to get us to attack the song Oklahoma! correctly.
The second activity that brought the school together was sports. Our football stars were Ken Bobrow and Chuck Frencha. There was widespread enthusiasm for basketball. Our Freshman team wasn’t much, but in our Sophomore year players like Jim McClure joined the team, and by our Junior and Senior years, under the coaching of Chet Zimba, we competed for the championship of the Chicago school league We lost the final game to Dunbar High in our senior year, but it had been a great season. I went to every game, home or away, that year. I remember driving to a game in Benton Harbor, Michigan with Jean McFadden in a driving blizzard. At many away games such as those at Pullman and DuSable the diverse Hyde Park High fans stood out as something different.
The third activity that united us as students was the ROTC program. However, I didn’t have any experience with this program and would welcome some contributions here.
How much did our four groups—Blacks, Jewish, Asian, White Christians—outside of school activities interact with each other? We were not holding hands and singing Kumbaya,, but there was genuine respect and concern for each other. There were certainly out of school friendships and there was some dating between the four groups that comprised the students. How widespread this was is an open question. For the most part each group had its own social life, the White Christians in the Hi-Y’s and Tri-Hi-Y’s at the YMCA, Black students at the Boys and Girls Clubs and fraternities and sororities, and Jewish students in their fraternities and sororities. Within each of these groups existed a social hierarchy, with some fraternities, sororities, Hi-Y’s and Tri Hi Y’s seen as more prestigious than others. My older brother had been in Drake Hi-Y and I became a member, but by my senior year its membership had dwindled so I was not a member of anything.
One of the striking aspects of our class was how many of us ended up as members of the helping professions as doctors, nurses, teachers, and social workers. We need much more information about ourselves, and I am asking you to go over the following data sheet, make corrections, and send me information about grade schools, future education and occupations; not only about yourself, but about classmates you remember. There is a comment form at the bottom of the “Introduction” page, please use that to submit comments and suggestions.
Despite the racism and segregation that characterized much of America in the 1950’s, there was also a belief, especially among progressives, that was basically optimistic and universalist, a “brothers under the skin” and “family of man” ethos. The famous photo book The Family of Man was published in 1955. I would argue that among many students this was the dominant mood at Hyde Park High from 1952 to 1956 and for certain it was my dominant mood by the time of my senior year. I will go further: Hyde Park High School was my refuge and the place where I felt most “at home.”
Comments:
From the Editor: In October 1952 the senior girls put on the traditional “Freshie Frolics” that they called “Jungle Jamboree” featuring sailors landing on a jungle island to for an island queen who will be “Freshie Queen.” I could not find out who was selected. I do not remember it and I am wondering if any of us remember it.
Anonymous: “I was quite close in High School to /name deleted/. She stepped out of the tight South Shore Jewish female cliques to be my friend senior year.”
From Jean McFadden: “I just read an excellent history book….It is Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilderson. It follows three people who migrated north from the south and what happened in the north. I think we were incredibly sheltered and naïve.”
Herbie Hancock, Possibilities: “The first time I ever met a white kid was in high school. At my elementary school, Forestville, all the students were black….My head was full of the stories my dad had told me, so when I went to school on the first day of freshman year, I fully expected something to go down. I was primed for a fight, but to my surprise, the white kids turned out to be….just kids. I went running home after that first day of school, and as I burst through the door to our apartment, I yelled, “Mama! Mama! They’re just like us!”
Steve Bailey: “Frank Collins and I were roughed up by Blacks in the Harper Street tunnel.” (Steve also remembers Jesse Owens coming to speak at Hyde Park.)
Anonymous: “Some students believed that Vice-Principal Small tried to hurt himself by hitting himself in the head with a hammer!”
Tony Spencer: “After my Mom and Dan separated, I moved to Morgan Park and commuted to Hyde Park. I was in Delta Hi-Y and hung out with Dorothy Anderson, Alice Newman, and Mary Francis Harms.”
Julia Harden Clay: “Some of the African Americans expressed how much racism they were victimized with by the teachers, One teacher told a Black female student,when she questioned why her grade was a C and not a B (or whatever the equivalent was) because she knew she had earned it, the teacher responded that she didn’t give any nigger more than a C. It deeply affected her life…. Hyde Park High School was so huge and drew from so many different neighborhoods, and cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds that many of us clung to our grade school friends. After school, some of us joined YMCA clubs with our neighborhood friends; others joined sororities and fraternities with theirs. (As far as clubs were concerned, I was only aware of what whites were doing. There may have been, but I don’t remember girls of color in the Tri-Hi-Y’s.) On the weekend, we attended the same religious institutions we had as children. As the years went by, through classes and extra-curricular activities, and no doubt maturity, some of us did begin to expand our circle. In junior year, I began to inch out of my comfort zone to socialize in school and somewhat after school with students from other neighborhoods. That’s when I experienced the true benefit of HP. I know now that HP was unique in the 1950’s. Where else in America were high school students mingling culturally, racially and ethnically as many of ours did at HP? We were so lucky….Although we were friends at school, families were often not comfortable with school friends of different backgrounds….At school poverty /of some/ was obvious. In homeroom, in particular, I was thrown with a wider range of students than in my classes…we were untracked by ability (or supposed ability). I was one of the few on the college track. I learned quickly that I came from privilege. I tried not to reveal how different my life outside of school was. It was there, that I became acutely aware and affected on a personal level of the deprivation of many of my fellow classmates.
Lesley Dahlin Shapiro: “It seems after our sophomore year, many students dropped out. Perhaps, because our class was smaller, people tended to pull together.”
Alice Newman Mulberry: “Miss Gillogly, the Latin teacher, obviously had a strong influence on me because I took four years of Latin and participated in the Illinois State Latin Tournament for all four years…Because of my family’s status I was able to meet kids from other mostly private schools which helped my social life (Most guys at Hyde Park did not seem to want to date the state Latin champ)…..I was not at all prepared for the social situation at Hyde Park and my freshman year was a difficult one for me socially…I was not invited to join any tri-hi-y….In the first two years the class was split along ethnic, religious, and racial lines but in the last two years we became more mellow and the lines were blurred.”
Roberta Rosenstein Siegel: “I was feature editor for the Hypeparker and earned a Quill & Scroll—had fun with that—especially when I got to go downtown to the Palmer House Hotel to a HS group press conference with HARRY BAELAFONTE! I loved him!! (Still am a groupie—now that that word exists!)…..And I really had a fun time on the Washington trip during my sophomore year spring vacation. Amazing , and shocking, to learn as we were planning this reunion that so many classmates, in particular the Black kids, did not know about this extra-curricular trip. They couldn’t go, because of segregation in DC and VA and on the trains, buses, etc ? /Editors Note: That trip was privately sponsored, not an official school activity/…..When I got to college, I thought that many of the people I met had very limited exposure to knowing so many kinds of students in HS, and therefore narrow views, often prejudicial, towards those unlike themselves….I think my experience has made me more receptive to accepting others and appreciating our differences.”
Anonymous: “Once at a DuSable football game, large crowds of DuSable students who were Black started to beat up several of us. But it was stopped by some Hyde Park students who were also Black. It was after that I realized the benefits of living in the real (multi-cultural) world.”
Anonymous: “I was in ROTC and in the Choir. They were both very influential in my growth. ROTC for the organized discipline and teamwork. The Choir was a terrific socialization experience. Working on the Aitchpe was also very interesting and a great learning experience.”
Dorothy Anderson Faller: “The guy who taught history slept through all our classes. How did he get away with it? Didn’t we all love Jerome Ramsfield? A Cappella choir was a highlight….I felt that our multicultural exposure occurred much before Hyde Park High School because the community of Hyde Park itself was so diverse. I thought that the whole US was like our community until I left the community and was totally shocked.”
Bob Howard: “Positive influence was Ms. Bronski in biology, the assistant librarian because she was black, Mr. Zimba my basketball coach and Mr. Ramsfield music teacher. Negatively, one biology teacher because she challenged why I attended Hyde Park instead of al all-black school in the hallway during my first week in school. It’s something I will always remember. I was only 13 and had never been approached concerning racial issues before. HP was my first experience going to an integrated school since I came from a 100% black school where the. majority of teachers were black. Except for the one aforementioned incident all went well socially. Even though I struggled academically I was better prepared to face the world once I graduated. Hyde Park helped me be successful in the USAF, grad-school, and life thereafter.”
Bob Howard: Another formal educational event also helped me move closer to my dream of achieving a successful career in business. After grammar school, I got a chance to attend Hyde Park High, one of the top high schools in Chicago. It’s noteworthy that the school was located in a part of town where many blacks were told not to be caught at night. Even though the Hyde Park community was geographically contiguous to where we lived it was a much more affluent and educationally superior neighborhood. The University of Chicago was and continues to be the educational and economic epicenter of the Hyde Park community. Additionally, enrolling at the high school gave me an opportunity to attend an integrated institution which was unique in the 1950s. Finally, the school gave me an enduring sense of collegiality and belonging. I had the good fortune to experience these same feelings in later years when I attended college. The songs I learned in boy’s chorus and a cappella choir supported that sense of collegiality and added an enduring feeling of patriotism. Songs like “America the Beautiful” and “Stout Hearted Men” served to reinforce that special feeling. One song in particular has stuck with me over the years. “Halls of Ivy” exemplifies how I felt about my high school and college experiences. The words to the opening stanza are as follows:
“Oh we love the halls of ivy That surround us here today And we will not forget thou We be far, far away”
These words have definitely kept me connected and subsequently prepared for the real world. Though I loved my high school experience, it fits into the old saying from “The Tale of Two Cities”, “ It was the best of times and it was the worst of times”. My best of times evolved around the social aspect of growing up as a teenager living on 48th street in South Kenwood and going to Hyde Park High School1. This venerable school was established in 1863 and had the reputation of being one of the top public schools in the Chicagoland area. My worst of times was like many young African American male teenagers, I didn’t really focus on the educational aspect of high school. I carried the bad study habits formed in grammar school while enjoying the fun environment mentioned in my earlier comments. Maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew by going to Hyde Park?
One of the strongest memories I have of my first days in school is when I was stopped by a white teacher as I walked down the hallway with a group of my new-found friends. (Remember I came from an all-black grammar school with mostly supportive black teachers that lived in my neighborhood.) This new teacher, who I was unfamiliar with, asked me to take my cap off. The comment was confusing to me since I didn’t have a cap on but probably just needed a haircut. Second and more important, she asked me why did I come to Hyde Park (a predominately white school) instead of going to DuSable, (a predominately black school). I was loss for words. As a 13-year-old just moving from a 100% black grammar school to the school of my dreams I didn’t understand her question or why she even asked it. I had never knowingly experienced any racial animosity in my young and somewhat sheltered life, so my mind didn’t even go there. I was not, nor should I have been, sensitive to the rapidly changing racial makeup of the surrounding neighborhood. With the benefit of hindsight, I imagine her comments reflected the tension white people were feeling about this mercurial demographic shift. Even though I vividly remember the incident I can honestly say it wasn’t a deciding factor in my lack of scholarly pursues in high school. However, I can say without reservation that it was my first taste of being set apart because of my skin color. I actually attribute my lack of focus and discipline over the next four years as the two overriding factors in my educational struggles versus this riveting incident. Additionally, my family, though very supportive, never talked about education as an important part of my maturation. My mom only told me that I had to graduate from high school, no matter how long it took but never the importance of understanding the content of what we were studying and what came after high school. Remember, my days as a pre-high school student were filled with fun and games and not much studying. Grammar school just wasn’t that much of a challenge to me. My sister, for whatever reason never suffered from the lack of focus I experienced in school. She was able to simultaneously get decent grades and have a good time. I guess this shows that fraternal twins have truly separate personalities.
Even with these challenges I managed to thoroughly enjoy my high school years. Participating in the boy’s chorus and a cappella choir for three years was a lot more fun than doing homework. Our director was a new, young and exciting teacher named Mr. Ramsfield. He taught us how to sing in a way that was almost angelic. Because of our musical abilities we were invited to perform at many different venues throughout the city. I can thank Mr. Ramsfield for teaching me not only music appreciation but the understanding that a collection of disparate parts, with hard work and understanding, can become not only a smooth functioning unit but a beautiful sounding one as well.
Even though I didn’t study a lot, I never missed a day of school or a class session. What did I do during class? I would sit quietly and listen to the teacher but when I got home I would throw my books in the corner and go out and play basketball at the local park or go to work at whatever job I had at the time. My learning came mostly through osmosis in the classroom and hands on experiences outside of the school. What I really learned inside the walls of Hyde Park was how to interact in a racially diverse setting. My graduating class ultimately turned out to be 30% black, 20% Asian, 25% Jewish and 25% Christian Whites, therefore I learned how to survive in an environment that looked more like the real world instead of the world that my friends experienced by going to all-black high schools.
I had the opportunity to meet and discuss this issue with one of my black high school classmates many years later. I always thought she had a wonderful time in high school academically and socially whereas I struggled. She was beautiful, smart and pursued by many of the boys in our class. Much to my surprise, she told me she hated her high school experience. She felt she was never really appreciated or properly evaluated by the white teachers, (98%) and insisted that her grades were always discounted because she was black. She mentioned that she didn’t realize how smart she was until she went off to a historically black college. This was very interesting commentary to me since I was obviously not pursuing intellectual excellence during those same years. I never had the feeling the teachers were holding me back, if anything, I always felt I was holding myself back. Incidentally, this person went on to have a great career as a lawyer and genealogist. I would take my high school experience over her’s any day since I had loads of fun and great social interactions during that same timeframe. I am not advocating or supporting poor study habits with these comments but I am suggesting each person should have a healthy balance of study and extracurricular activity. We only experience our teenage years once and to hate the high school portion of it is an anathema to me. My years from 13 through 17 were such a blast that I wouldn’t ever trade them back for higher grades or bit earlier intellectual prowess.
Bob Rosenstein: “My deep love of physics and chemistry was first acquired at Hyde Park. I have retained throughout life interest in history, literature. One specific example was a lifelong passion for the works of Thomas Mann. At Hyde Park in a senior level English Course taught by Howard Sloan I remember studying in English Buddenbrooks…..One factor missing from the Hyde Park years was meaningful dialogue about the LGBT experience and life choices….Finally I look back on the racial diversity we experienced at Hyde Park HS as perhaps its outstanding feature. That open mindedness and respect for diversity remains with me today.”
June Lewis Mustiful: “The Hyde Park environment accomplished some goals as the pre-Civil Rights Movement. That is, the ability of multicultural people to coexist with joy, respect and equal opportunity to succeed without being stripped or their own identity and cultural uniqueness. I was blessed to live in Woodlawn with a home address that allowed me to attend Hyde Park High School, recognized and branded for its academic excellence. The Hyde Park environment allowed and embraced many “first time” phenomenal multicultural occurrences. For example, in my four years, I never heard the “N” used, we embraced a multicultural experience on many levels, e.g. music, dating, sports, HP academics and social clubs, Year Book and Prom activities.”
Jean McFadden: “I could write an entire article about the impact of multicultural experience at Hyde Park. It seems to be somehow intertwined with music—the discovery of rhythm and blues, being in A Cappella and on so much more. It was very significant, including my career choice in social work, and to some interpersonal relationships. I still gasp when I see Civil Rights documentaries and recognize Diane Nash who was a quiet and very good student in a number of my classes. It was a very positive experience for me. I recall on the Prom committee looking for a hotel that was not racist, where all students would be treated respectfully…..I was aware that my Jewish girlfriends from Kenwood and I drifted apart into different social groups, but that seemed the way of the world, and I always had friendly relationships with them.”
Paul Hofman: “I took Civics with Sadie Friedlander and loved every minute of it…..As a Freshman I was on the track team. I thought I was really fast until we met up with the Freshmen from Wendell Phillips.”
Sylvia Eaton Anderson: “I recall little overt prejudice at Hyde Park from fellow students. I wasn’t invited to parties that Herbie Hancock was asked to attend (LOL) but I wasn’t invited to many parties at all. I do know that several teachers had issues regarding my race that made it difficult for them to be objective graders. One English teacher graded my papers lower than those of my white friends from Ray School….I felt Mr. Tapley had racial issues that made it difficult for him to relate to students of color. I am sure that my counselor’s failure to talk with me about college, although I was a four year Sigma, was racially motivated.”
Frank Bachenhemer: “I’d like to think that HP shaped us into a positive, liberal inded and active workers with a live and let live attitude on life. Something many Americans still haven’t learned!”
Maurice Dawson: “Well, since I lived out of HP’s District, I had to first, ride the 43rd Red Street Car (Langley to Indiana), then transfer to the Green CTA “B” Train and ride all the way over to the end of the line (63rd and Stony Island). I did this willingly, because the gang dynamics were starting in my neighborhood and my dad cautioned me not to get involved. I asked my mother (I was only 13) if we could use my grandmother’s address and enrolled in HPH. My homeroom teacher was Mrs. Nichols, my art teacher. On the third day of the first week, she asked me if I could show a new, incoming student around the campus—his name was Clarence Woods! /A favorite teacher was Jerry Ramsfield/ who taught us to sing so well that the quality of the harmony that we produced with the diversity of our collective voices, was extra special! HP won the southwest choir singing championship for two years straight. Jerry had us sing at a variety of religious services including the Bahai Temple in Evanston. After three weeks I was asked by Raymond Lau (from Bejing China) to come with him and meet his father who owned the only Chinese restaurant on 43rd street…..As a result of attending Hyde Park, I have always gravitated to a multicultural environment and with ease….We had some great after parties following our A Cappella choir performances as well as a variety of house parties on a weekend that followed a basketball game…Oh, but I promised to never kiss and tell!”
Lorelei Edmunds McClure: “I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and attended Hyde Park for three years. My homeroom teacher was Mrs..Lloyd and my most influential teachers along with Mrs. Lloyd were Miss Gillogly and Mrs. Hawkes (she taught in a manner similar to my mother). I am from a family, primarily, of educators so that did influence me to the extent that I was a serious student. I have also always been active in sports and dance….Air raid drills were fun….I was 17 when I graduated. I lived on Evans Avenue and then we moved somewhat beyond Hyde Park….I was dating Jim McClure and he owned a car so most of the time we drive, infrequently, I walked or took the bus. I ended up going to the University of Chicago, majoring in romance languages and I suspect that Miss Gillogly greatly reinforced my already deep attraction to language. I do not remember whether I was aware of the “world” at that time. Now, of course, I am aware of the real hard work ahead of us to become united. I have always known that we are one human race and live my life in that manner. At Hyde Park, I remember only one incident where a gym teacher may have had conflicted feelings about me because of my ethnicity, but I am truly not sure if that was the reason of not. My memories are of being liked and rewarded by teachers and friends alike. Of course, Hyde Park, University of Chicago, and all the opportunities and natural beauty (lakefront and architecture) in the city itself have had a great influence on my life. How could they not?”
Sandra Giller Silver: “I have wonderful memories of my fours years at Hyde Park High School. Some of these memories include lasting friendships, teachers who inspired me and some whose classroom antics made me smile and sometimes chuckle to myself. It is a gift to be able to look back at those 4 years and tell that they were well spent and added to my personal development. I have the fondest memories of my classmates and my experiences at Hyde Park High School.”
Ron Howard: “It is true that Chet Zimba didn’t know anything about basketball and at a time out asked the team what to do. I was on the bench when it happened. Also, many of the black athletes didn’t get scholarships because the staff didn’t know anything about HBCU’s and we weren’t good enough for major college consideration. It was the school’s problem. Think of any black athlete that received an athletic scholarship? It’s kind of like us not knowing about the Washington trip. You won’t be aware of McClure, Mustiful, Mathis…not getting any offers from major colleges and Chet not being aware of or having any contacts with all-Black schools to showcase his stars. It wasn’t vindictive, just lack of knowledge.”
Ken Wohl: “At a spring football practice, Jim Story, our center, wasn’t moving fast enough at the end of practice and coach Hasan called Jim a lazy N. I had words with Hasan which ended our relationship.”
Bob Baker: At one of our reunions, I became acquainted with a classmate whom I did not know, who told me that during his years as a student at Hyde Park High he studied and worked in the print shop. To make money, each week he printed out “parley cards” which were bought by students, who then bet on the upcoming weekend professional athletic games. He used a group of “runners” who distributed the cards and then paid off the winners the next Monday. I knew about parley cards when I was a student at Hyde Park, and always assumed that it was controlled by outside mafia types. But no, it was the entrepreneurial brainstorm of one of our fellow students, who said that he made about $200 a week because with gambling the house always wins. He was actually caught by the administration and suspended for a week, but then continued right on! He wishes to remain anonymous because of his future career.
Mary Elizabeth Burnett Hughes:
