London High School was built in 1911 and closed after a new high school was built on the edge of town. The 1911 building is the one attended by two generations of Holtons - Dad, Richard, and David as well as Jan, Tom, Susan, and myself.
We always used this entrance on Walnut Street. The yellow window inserts were installed as an energy saving measure after we graduated.
The building has been deserted for years. A group of us went inside on Saturday afternoon of our 50th reunion weekend. This building is full of memories. Stories came tumbling from our hearts and mouths as we wandered the halls of this building that was the center of our lives for 6 years (our class had junior high and high school in this building).
Coming in the Walnut Street entrance we were greeted by the black and white mosaic tiled floor and black metal stairs.
Blackboards were really black back then. Above is Mrs. Rea's room where we had math in 8th grade. I can still picture Mrs. Rea. She was tall, thin, wore glasses and was a bit severe looking (to my young, anxious eyes). On the first day of class she crossed her arms and announced, "I! AM A DISCIPLINARIAN!" OK, we were warned. I remember the side chalk board in the picture above with fondness. As a reward for finishing our work, Mrs. Rea would let us work the very long and complex square root problems she wrote on the board. I thought that was so neat! Not everyone thought that was a reward or remembered the board with fondness.
More chalk board memories - Mrs.Frances Hanson, our sixth grade teacher, had a wonderful tool for drawing lines on the board. She inserted pieces of chalk into this device and it drew wonderfully straight lines. See a modern one here, where else but on amazon.com! It was considered a treat to be able to take the chalk filled erasers out onto the fire escapes and beat the chalk out of the erasers. Those fire escapes seemed high when you were on the second floor of the Central Building (elementary school). Click here for pictures.
We must have spent a lot of time at the boards based on comments from our tour group - diagramming sentences and working math problems were most frequently mentioned.
Miss McCambell's room - math, plane geometry, algebra
This chalk board, classroom, and teacher brought forth the most comments.
Miss McCampbell was a "little, old, white-haired lady" (probably younger than I am now) when we had her. She had very high expectations for everyone, especially the girls. She counseled girls not to get caught up in the silliness of boys and dating. Anyone going steady was wise to remove her angora-wrapped boyfriend's ring before entering the class. Miss McCampbell was sure to comment on it if she saw it.
As the people in our group talked about Miss McCambpell they told of being terrified to go to the board to work a problem they didn't understand, talked about how fair she was - she was one teacher who didn't give the athletes an easy time because they were jocks, how quickly she wanted and expected answers. One person remembered catching an error Miss McCampbell made. When he confronted her with it, she listened respectfully to his explanation, and then apologized.
One person recalled her terror (I realize I've used "terror" twice but that's the intensity Miss McCampbell elicited) on the day of an open book test. She opened her book and realized she'd written all the answers in pencil as she practiced for the test. She quickly hid the book in her skirt and told Miss McCampbell she'd forgotten her book and her cousin was going to bring it to her. During the test she fled to the bathroom and quickly began erasing all the answers. One of the other people in our group remembered the day and seeing the girl on the bathroom floor, furiously scrubbing away at her book, covered in eraser residue. The girl finished the job and went back to the classroom and told Miss McCampbell she'd seen her cousin in the hall and got the book. She told this story with great emotion and animation as though it happened recently, not 50 years ago!
This is the entrance to the gymnasium. It's now a community center. I took this picture because the Seal of London is on the doors. Click here to see the seal. As I remember the story, at some point the city realized they didn't have a seal and needed one. They weren't sure how to proceed so Dad volunteered for the job and it's been used ever since.
This was the auditorium in the high school. The floor sloped and there were uncomfortable wooden chairs with seats that folded up. We had study hall here for years before it was moved into the basement and former cafeteria. As I type this, I realize I don't know where the cafeteria was after that room became the study hall. We always walked home for lunch so I was clueless about the cafeteria. Perhaps it was in the new school that was built next door to the high school.
This room now looks very different. The stage is boarded up, probably to make classrooms, the floor has been leveled and the room divided into two rooms.
It was in this room that I witnessed one of what I thought was the great injustices of the world. It was October. Mr. Cochran, teacher and COACH, was in charge of the study hall. The World Series was in progress. The rule was no radios in study hall. Coach Cochran overlooked the boys who were listening to the World Series on radios - and asked for game updates. Later I saw how some teachers let athletes get away with things no one else was allowed to do. These events, and Mom's and Dad's comments at home, greatly shaped my thinking on this issue :)
A beautiful building full of memories made with wonderful people
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