Memories of School Three
To Miss Lang of Ecorse School Three: A Pupil Who Remembers (Detroit News, Wednesday, June 29, 1960)
Jo Santoro Cialkowski
Dear Miss Bernice Lang:
Hello, how are you? Do you remember one of your first School Three pupils? I am now a married woman with three growing children.
It has been nearly 35 years since I have listened to your kindly counsel. I felt sadly sentimental when my nieces, your former pupils, informed me that you leaving “our” school.
The girls, Pat and Betty Santoro, who won a high scholastic rating gold braid, have just received their diplomas from Ecorse High School, with another niece, Marie Fitzpatrick.
The day you came to School Three in 1924, Miss Lang, was just a few short months after the building was dedicated. I well remember your gentle smile. Your topaz hair was rolled in a soft back-of-the-neck bun. Later, you cut it short.
Mr. Claude Miller was superintendent. Decades later after he died, the Claude Miller School at the north end of Ecorse was named for him. Mr. John Davis, now retired, was principal. Mr. Warren Jackson, the first School Three male teacher, has taught for many years at Ecorse High School at 7th and Outer Drive.
Your hometown, Calumet, and Michigan State College, where you received your degree, sounded like far-off places then.
Miss Lange, how is it that you choose to teach at our little farm town? A mere speck on the Detroit River. Perhaps the lore of the school site at Sixth and Southfield intrigued you. History tells that it was the very land the Potawatomi and Huron Indian tribes camped on beside Ecorse Creek. (The Hurons, converted to Catholicism by the French, renamed themselves Wyandots.)
You must have known of the newly blessed freighters, which slid into the Detroit River from Ecorse docks – many whose eerie horns still haunt the lonely fogged breakers of the Great Lakes.
And, remember, not a block from the school, the first steel mill blasted with molten steel . . . and how it has mushroomed into the amazing Tecumseh Road; Ecorse industry as it is today!
The building of the red brick school was a magnificent thing for my father and mother to see. Tutors in Sicily were only for children of the wealthy. And here, a short path away from their back porch, a “free” place of learning would open its doors to their eight children!
Father self-learned reading and writing in the Sicilian army. Later, he taught mother, in between her lace making, how to scrawl her name. Their faces beamed. “Learn all you can, my children, they said. America is the land of opportunity.”
I recall your first lesson of the day in the first grade, Miss Lang. Americanism. Most of us were “foreign families.” We stood at attention proudly facing the flag draped in the corner.With many, whose words were thick with “melting pot” accents, we repeated after you, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.”
My eyes blur at the sound of a band playing. I think of the poem you taught us, “The Flag Goes By,” by Henry H. Bennett.
I recalled it at each Fourth of July parade on Jefferson West when we classmates tightly clutched miniature flags. When we followed the booming band with the “boys from over there…” and the family picnic afterward.
I remember the Stars and Stripes unfurled from every doorway. Radiator caps of Model T and tour running cars held red, white blue star-spinner and banner clusters. Every springtime, we were anxious to get spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic classes over with.
Afternoons, we pupils loved to take the nature trek through the Ecorse Creek woods. Along cool paths, we studied freshly budded violets and lilies of the valley.
The boys grew excited over newly explored arrowheads. From the fragrant apple and cherry orchards, fringed with bride-like blossoms, we took notes on fluttering swallows, blue jays and vermilion cardinals.
Also, every spring we celebrated Arbor Day. We helped spade the earth and planted the shining maples that now tower over the red brick two-story building.
With the former principal Miss Munn (now Mrs. Moore), and other staff members we sang along too. Miss Seesburge, Miss Fisher, Miss Lowney, Miss McDonald. Also, Miss Wixson, Miss Little, Miss Rowlader and Miss Dickerson. Sometimes our beloved school nurse for many years, Miss Murphy, with the music teacher Miss Green, also attended.
Once you coached me on an essay concerning the necessity of playground equipment. It was a proud day when I won the prize – a tablet and pencil, which I still cherish.
They say you are going back to your hometown at Calumet. And, later, you plan to travel. Bless you Miss Lang!
When we students marched out at dismissal time to the sound of an inspiring band recording, we shouted with glee, “hooray! School’s out!”
We didn’t realize then, Miss Lang, with a gracious teacher like you to guide us, “School is where the heart is.”
Sincerely yours,
Jo Santoro Cialkowski
Jo Santoro Cialkowski
Dear Miss Bernice Lang:
Hello, how are you? Do you remember one of your first School Three pupils? I am now a married woman with three growing children.
It has been nearly 35 years since I have listened to your kindly counsel. I felt sadly sentimental when my nieces, your former pupils, informed me that you leaving “our” school.
The girls, Pat and Betty Santoro, who won a high scholastic rating gold braid, have just received their diplomas from Ecorse High School, with another niece, Marie Fitzpatrick.
The day you came to School Three in 1924, Miss Lang, was just a few short months after the building was dedicated. I well remember your gentle smile. Your topaz hair was rolled in a soft back-of-the-neck bun. Later, you cut it short.
Mr. Claude Miller was superintendent. Decades later after he died, the Claude Miller School at the north end of Ecorse was named for him. Mr. John Davis, now retired, was principal. Mr. Warren Jackson, the first School Three male teacher, has taught for many years at Ecorse High School at 7th and Outer Drive.
Your hometown, Calumet, and Michigan State College, where you received your degree, sounded like far-off places then.
Miss Lange, how is it that you choose to teach at our little farm town? A mere speck on the Detroit River. Perhaps the lore of the school site at Sixth and Southfield intrigued you. History tells that it was the very land the Potawatomi and Huron Indian tribes camped on beside Ecorse Creek. (The Hurons, converted to Catholicism by the French, renamed themselves Wyandots.)
You must have known of the newly blessed freighters, which slid into the Detroit River from Ecorse docks – many whose eerie horns still haunt the lonely fogged breakers of the Great Lakes.
And, remember, not a block from the school, the first steel mill blasted with molten steel . . . and how it has mushroomed into the amazing Tecumseh Road; Ecorse industry as it is today!
The building of the red brick school was a magnificent thing for my father and mother to see. Tutors in Sicily were only for children of the wealthy. And here, a short path away from their back porch, a “free” place of learning would open its doors to their eight children!
Father self-learned reading and writing in the Sicilian army. Later, he taught mother, in between her lace making, how to scrawl her name. Their faces beamed. “Learn all you can, my children, they said. America is the land of opportunity.”
I recall your first lesson of the day in the first grade, Miss Lang. Americanism. Most of us were “foreign families.” We stood at attention proudly facing the flag draped in the corner.With many, whose words were thick with “melting pot” accents, we repeated after you, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.”
My eyes blur at the sound of a band playing. I think of the poem you taught us, “The Flag Goes By,” by Henry H. Bennett.
I recalled it at each Fourth of July parade on Jefferson West when we classmates tightly clutched miniature flags. When we followed the booming band with the “boys from over there…” and the family picnic afterward.
I remember the Stars and Stripes unfurled from every doorway. Radiator caps of Model T and tour running cars held red, white blue star-spinner and banner clusters. Every springtime, we were anxious to get spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic classes over with.
Afternoons, we pupils loved to take the nature trek through the Ecorse Creek woods. Along cool paths, we studied freshly budded violets and lilies of the valley.
The boys grew excited over newly explored arrowheads. From the fragrant apple and cherry orchards, fringed with bride-like blossoms, we took notes on fluttering swallows, blue jays and vermilion cardinals.
Also, every spring we celebrated Arbor Day. We helped spade the earth and planted the shining maples that now tower over the red brick two-story building.
With the former principal Miss Munn (now Mrs. Moore), and other staff members we sang along too. Miss Seesburge, Miss Fisher, Miss Lowney, Miss McDonald. Also, Miss Wixson, Miss Little, Miss Rowlader and Miss Dickerson. Sometimes our beloved school nurse for many years, Miss Murphy, with the music teacher Miss Green, also attended.
Once you coached me on an essay concerning the necessity of playground equipment. It was a proud day when I won the prize – a tablet and pencil, which I still cherish.
They say you are going back to your hometown at Calumet. And, later, you plan to travel. Bless you Miss Lang!
When we students marched out at dismissal time to the sound of an inspiring band recording, we shouted with glee, “hooray! School’s out!”
We didn’t realize then, Miss Lang, with a gracious teacher like you to guide us, “School is where the heart is.”
Sincerely yours,
Jo Santoro Cialkowski