By Staff
Recently my friend Jerry "Buddy Carpenter" Proshwitz brought me something to look at.
It was a part of Dowagiac history, a 36-inch by six-inch picture of Dowagiac students from years ago.
This long picture had 41 boys sitting on the ground in the front row wearing those old black ankle-high shoes.
As far as Peg's and my estimation, these boys were probably in the seventh or eighth grade at the time.
One of the boys in the front row is Eugene "Shindus" Valdes, who in our research of my old Wahoos found Shindus graduated in 1929.
Other boys in the front row – many whom I have known for years – were DeVee Hunsberger, Stan Hunter, Carlton Behrman, Ted Clarke, Carlton Hoyt, Bill Hoppe, Eddie Kopaceski, Howard Anthony, Robert Neff, Rex Corwin, Charles Mersereau, plus the familiar names of Dick Nugent, George Blackmond and La Del Sampson.
In all four rows of the kids in this big picture we believe most or all of them are seventh, eighth or ninth grade students.
Back in the old days, a lot of kids only went to the eighth grade and quit school.
In the picture we have found only two who are still alive today.
One is 99-year-old Mollie (Behnke) Eiman and the other is Dorothy (Belsito) Spadafore.
When I took a good look at the picture after Jerry left, I realized I knew who a lot of the people in the picture were, even though there were just a couple of names on the back written in pencil.
Other than the few names in ink was Ruby Staley Cushing and in pencil, 1923-24.
We took the picture to Dorothy Spadafore, but she didn't remember where or when it was taken and she is younger than Mollie.
Both Dorothy and Mollie only went through eighth grade.
Mollie said it may have been taken at McKinley, where she went to school.
Dorothy said it may have been taken at the old high school on Main Street, but was not sure about it.
Whatever school where the picture was taken, the brick school building was long enough to hold all of the kids for the picture.
In the background of the last eight or nine inches of the students is a white wooden building.
Mollie told me she was probably the only one still alive, but we found Dorothy, a bit younger, is still alive and kicking.
Of the 190 kids in this very long picture, besides the 41 boys in the front row were 49 boys and girls in the second row, 44 girls and boys in the third row and 56 girls and boys in the top row.
Also in the top row are several teachers. Two of them I know.
One was my teacher, Maude Crawford, who taught me in 1943, when I was in the seventh grade at DHS.
The other one was her sister, Helen Gould.
It was in article 351 on July 1, 2008, that I wrote about the old pictures that Mollie gave me, and there were quite a few names written on the back of some of them.
So this is how I could name a lot in the big picture.
The pictures were given to a Mrs. Horstman in Kalamazoo by Reinhart Rock, who are both in one of the pictures sent to Mollie.
There's about 10 inches of students on the left side who I don't have snapshots of, which is sad.
Others in the picture are Leon Frontczak, Gifford Fox, Harvey Farrell, Dexter Pollard, Ralph Horstman, Fred Harttung, Henry Swartz and Ferndale Cross.
I wouldn't be surprised if my friend Ardelle Gard, 99 and still alive in California, is in the picture.
E-mail him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.