Elementary School Celebrations
Cleveland Elementary, 900 Brookwood Ave., 2 to 4 p.m. today, May 1.(513) 887-5075
Harrison Elementary, 250 Knightsbridge Drive, 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, May 2. (513) 887-5105
Fillmore Elementary, 1125 Main St., Hamilton, 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, May 2. (513) 887-5085
Van Buren Elementary, 2231 Lincoln Ave., 5 to 7 p.m. May 14. (513) 887-5165
HAMILTON — Harriet Sneed Schmidt remembers her first day of first grade. Maybe not just like it was yesterday. It was 1928, after all.
But it also was an important day because it was the first day of the brand-new Fillmore Elementary School.
“It was very exciting,” she said. “Because Lincoln School” where she went to kindergarten “was very old.”
She remembers that she lived at the corner of Gray and Dick avenues, that her teacher, Miss Irene Kessel, wore a white dress with big purple polka dots, and that in those days children walked home for lunch.
Schmidt also remembers being in a lot of musical programs and plays while she was a student at Fillmore. Her older brother Bill was embarrassed that she sang solos in a Christmas program, and she fondly remembers playing “The Little Dutch Girl” in a play that they took to the Hamilton Masonic Temple, which also was a brand-new building at the time.
“They ordered my shoes all the way from Holland,” she said. She still has those shoes, but those are the only souvenirs she has from her Fillmore days.
She’ll be returning to the school on Sunday, May 2, to help celebrate the last year of the building, which is being replaced by the brand-new Highland Elementary School on the same lot.
All former and current students, teachers and parents are invited to attend the open house from 2 to 5 p.m. The day will include performances by the school orchestra and chorus, which will sing songs from each decade of the school.
There also will be postcards, refrigerator magnets, cookbooks and other items for sale to raise money to buy trees for the new school.
Cleveland Elementary School also will have a closing open house this weekend, from 2 to 4 p.m. today, May 1, with photo displays from the history of the school.
Harrison Elementary’s closing celebration will be 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Principal Mary Ann Hughes said that in addition to inviting back former students and teachers, there will be some special displays honoring the Flip Twisters Gymnastics Club, which was based at Harrison Elementary in the early 1960s and was well-known throughout the region.
From 5 to 7 p.m. May 14, Van Buren Elementary will be celebrating the last year of that building — along with Right to Read Week — with a hot air balloon launching, weather permitting.
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