Posted here with permission of Press Publications. (Photograph selections may be different than in print version.) Many thanks to Classmate Jane McGrew for providing the 'clipping.' Returning home
Graduate recalls
By
Marie Lazzara
Elmhurst 1954. Small town, farms, York Theatre and local characters on the streets of downtown. Those are some of the things Jane McGrew, a 1954 graduate of York High School, reflects on when she recalls Elmhurst during the 1950s.
For McGrew, a teacher who works at Cumberland Elementary School in Des Plaines, Elmhurst had an identity all its own. Over the years, however, Elmhurst rapidly changed from the farms and small businesses to a modern DuPage suburb complete with many schools and chain stores.
One noteworthy change? Pigs once roamed the York football field.
"Where the York High School football held is now was a pig farm," McGrew said. "When I went to high school, there were pigs. I think Elmhurst in many ways has lost its identity and that it's been considered under the umbrella as a Chicago suburb. There's nothing one can do about it."
She has been noticing the changes, but she looks forward to the one day she can relive high school life with her classmates as she helps plan the 45th reunion.
We (as a class) have held together," she said. "I don't know what the glue is there, but we've always had an affinity. We were attractive to other classes because our class was noted for being the most sociable.
"I was crazy about (York). That's where my friends were. I wanted to be involved. It was fun."
McGrew was somewhat of a social butterfly around school. As one reads her small yearbook biography, McGrew's list of positions is long. She was, among other things, a student council representative, a homecoming committee member, a pep club member, a calendar committee member, and a cap and gown committee member.
She also took time to plan her own basement parties complete with Coca-Cola, potato chips and dancing.
For McGrew, York was a place to have fun with friends and earn a solid education. The subjects York did not teach, she would later learn on her own.
School memories
"We were definitely not cast as the brightest, although I had friends," she said. "There was another group and they were very smart. They didn't seem to do much else. I would like to think we were a little more well rounded."
Whether it is the 1990s or the 1950s, cliques operated the same way: no fraternizing with outsiders. McGrew remembers that rule, but she would appreciate stepping outside those boundaries. "As time goes on, with the reunions that we've had, I've gotten to know people that I wouldn't have in high school," she said. "Our paths wouldn't have crossed. They're terrific. We're grown ups."
McGrew expressed the feeling that students respected and admired their teachers and other adults. Sometimes students feared disobeying a trusted teacher's orders. She talked about the time that the students were restricted from leaving the school building during lunchtime.
"We thought that the doors at York were electrified," she said. "We were not allowed to go outside. When I was a senior in the spring, a couple of us (students) walked outside and went out and sat on the tennis courts, and we said, 'My God, the alarms didn't go off.' We were very naive. If we were told, 'Don't do this,' we pretty much didn't do it."
McGrew was fond of her history teacher, Howard Van Norman. Her fondness turned to immediate dislike and fear when she and other students heard that he was a member of the Democratic Party. She explained that being a Democrat was almost nonexistent in DuPage County during the 1950s.
"DuPage County in those days, I believe, was 100 percent Re publican," she said. "Both of my parents were Republicans.
"I was crazy about Mr. Van Norman. One day, he said he was a Democrat and he was going to vote for Adlai Stevenson. (You should've heard) the hush that came over the class. I had never known a Democrat. I had only heard of the evilness. My mother talked about Franklin Roosevelt. He was a criminal as far as she was concerned, and she wouldn't give to the March of Dimes.
"I was concerned that if he (Van Norman) was telling people this that he'd be in trouble. I thought that this was really serious business. I told my father that Mr. Van Norman was a Democrat and (asked), 'What do you think is going to happen to him?' He said,
"Well, he could become head of the department." I kind of expected the police to show up. I thought that Mr. Van Norman wouldn't be there on Monday morning. Lo and behold, nothing happened to him."
Fun and relaxation
"We started smoking when we were sophomores," she said. "We had to force ourselves to learn how to smoke. I had what were called in those days a 'hen party' -- it was just females. I had a get-together on a Sunday afternoon and we all sat up in my bedroom and tried to teach each other to smoke.
"I didn't know anybody who didn't smoke. In those days, we didn't know (the effects of smoking). If you look back at the movies of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, it was very glamorous. It was advertised everywhere -- radio, magazines, newspapers and billboards. Everybody smoked."
There was a certain decorum placed on where to smoke in public. Those considered troublemakers would smoke openly.
"Girls would never smoke on the street--only the bad girls did," she said. "The bad girls and boys would smoke on the street. In the back of York there was a crack on the sidewalk and one side was York's property and the other side was public. The hoods would stand just on the other side of that line and evidently they were out of the clutches of the administration."
In addition to the parties, McGrew said that students would hang out at the A&W Drive-In or go to the nearby swimming pool for summer refreshment. When school was back in session, many of the social events revolved around sports and rooting for the home team.
"In those days, everybody went to sporting events. There were not the (many) choices that young people have today," McGrew said. "You went to football and basketball games, and that was the social life. Many people in the town would turn out for those games."
Another favorite pastime was to play pranks at Peabody's Tomb and scare the monks who lived nearby. Today, it is known to most DuPage residents as the Mayslake Landmark Conservancy in Oak Brook
"We would go in the dark and scream," she said. "There were monks around there. Mostly, the monks frightened us. We would be skulking around there, and a hooded figure would appear and we would just (die)."
The most famous prank was a student absconding with the Abraham Lincoln statue from the school's auditorium. When asked who might have done this dastardly deed, McGrew said she does not know for sure. It remains a mystery to this day.
Going forward
In the early 1960s, the couple moved to London for his studies and work In 1965, they moved to Elmhurst and had their first child, Douglas. Their second child, Caroline, came later. In 1972, she divorced Cram and became a single mother working as a teacher at Cumberland. In the early 1970s, McGrew commented that it was not commonplace for a single mother to raise young children by herself. Close friends provided some support.
"There's something to be said for women who are single mothers who raise children," she said. "I went to school and got a teaching certificate. I had a full-time job. I raised two children. I would be doing laundry at three in the morning and fixing school lunches. It's a hard life.
"I was very nervous about (being a single mother) for my children because there would have a stigma, but they went to Hawthorne as I had done, and, little by little, I began to meet people who were in the same boat. There were not too many, but I still had friends here and I had an active social life.
"(Being a single mother) was not as accepted as it is today. In our day, I didn't know any mothers who worked Very few mothers worked outside the home Almost none of us were prepared to go into the work force. This was thought as being a slight to one's husband If you had to work it meant that he didn't earn enough money for you to live on."
Throughout the 1970s and '80s, McGrew was a member of the Elmhurst Public Library board She joined "because there was rumors then of the library tearing down the mansion." Today, she and other Elmhurst residents are very much concerned about the future of Wilder Mansion, which to them is a sacred place that is an important part of Elmhurst's tradition and history.
"I think the Elmhurst Library is possibly the greatest asset this town has," she said. "It's a treasure in this town. I don't have any doubts whatsoever that we need a bigger library. Whatever happens, I have a group and we will chain ourselves to the mansion. It's part of Elmhurst's identity: I would do whatever I could do to help the library board or town get a new library."
In 1986, she married her second husband, Philip McBride, a furniture salesman. He died in 1997.
Currently, she continues to teach at Cumberland and to live in Elmhurst. While trying to make a difference in her beloved community, McGrew cannot wait to see her classmates, new and old.
"As I said, with the last couple of times I got to know people that I hadn't known before," she said. "You tend to keep people in boxes mentally. (By going to reunions,) this helps you to allow people to break out of those little boxes. I found a lot of women and men in our class who did terrific things. We have some really outstanding people in our class."
(Caption for unusable recent photo included in article.) Present-day York senior yearbook editors Charlle Reibsamen (left), Jacqueline Ni and Marisa Wiesman look back to the sights and experiences of the 1950s with 1954 York graduate Jane McGrew. McGrew worked on the high school's yearbook and was on several planning committees.
(Caption for unusable '54 photo included in article.) Jane McGrew (center) was a member of the yearbook staff at York High School.
 Jane McGrew, 1997
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