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DEARBORN HISTORICAL MUSEUM

ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

INTERVIEWEE: Ms. Iris M. Becker

INTERVIEWER: Winthrop Sears

SUBJECT: SOUTHEAST DEARBORN & SALINA SCHOOL

DATE: From February 1, 1983 – December 27, 1983

TRANSCRIBER : Marguerite Alverson

EDITED BY: Donald V. Baut

TYPED BY : Bertha M. Miga

ACC. NO. 83-4

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ContentsNo table of contents entries found.


MISS IRIS BECKER

February 1, 1983

Interviewed by Winthrop Sears

MR. SEARS: This is mainly about the Southeast Dearborn Community Council. We are interested in your part that has to do with the Southeast Dearborn Community Council. Were you the founder?

MISS BECKER: Well, in a way, yes. All of us who gathered that first time, I suppose, would be called founders.

MR. SEARS: Were you at the very first meeting?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. It was in the 1950s, you see. Now I have to say, however, there were groups before that. We were called together just like you do when neighbors say, “Let’s get together and do something about that.” Right after the War, there were groups of people who said, “Let’s do something about what’s happening,” the dirt and the complaints about pollution. During and after the War, of course, it increased a great deal because of the War production and then the increased development of the levy operation there, the slag piles and so forth – which was really a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company, you know. In a sense it was related to it, the Mercier Brick Company all of whom were very busy during the War. After the War, a great push of energy and you know not so much (war) work going on. So it was a busy place.

The air in the southeast corner of Dearborn and west Detroit was pretty dirty. The cement companies were there too, you see. It wasn’t just Ford. It was all the related industries and other industries even the steel mills to the south. When the wind came up from the south and southwest, Ford got blamed for a lot of it. But it wasn’t entirely to blame for all of it. People would get together with their neighbors and (say), “We better say something to the City Council about this.” There was an antipollution committee set up by the whole town. Some of the people worked on that. Even some of the City folks were concerned about it.

MR. SEARS: So those kinds of meetings had been going on even before the 1950s.

MISS BECKER: Yes. The organization came about in the early 1950s, ’52 and ’53 because they wanted to bring a lawsuit, which they did. It was the lawsuit that Mike Berry handled for them for a dollar and a half and the people organized themselves into an organization that would have some standing so they could back the lawsuit and be heard.

MR. SEARS: So they have been going then for thirty years?

MISS BECKER: Yes, just about thirty years as a pure organization.

MR. SEARS: You were here at the first meeting.


MISS BECKER: Yes. I went to some of those meetings. You know how it is. We got together at different people’s houses. They came to school a couple of times and wherever they could get a meeting. Sometimes they met at Roulo School which was still open then. It depended on wherever they could get a private place to meet. Sometimes they would meet at a place like Hashmie Hall or whoever would let us have a meeting place. That was one of the things that brought about the feeling later. They’d have a place to keep their records. Most organizations don’t do that soon enough.

We had places, people’s homes mostly, or places that would let us store the things but a lot of it was kept at the school – in my room. There were other things. The school people, while they didn’t’ get themselves too much involved in the political end of it, were very much concerned and active. The PTA and other groups overlapped with each other. You can’t help it. When you’re wearing three or four hats – everybody in the area – your interests are the same.

MR. SEARS: When did they begin to get into other things like what they’re doing now?

MISS BECKER: Well, at that period back (in) the fifties, you know it was a very, in a way, troublesome time. People were kind of in rebellion in a lot of ways. Not like it was later in the sixties. They became vociferous all over. It was gradually building up because the people were fearful of what was happening to them. We had an influx of different kinds of people coming in after the War, of course, and that disturbed people who had lived in the area a long time. They had been organizing to (fill) the City Council to say, “You’ve got to do something. Something’s got to be done about the pollution.” The paint was being eaten off (of) your cars, red dust used to be on things. You couldn’t keep anything clean. They would paint their house and by the next year you wouldn’t know it had been painted. And the odors were bad because of sulphur dioxide. That wasn’t all from Ford’s either. That was from other places around there. Then the Levy piles got higher, higher and higher and closer and closer to the people. They kept expanding the slag. The climax came along about in the fifties there when the people were screaming so much at City Hall. “You either do something about the problem or get us out of there.” So that’s when Orville Hubbard took them at their word and moved them out. But it was a sort of a plan.

You really have to look at that master plan to see it. We’ve had several master plans in Dearborn. You get some kind of religion or something. Anyway, some of the master plans had good ideas and some were terrible as far as the people involved. The idea was piecemeal. In other words, it t would be like gnawing away at you, I suppose. It was like taking your foot and then your hand and then your elbow, you know. This is the kind of thing that spoiled the morale.

MR. SEARS: How did they do it, by acquiring property?

MISS BECKER: By acquiring property. First of all, if you look at your map of Southeast Dearborn where it comes to Eagle Street, there was a very fine park there by eagle and Wyoming named after the first young man killed in the war. So it was a rather nice area north of Eagle. The older homes were big two family and single family homes, a very nice section, factory area. And then up farther to the east on Eagle, up towards Levy’s, Eagle was like this and Roulo and Amazon went across north of eagle. So there were four blocks of houses. Those were older houses, most of them, and some of them were not in very


good condition. But, some were in very good condition because the people took good care of them. Some didn’t. Some of them neglected them because they thought they were going to have to move out anyway. So it’s that uncertainty that people didn’t know what’s going to happen to them. They don’t want to invest in their house. The same thing went on later in Detroit.

MR. SEARS: Now that area is now vacated.

MISS BECKER: That’s Levy’s slag piles and has been for years. You see, that was back in the early fifties that they took those two blocks out, gradually, bought those homes up and closed those streets. So Amazon and Roulo both end on the north end of Eagle. They only go from Dix to Eagle, Vernor or Eagle. So when those people were bought out, some of them moved out of the South End entirely and some of them moved into homes in other parts of the South End. A lot of them moved into other homes in the South End. We’ve had, therefore, a great deal of uncertainty, unsettlement through the fifties. The more unsettled they got, the bigger the meetings got for the Southeast Dearborn Community Council.

MR. SEARS: What was the predominant ethnic (group) at that time?

MISS BECKER: I brought three decades of the Polk directories. Just take Salina Street. You see the change in names. When I first went there in the early thirties, of course, we had a lot of Italians. There still are quite a few Italians in the South End. The Italians stay put pretty well. There were two groups of them. Hungarians, lots of Romanians and some Poles – most everything – about fifty nationalities were there in the thirties and they change. They had changed by then. When they came in there, (they) were mostly German, English and Scotch farmers in that area colonized, Springwells and Greenfield townships. And there were farmers. They were typical Michigan area people, British descent.

After the First World War and with the coming of the Ford plant in 1917- 1918 with the closing of the plant in Highland Park, we began to have all these nationalities. Then it was a really remarkable area, very interesting, and there was quite a lot of prejudice against those people. First and second generations tend to look at the new people coming in with eyebrows raised. There was an awful lot of prejudice and, of course, it was the Depression. You see, it was like a lot of prejudice right now against people who come in as refugees or even to become citizens because of the fear of taking jobs even though they did take jobs.

Then they had a tremendous influx of the Southern whites at the same time. The Southern whites had a lot of prejudices but they mostly got over it because they intermarried with the “foreigners”. It was an interesting time then and lots of fun in many ways. It was fun to visit the homes. They used the school particularly as were the churches of which there were four or five in there. Both Catholic and Protestant were in the social places in addition to the many clubs. We call them coffeehouses these days but they were called coffeehouses then not Arabic coffeehouses but they were coffeehouses. They were the poor men’s clubs but there were also halls, Serbian Hall, the Romanian Hall. Between the school, the churches and their halls, it was an area where there were a lot of parties going on and lots of fun. Even in hard times we got invited to lunch or dinner, the teachers did.

MR. SEARS: Do you remember some of the churches?


MISS BECKER: Yes. There was the little Baptist church kitty-corner from school which is now (Beacon) Baptist church. It changed hands. And then there was the Romanian church and the church down there. Down father was a hall, a Serbian and Armenian Hall. But they sometimes didn’t have a church but they had church meetings in those halls. Of course, down across there was St. Bernadette’s Church. That was before the school was built. I remember they had church services there and then they changed that into some kind of gym, etc. and built St. Bernadette’s School and had their church in there, church and school.

MR. SEARS: Now is that still going on?

MISS BECKER: No. It still has a church back in the hall where they originally started across the street, but St. Bernadette’s had become a recreation center – the school and then those two buildings next to it was a (convent) where the nuns and priests lived. One of them became a place for alcoholic men and the other was for nuns. Then when the church went out, the City bought those places. One is a health center now, kind of a medical center that the Southeast Council helped bring in. So there are changes that happen. Across the way south of Dix there were several churches and a Romanian church down there. It is a different sect and a Protestant church down then. There were several churches in the area in addition to the mosque.

MR. SEARS: When did the mosque come in?

MISS BECKER: Well, the mosque was there for a long time. It didn’t always have a dome on it in the earlier stage. It was built without the dome. Then I can remember when they decided to put the dome on. I don’t remember the exact year.

MR. SEARS: Was it there when you first were teaching in the 1930s?

MISS BECKER: It was built in the 1930s. It had a hall and a place to worship. They were a very liberal Moslem sect.

MR. SEARS: Were they Lebanese?

MISS BECKER: Most of them (were) Lebanese and Syrian. They were very progressive. They had arguments like all churches do but they were, as a whole, fairly well education people, a mixture both….first generation and second generation and, of course, more recently in the last ten years more conservative. (The) group that built (the) mosque are the ones that are looking for a place in Dearborn and are having a hard time finding a place in Dearborn to have a hall and again because of prejudices, which is unfortunate. It’s a place of worship and people are so strange about it. You know, these people don’t drink and they smoke. They are just like Christians. They disobey their rules about drinking, smoking and gambling but they don’t drink and are very moderate if they do at all. They’re good cooks and they serve dinners just like any church. But there’s an awful lot of prejudice against people of another religion…not all over. It’s too bad.

MR. SEARS: They apparently pulled out of the area.


MISS BECKER: Yes. For a while they’ve been meeting at places like the Ukrainian Hall and some of the other places that would rent them halls. They also have been partly over at the center at Greenfield and Joy but again that has had a great influx of newcomers who are more conservative than these people area. These people are more Americanized, in a sense, that they are not like Iran. They believe in their religion deeply. They are also very tolerant.

MR. SEARS: Have they been there two or three generations now?

MISS BECKER: Yes. Some of them are third generation like Helen Atwell’s family. The mosque itself is an interesting place because it was always a meeting place for everybody. They put on dinners just like the rest of the churches. Everybody from the Baptist church, the Catholic church and the Protestant (church) all of them came all the time down to their dinners and they would put on dances. That’s where we learned to do belly dancing or at the school because the men and the women used to come and teach the children and me how to do the different dances of different nationalities. We could learn each other’s dances. We had international dinners and that sort of thing at the school so that all the nationalities came together, the different churches. So, as I say, the church and the schools were very much together in bringing people together.

MR. SEARS: This is the melting pot concept which today is sort of being rejected.

MISS BECKER: Right. But everybody went to everybody else’s church dinners or their hall something like the Romanian and put a fundraiser. Everybody supported everybody else’s dinners.

MR. SEARS: It seemed to work pretty well.

MISS BECKER: And that’s why we all got so plump. It was very good food.

MR. SEARS: Were there any troubles that were major like things that would get into the (news)papers, violence and vandalism?

MISS BECKER: No. That was probably the safest place in town except for some arguments once in a while like people have every place. Some of the Italians like to argue, two different places have very different views. One was conservative and they called the other group Communist and that sort of thing, you know whether they were or not. There were two different Romanian groups really. Sometimes they brought their quarrels along with them like they are still doing. But as a whole, people got along. Again the churches and the school did a lot to do that. We spent a lot of time in the schools trying to get people to understand each other better, appreciate each other, sit down and talk together.

As always we had those people who said, “Well, if certain people around here would do such and such, we wouldn’t have this problem with the city,” etc., you know. So one thing that we worked at was trying to get people to be constructively critical. It’s a thing you still have to work at.

MR. SEARS: The (Southeast) Council, when did it begin to get away from the pollution and into the other (problems)?


MISS BECKER: Well, that overlaps, of course. We’ve always been concerned about the pollution because the pollution was the thing that triggered the problem. For example, when the people cleared out, we said they had to find some place for them to go to. They couldn’t just push them out. They must be relocated or something must be done. We suggested over there north of the Ford Foundation, Rotunda and Greenfield. We suggested (that). You know what’s on there now. Boy, did that trigger things in a hurry.

MR. SEARS: What is there now?

MISS BECKER: Fairlane East. We thought that land along the railroad and all that would be good for some houses, some small middle class houses, etc. Our people could move into them if they were going to move them out of the South End, west of the Ford plant instead of east, which would take care of part of the pollution problem. Also, that was some swampy land in a way and kind of close to the railroad. So we thought they wouldn’t particularly want to develop it into something high class like they finally did. But as soon as we suggested it, it triggered things in a hurry. It started a chain reaction about building there and other kinds of buildings.

MR. SEARS: So you can claim some credit for Fairlane East.

MISS BECKER: We do. In addition to that, it also triggered the idea that maybe they had better do something for the people so they could stay in the Southeast end. There was a little behind-the-scenes prejudice there. I will give Mr. Hubbard credit for one thing. He said one reason he thought that they ought to do something about the South (End) so it wouldn’t become a ghetto. It wouldn’t become a place of just one nationality, etc. Of course, one reason we always try to maintain some kind of balance. We object to it becoming all Arabic or all whatever, to spread the influx of people into all parts of the town. In other words, let people build in Dearborn where they can afford to live. I think we can’t read motives into people and second guess. At the time, the people were so sure and so suspicious of the City. Anything they suggested to be suspect by Mr. Hubbard and the Council. Then rumors would start and the first thing you know all the things we had worked toward trying to get understanding would go down the drain. Somewhere I think that the City was turning around when they started paying people a fairer price for their houses, if they did move them out of did take over their homes. It also re-drew the plan after sitting down with us, sending John Nagy and some of the other people over. This was about 1970, ’71, ’72. They started kid of (a) talk. Then, because of two or three things, promises that weren’t kept. While it seemed as though they were having people meet with us who were well-intentioned, as far as we knew - really meant what they said – some other arm of the City was doing something else. (It) sounds like some other placed. Some appropriations have the same problem, I guess. So that was one reason the court case came about because we could not get them to put something in writing. They would not do certain things.

MR. SEARS: Against who?

MISS BECKER: The court case was between the City and the schools. This was the time they decided to move the junior high out of Salina, which would be an elementary school. The churches were already fading. Some people thought it was fun to go to the junior high because we were a little bit


overcrowded schools around at that time. The fear of the people was that this would make more people move out. They didn’t want their junior high kids bussed out of the area at that age. Senior high students with junior high, they didn’t want (to be) bussed out of the area.

MR. SEARS: What year was that?

MISS BECKER: Oh, let’s see. I think our suit started in 1971. It gives the date. (there) was a big list of us and the schools were finally dropped from that suit when we me with Judge Freeman. Judge Freeman asked me if I thought it was alright to drop the suit from the schools. There were two or three of us that testified at that time and said yes. The schools were intending to return to the ninth graders to Salina. They had changed their minds. Again, it was because of pressure, the people and a lot of persuasive talking from the people themselves.

People were very good at articulating things, both our teachers and our parents. Teachers felt they couldn’t participate too much. But we did do a survey of how they felt and there is a special feeling, I think, of people who come out of the Salina School and the teachers that teach there. They’re usually better teachers and they always say they enjoy their Salina experience. This is an interest thing. It’s not easy. Right now it’s not very easy because of different kinds of problems and so many comings and goings of (the) refugee people and people coming in.

We used to talk about statistics at Salina and it’s become that way at some other schools in the rest of Dearborn these days too. But particularly in the South End, you had so many people coming and going. If you look at the statistics, it looked like the population stayed fairly stable. That is the school population but actually they had had a turnover of maybe a hundred people, hundred fifty, maybe two hundred people coming and going during that year. They would go especially like the people in the Middle East and the Southerners. They would stay there part of the year and then disappear and then go back to the old country, go down South. So we were pretty sure that they’d be coming late in the fall and going early in the spring or something like the birds. But you had to be careful about citing statistics. Also it made a different in our test scores and how we would judge what people were doing and their abilities. It’s a transient population. (It) makes a difference in what school is able to do for people.

MR. SEARS: Coming back to (the lawsuit).

MISS BECKER: On the lawsuit I can talk to you a little bit more about that as far as the date.

MR. SEARS: You won with the school. How did you make out with the City?

MISS BECKER: Well, the one with the City is still on. We asked three years ago to sit down with them and close that suit out. We worked out with our lawyers and our people sitting down and saying if they will agree that this will continue. They don’t need the pressure of the courts to do it. We took it for granted that this was passed now, that the people were trying to do something and people were working with some Community Development. It had other names at different times, were sincere and that that City Council or the administration would not stop certain projects or would again do something


that was bad for the area. We would sign off. We went back to see the judge and the list of things we drew up and spent lots of hours on it. The City wouldn’t sign it. We couldn’t get them to sign it. They said they couldn’t sign things like that. Well, if they had put it in writing in a letter to us (what) their intent (was) but that’s why it’s still in court right now. They have a lawyer that they are going to pay fifteen thousand to take it back into court again to Judge Freeman.

MR. SEARS: Now I understand the objective, as regards to the schools, is to keep the junior high school from being taken away but about the City, what was the objective there about the suit?

MISS BECKER: Well, it is to stop them from taking homes – buying people’s houses. They would go to them and say, “You’ve got a substandard house. Will you sell it to us?” It wasn’t always what we felt was substandard. It may have needed fixing. They were so unsettled. They couldn’t sell. They couldn’t get loans; they couldn’t sell their house because that thing was so unsettled. The only place they had to go (and) sell their home was to the City, the only buyer. Therefore, they had to take what they were offered even though they did raise the prices a little to them. Then, so often what they would do was they would buy the house and tear it down. There was a vacant lot. Just like Detroit has gone through later, you see.

MR. SEARS: So now is that practice still continuing? Is it still the same problem?

MISS BECKER: No. They reversed that. Now when they want to take down something they ask us. They consult with us. But also, in addition to that, we ask them sometimes to take things down because it worked both ways and that’s what we had agreed to back in ’78, ’79 and ’80. One of the things is that we were as concerned as they were, that there would be unsafe places removed or fixed up and brought up to code within reason. Al l we asked was that they would do it on a fair scale, that the money from the HUD or whatever funds came in would be used to rehabilitate places, fix them up if they were fixable. They have grants but also low interest loans to people. A lot of things. It was a very good program, not only from our viewpoint but the City did a good job of working things out. We thought it was time to settle it. That’s why we couldn’t quite see why they wouldn’t sign things. We are going to meet again to try to settle it.

The other thing that the City did, they would put out propaganda either by rumor or appearing in the paper, about what should be done with the South End or something about the South End that wasn’t true. It can’t think of (anything) right now but every week there was something that was rumored was going to happen or might happen. So, it just kept the people in a state of nervousness all the time. Then when they would come they would say, “Can you find a buyer for our house? Can you find somebody? I’m getting old. I’ve got to do something about my house.” And another thing- the senior citizen homes. They would promise them a place in the senior citizen home if they would sell the house to the City. Lots of little tricks like that. If they could have a place in their home and they wanted to go there, fine. But we felt that somebody else should be able to buy their house and fix it up.

Another thing is they wanted to get rid of all those homes on the back of lots. They said those were temporary homes. They called them garage homes or temporary homes. Well, during the Depression


there were a lot of (those). They still carry some of them out in Dearborn and a lot of placed because people built that and intended to build a house later.

MR. SEARS: it see. That would probably be the garage (later) but meanwhile they were living in it.

MISS BECKER: Well, they called them that but they weren’t garage homes really. A lot of them built very nice homes. A lot of them were not very good houses. A lot of the stuff in the Depression years was very good building. If the person that was building it themselves was a good carpenter and good craftsman, they got a good house. If they weren’t that kind, they built them without basement. They were not good houses. That kind of thing was alright to put up. Some of them were very well built and we had architects and people who were our consultants and came and did that free from around town. We had a lot of nice citizens in Dearborn that did things like that for us. They would come and look it over and see if it was a house worth saving. That is, if it didn’t have a basement, could a basement (be put) under there. In other words, whether it was feasible and practical. So we tried to get the City to work with us on that, to sit down and say, “Well, it’s worth it.” Or “It’s not worth it.” Or to move houses too. We finally persuaded people were going to move some houses if they could find buyers for those than tear them down. They did some of that too later on. They got some common sense. Of course, a lot of our ideas were not practical. When I make suggestions, I try to study things. A lot of other people (are) like me but they are not builders or carpenters. We have to depend on some experts but what we objected to about the City experts was they were not always experts. Even when they were, they weren’t always honest about things. So we have to have that second opinion. Well, there were other things about these houses in back. Some of them were very nice houses and the people had worked on them over the years and really fixed them up nice. Some of them had put basements there. A lot of homes are without basements now.

Like that new…thing they are going to build for us over there on the South End. (They are) not going to have basements because they are building it on a dump. We told them they couldn’t build basements that way. It’s an interesting thing too. The vacant land they always wondered why it didn’t fill it. We used to try to tell them it was because it was the City dump and there was a clay pit. It was a dump for years and years and years and therefore, until it was settled and really peaceful, we could not build on that. Another thing the city used to do is they would tear down houses and bulldoze the cement and all the stuff into the hole. How can you build houses there later? We tried to tell them that if they are going to tear down houses, they’ve got to do it right. They have to take this stuff away and leave us a clean piece of land so people can build on it instead of making it so people can’t build. Later on they can put industry there if enough people go out. That was the point. They were going to make it into an industrial area which we felt was not fair to the people nor to West Detroit, by the way.

MR. SEARS: Is West Detroit residential?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. Patton Park and all the rest is residential. Delray all that which has enough trouble. Then (Woodmere) Cemetery is there and Levy kept putting its piles closer and closer to the cemetery. All these things.

MR. SEARS: Is the cemetery still there?


MISS BECKER: The cemetery is still there and Levy still piles the things closer than they told us they would to the houses in the back of them on Amazon Street. Some of the houses at the back of the lots are still there. You see, this is another thing that we couldn’t understand. Why houses have to be all in a row, all the same. We talked about plans for some houses back and some forward so that they had front yards that had gardens in them which the people were used to having over there because their house or out front, English style, European style. I don’t see anything wrong with a flower garden in the front yard. The idea that also it would be better for air space and for interest and beauty. We couldn’t see why all houses have to be set up so many feet except to make the pipelines easier for the sewer and the gas. This is another idea that we had that would make the area more interesting.

MR. SEARS: Did they go along with you?

MISS BECKER: Well, no. They still thought it should be better the other way but we still have quite a few houses over there that are little cottages, some of them good. But people spend a lot of money fixing them up. We said if they made it impossible for people to get a good enough price for their houses to sell to the public – private sales- then they should either pay them a good price themselves if they wanted the house or help them with the loans and fix them up. That’s why we applied for the Federal funds. The family applied for the Federal funds. A couple of years we didn’t have it.

MR. SEARS: Have you been able to get the Federal funds?

MISS BECKER: Yes. That’s what that thing in the paper lately. Somebody (was) planning to audit the funds. It was a bunch of foolishness because we always have an audit every year.

MR. SEARS: Actually, it’s good for me to be asking questions that would seem to be (redundant) because for posterity if I was too knowledgeable, I would be passing over a lot. It’s better that I ask the obvious and get it down.

MISS BECKER: This is a little jumping around but the things from ’53 are still tied in with ’83. It bothered people that we god funds for the South End. Actually, the funds have been used all over Dearborn which is right. You see, the reason they got the funds in the first place is because there was a degree of unemployment and low income enough in the South End to justify the funds for the City of Dearborn. But they can’t all be used in one place, different parts, different facets of the funds. You really need to work for the whole town. The thing is that we wouldn’t have those funds if it hadn’t been for the South End. It was a kind of peculiar justice.

MR. SEARS: I can see there’s a lot of Dearborn history tied up in the South End.

MISS BECKER: Oh yes, very much. A lot of it dates back to the 1917-18. It didn’t bother the people out here in West Dearborn too much because the Ford plant had moved downriver. (It) apparently was good. That pleased them. In face the ladies had gone to Mrs. Ford when the plant was over here and asked that it be moved downriver.


MR. SEARS: The tractor plant?

MISS BECKER: So Henry moved it down in the swamp land of the Rouge. You know, there is swamp down there.

MR. SEARS: I always wondered why he picked (that) spot (and) built on (spiles).

MISS BECKER: One thing it’s easy access to the river. It’s closer to the mouth of the Rouge and would get out to the Detroit River. Also, it was land that was not good for other kind of building. It was farmland and swamp land. That’s where it got its name of the Springwells and then, of course, the Salina area bot its name from the sale mines, saline. It’s over the salt mines.

MR. SEARS: No. I’d never heard about the ladies of Dearborn approaching Clara Ford.

MISS BECKER: Yes. Then they built the Rouge, of course, and that’s a massive place. There was already a school down the road and that land where the school was was taken over by Ford and some of the people here in town were still here (when) those farms were there, the Roulos. Roulo Street comes from the Roulos, which are French names. The creek went through there. That creek they called Baby Creek. That’s not Baby. It was Baubee, a French name, but the Americans called it Baby Creek. It goes right past the center. Of course, it’s buried now. The creek is buried next to the (Woodmere) Cemetery. That was the Baby that flowed down through there.

I can remember when we first came down here in ’22. One thing they took us to was to see the overpass and things on the Rouge and when they finally moved down here in ’26, ’27, that’s where we took our company to show them the real sights, the Rouge. At midnight when the midnight shift was coming out it was like a sea, a human sea, a magnificent sight. It really was. We would stand up there on that overpass, the bridge that goes across the Miller Road and it was just something to watch it. They had three full shifts of workers then. Quite exciting. I used to enjoy looking out the room at Salina at the plant in spite of its ugliness. It was beautiful, just beautiful. Especially because I was usually there until five o’clock or so and it was a beautiful sunset.

MR. SEARS: Now, were most of the people who lived in that area drawn there because they were working for Ford?

MISS BECKER: yes. That big influx was 1917 and ’18 when they built the plant.

MR. SEARS: I notice the name Eagle suggests the Eagle boats and tractor, of course, suggests the tractor.

MISS BECKER: Right and Fordson Street, all of those streets and Springwells and all that. Now the names just like down by Fort Wayne is all military names and then you find the things Eagle in there. But the building of the plant itself, you know, wasn’t all done at one time but it did grow (during ) that six, seven year period. They didn’t make car then.

MR. SEARS: Right, not until the Model A Ford.


MISS BECKER: Yes. Around ’28 in there but they made the tractors and they made parts for it. But it was really an interesting place. It was dirty but interesting. One of the things that’s been the dirtiest outside of this field – molten steel itself, which is always beautiful by the way. You know, you can see that glow all in the sky when they pour those big ladles of steel. It was a fascinating sight to watch the steam roll up but the biggest trouble were the coal piles when they got worse after the war, coal dust. You know, there were mountains of coal, just mountains, and the wind. One thing the Ford Motor Company did, they built about a ten foot wall around the mountain one hundred feet high. So we always laughed about that. It does keep the bottom part and looks kind of cute along Miller Road there but it doesn’t do much about the dust when the wind comes, it penetrates everything. Our windows at Salina School every day I didn’t dare put my elbows or hands on the window sill after school because we had to clean the black soot. (It) came through everything.

MR. SEARS: I always thought the soot was a product of combustion. It never occurred to me that…

MISS BECKER: And then the fallout. When we have the environmental protection people from Wayne County, etc., and they measure (they do have the things that measure). They used to have a plane that flew around and checked the (soot). We always used to laugh a little bit bitterly y because the big smoke and stuff that was released would come out after five o’clock and eleven o’clock at night, the big black smoke so that people always said, well, they could tell the time when the black smoke was over the Ford Motor Company. It seems funny now. It wasn’t always then, although we used to joke about it. The big black smoke would roll out and it made beautiful sunsets. The thing about the Ford Motor Company is it’s not on full scale right now which is very sad but the one good thing that has been good for the last couple of years is that we have had less pollution. So it’s an ambivalent feeling people have, although Ford Motor Company has been the one group I would say that’s really tried to do something. That’s why I feel strongly that they shouldn’t lower the standards because Ford has spent millions of dollars on trying to do something about theirs. The other people shouldn’t be let off the hook by lowering the standards. Ford has always been blamed for all the pollution, not just part of it.

I don’t know what else to say about the lawsuit except some details on some of the times going to court. Sometimes the City has been very badly prepared and, of course, they object to us having legal services which is part of the quarrel on legal services because you can bring class action suits and some people object to that. That was the only way that we could have done anything. We couldn’t do a thing individually. We had to join together. So it’s been a good thing for people to be able to bring their cases into court.

MR. SEARS: You forced them to do the things that you wanted them to do.

MISS BECKER: Twenty-eight or twenty-nine points out of the thirty some points were found in our favor. They appealed to the Cincinnati court.


FEBRUARY 9, 1983

MR. SEARS: Talking about starting the founding of the Southeast Dearborn Community Council, when did they begin to call it that?

MISS BECKER: Well, it goes back a while. At one time it was called the Southeast Community Organization. We had no formal name for it in a sense. We called ourselves the Concerned Citizens for a while. Finally, it was in the 1960s, really, when we finally settled on S.E.D.C.C. Now we had to get something down that we really (could) call ourselves. That was the time when there were different associations around the City were organizing more closely in other areas. So we decided we had to formalize ourselves a little bit and we wrote a constitution and by-laws, etc. Then we also wanted to have some fundraising. So we incorporate as a nonprofit corporation. Later on we wanted to raise some funds separately. We formed a little sub-group. Several of us made contributions of a hundred, two hundred, three hundred and we had hoped to build up a fund of five, six thousand, maybe up to ten thousand dollars to help people rehabilitate their homes. That’s before we got the HUD funds, before they started coming in, to see if we couldn’t do something for our people ourselves. It didn’t get off the ground very well. But the Council itself did and the concern for things but our direction for fighting went the other way. So for the name itself, S.E.D.C.C., we really called ourselves that in the 1960s and finally decided that was the one when we incorporated.

MR. SEARS: Now that the pollution battles are won and the urban renewal battles are won that the organization is now more of a social organization, now social in the sense but a social service. Isn’t that what it is now?

MISS BECKER: Yes. I would say that that’s the extension of what we’re concerned about but the pollution question and housing question are (a) continuing problem. (It) won’t go away unless we’re vigilant. When Ford renews its activities, we will have some complaints. We still are now but you have to stay organized for your original purposes. You accomplish goals but that doesn’t mean you go home and go to sleep.

MR. SEARS: Where does that come from?

MISS BECKER: Well, there used to be some small plants that were like stamping plants. So we talked about some kind of a (thing) etc. and, of course, the fact we removed some houses that were closest to some of those things. It was down a ways from the plant. When you can’t remove the industry, you remove the people. That’s part of the old problem. In addition to that, there are so many other problems that we always did have. We always tried to help people with advice and counsel. One reason we got out lawyers was not just to bring a lawsuit but because our people needed counseling, different kinds. The people who were lawyers in the community itself volunteered time just like doctors have done and other people with different talents. I think that happens in every community like Dearborn as a whole. I’m sure different types do it. But in that part of town particularly, there was a great need and also a rather high degree of response. People were willing to give their time to help


other people. It was like a little community within a community. Therefore, it had a spirit of its own. It still does.

MR. SEARS: What does go on on a day-to-day basis?

MISS BECKER: We work for some programs like we worked at something the social service agency two doors down, A.C.C.E.S.S. They do a lot of social service work of all kinds everything from classes to helping people with their international papers, their own social problems, etc.

MR. SEARS: Did they limit that to Arabs?

MISS BECKER: Oh, no. The A.C.C.E.S.S. was the American Arab Social Service thing but it was because there was a group that was the newest group and had the greatest problem. No, it’s not limited to that and never has been. Anybody can go and we have other people that are newcomers. They teach English. They also do something along with our group to help read some of the traditions like knowledge of their dances and other things about their culture so that it helps answer a problem that we always tried to answer in the South End. That was to keep the people wanting to be good Americans and to become Americans and to learn English. Also not to be ashamed of where they came from or what they were. That’s what A.C.C.E.S.S. and the S.E.D.C.C. has tried to continue to do, to make people aware that we did not just expect them to learn English. We expect them to understand what America stands for, not just the language but the things that we think are important in our country, to be a part of it, to not be ashamed of what (they) were. (They) had to be very secure in the sense that (they) believed what (they) were a good thing just like everybody else.

MR. SEARS: Are the two organizations totally separate?

MISS BECKER: They are separated as far as organization is concerned but there happens to be some of the same people in S.E.D.C.C. (who were in) the groups that helped found A.C.C.E.S.S. The people came out of that group, lot of them. I think that’s important in the history of S.E.D.C.C. It’s far older than A.C.C.E.S.S., of course. One of the things keeping people together we say we need this, we need that and we need to do this. The needs of the school, the P.T.A. and the Mothers” Club and all those things that have an ebb and flow in organization. We needed something to cross lines and that’s another thing S.E.D.C.C. succeeds in that type of work, bringing the churches together, the school – create it with the school problems so that they could face the fact that what happened to the church. What happened to the school and what happened to an organization in a community of any kind that an effect on the rest of them and made a different.

MR. SEARS: What does A.C.C.E.S.S. stand for?

MISS BECKER: (Arabic Community Center For Economic Social Services)

MR. SEARS: About when were they formed?

MISS BECKER: It grew over a year before it again became formalized. That was back in the sixties. We met over at a hall over there…now where they finally had a place, the hall that they got from the


Romanian people – with some of the people in the Southeast Council. We brought in some people who were social service people from the (International) Institute but then our own Y.W.C.A. and Y.M.C.A. the Y.W.C.A. helped with the Mothers’ Club a lot, the Girls’ Club in Salina. Some ministers from several of the churches came as advisors and counselors. So it was made up at first before it was formalized, groups of people that came to it as consultants and advisors. They actually had groups working. The “Y”, for example, for years ran the Mothers’ Club and the Girls’ Club. They brought in materials for crafts. They met in Salina School and were part of the school. They activated the services and the people that came to work were either volunteers or the paid help, some very fine ministers from all the different churches, particularly the Lutheran Church, Congregational Church, Presbyterian Church, not all of them but individual ministers and churches that were particularly concerned about the problems of the foreign born came to help.

MR. SEARS: Now did A.C.C.E.S.S. take over most of those kinds of activities?

MISS BECKER: Yes. A.C.C.E.S.S. Lee Swanson helped organize that and those people and the people from the International Institute kept coming out.

MR. SEARS: The one down in Detroit?

MISS BECKER: Right. And they kept bringing people that had different talents, skills and sources of funds so that it got to become a social service organization. It actually could be counseling and help them get regular jobs. The two places have been fairly close together, handy to run back and forth to use what we can’t do we send them. The problems that come to them they send to the Southeast Council.

MR. SEARS: What would they send?

MISS BECKER: Anything on housing for example and rehabilitation and dealing with the City on problems of pollution, the mowing of the fields or cleaning up any sewage problems when we had any trouble with sewers, anything where they have to deal with the city or the government not as a social problem but as a community problem individual property.

MR. SEARS: S.E.D.C.C. is really the kind of liaison between the citizens and the City.

MISS BECKER: Right. It’s made up of anybody that wants to belong to it and they only charge a dollar for the year for postage. Donation. Anyone can belong and organizations can belong for some of us pay more than a dollar, like five dollars a year, so much for a family and as groups. Also, we have individual members but we also have groups (who) have a representative if they want to on the Executive Board and General Council.

MR. SEARS: Can you give me some sort of an approximate indication of the number of members that we are talking about?


MISS BECKER: Well, I don’t know what the paid up membership is now but the people that consider themselves part of it, even if they don’t pay dues, is far larger than the number of people that turn in their money.

At one time when we were really in the midst of our big fights, we had a membership of seven or eight hundred people that were listed as having made some kind of donation or put in time or help. That tapered off as the battle was won. I couldn’t say won. There were two things that tapered off. When there was a lot of controversial trouble, some people were afraid to participate. Then, the other time when they got some things accomplished and they thought it was not necessary to organize, they taped off. I’m sure that’s true in any organization. But in addition to that, we have a lot of older people who die off or move away. So we have to go on getting the new people and the people that are still there to face up to the fact that they owe something to that community. And then we have members that don’t live in the community. Quite a few of our members are people that used to live there but still keep their interest or their own property there.

One of the things when we started getting some funds was to have enough to put back into that community in the way of the center. Before we had our office, we paid for everything ourselves, raised funds, got donations to keep it going and had a place for people in need besides the school so it could be open evenings. Also, it would be there so people could walk in off the street for help. One of the things that we did finally was to get the budget for that office. As I said before, we hired Helen (Atwell) full-time or almost full-time and Lee Swanson Part-time. We could have gone out and we could have gotten other people to come in but they would have to have learned everything we knew. She went back to college and got her degree. Her kids were partly grown and worked hard. She got in the things we were concerned about. She got it on purpose in the kind of community as that so that she would be prepared for this. Now she could have gone out and gotten a much better job, I’m sure, at that time – four or five years ago. There were lots of jobs available for her talents especially when we were doing so much about community planning and social problems. We worked at getting her a salary and asked her to come back.

MR. SEARS: Is she the first salaried director?

MISS BECKER: Yes, the first salaried director and (she was) the first one we had. We wanted to keep building our funds enough so if government funds went away, we would find a way to keep going. The thing is when they cut; they gave us enough time for a part-time person too. That’s when Lee came in. She acted as secretary and did all this other stuff too. All the rest was done by volunteers, C.E.T.A. workers. Well, it’s like most people that were dedicated to something. They put in their time plus a lot of other time that’s volunteer time. A regular person from outside probably wouldn’t do that. So that’s why we wanted people from the area itself.

MR. SEARS: Was Lee from the area?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes, Lee Swanson. They’re in Yemen now but they lived in the South End for years and then they went to Yemen (to) the university before. They then came back and jumped in with both feet again. They went back to Yemen, won’t be back for another two years. I don’t know whether they


will come back here because it’s likely John will get a job somewhere else and, of course, Lee is working with the education system over there. She applied for a job over there and got it.

MR. SEARS: Which Yemen is it?

MISS BECKER: North Yemen. They are both very talented people and so we can hardly hang onto people like that. As I say, we’ve been very fortunate to have people that grew up in the area, although Lee and John didn’t grown up in the area. But they lived there for several years and were very interested in what happened. So we were very fortunate to have people that were very dedicated to a cause or an idea.

MR. SEARS: Who first conceived of the idea of the museum?

MISS BECKER: Well, that was kind of a thing that has grown out of what we talked about for many years. You know we talked about getting a little school for a community center. This was before St. Bernadette’s Church had closed. (It) stood there for years and we thought (what a) marvelous community center where we could have not only classes but a clinic and library that would be a kind of an archives, things that we want to save in an area and some of the architecture too. Then, when that was so badly vandalized and let stand the community would help us with it. The City wouldn’t give it to us. It belonged to the City. Finally, it was torn down. They were going to use that property. Of course, the property is still empty. We knew it would be but the church stood there too. The remaining people moved out and built a new church out in Dearborn Heights.

MR. SEARS: When did they move out approximately?

MISS BECKER: Oh, about ten years ago. About twelve years ago but when they moved out, they wanted to sell the church to some other church. There were no buyers. Then it stood there and began to be vandalized. We worried about it. We kept asking the City if they would find a way some of us (could) use it. Now this was before (the church) was available. (The) school was available by that time but not the church part. So we couldn't use it as a center. St. Peter and Paul was a logical place to try to save. There was always a question on the parking lot. There was no problem. It could have been solved. They had such beautiful stained glass windows. While it was not an ancient building, it was a young building. It was built in 1940. It was a well-built building and very much a part of the history of the area because the Romanian group had been the largest group. In addition to that, it had kitchen and dining facilities as part of the building. It was a building that we looked at- when through several times. It would lend itself to multiple purpose and we started making lists with the idea of things we needed to talk to the City about it. We met many times. Lee got behind that and really became the pusher. It turned over my papers to her, my boxes and boxes of records of the area, to try to collect things both from here and for our own collection. Well, we had felt we would turn things over to the Dearborn Historical (Museum). We never have had room here to turn things of vast amounts over that other people and I have collected about the South End. I remember years ago I tried to get a good entire program where churches and ethnic groups write their histories. They asked them to turn them in to them. A few of them did but there was no ongoing program from here because we didn’t have the staff to do it. I was not then so much active after that for a while but we really should have been. We


wanted their costumes before they threw or gave them away. We had a hard time persuading people that ethnic history was a very important part of Dearborn’s history even in the 1800s. We’ve had three different waves of it in the Dearborn area and the ethnic history. There are many nationalities…very much the story of modern Dearborn. It included crafts and labor history and the whole history of the South End as a labor fight area. That’s very important. Also, the attitudes that came about labor from the different forms of problems they had, law enforcement, etc., Ford Motor Company. We’ve (had a) very, very interesting history and the more they, lee and that group of the younger people, kept reading this we’ve got to do something about it so that’s why this group started pushing for St. Peter and Paul. We started trying to get it four years before we finally got it for a dollar.

MR. SEARS: Did you buy it from the church? Did they own it at the time – the Romanian Church?

MISS BECKER: Yes. We bought it for a dollar. Four years before that, three years before that we could have had it for seven, eight thousand dollars. The City couldn’t and it wasn’t as badly vandalized. It was vandalized but not so bad. But in that three years, they really tore up things. Finally, the Romanian people sold it to us for a dollar and, as I say, it would have been cheap seven or eight (thousand), really cheap at fifteen a couple of years before that. They had come down from thirty-five, fifty thousand dollars selling for thirty-five and then down to fifteen thousand. When it was fifteen thousand, it was really those people had been trying to protect it as best they could, had the windows boarded up and all that.

FEBRUARY 15, 1986

MR. SEARS: You mentioned the Baptist, Romanian Church, St. Bernadette’s and the Serbian and Armenian Hall. Is that the correct designation of them?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. There was the Turkish Hall, of course, the Romanian halls. There were two different Italian halls.

MR. SEARS: Are these halls set up like churches in a way?

MISS BECKER: Well, sometimes they held services there if they didn’t have a church. On the other hand, some of them went to churches that were already there. They fitted their inclination. For example, later on when St. Bernadette’s was there, which was quite a while back, the Italians and people would go to the Roman Catholic Church. A few people, even thought they were foreign born, went to one of the Baptist churches. There were two of the those, one south of Dix and one north of Dix -- different kind of Baptists. But then the one that didn’t have churches usually went somewhere in Detroit or wherever there was a bigger church. But often they did hold church meetings or church services in their halls just like any beginning church does or a church away from their roots and base. They would have different kinds of things. But largely those halls were for socializing and dinners, fund raising, all different kinds of things (for) families.


MR. SEARS: You have made various references to St. Bernadette’s Church. Can you tell me how that relates to the community?

MISS BECKER: Well, now St. Bernadette was always the largest of all the churches in that end because there were so many Catholics of different nationalities. Of course, they all came to Salina School or Roulo School and it (the church) was built later on. First of all what they built was that….If you go to the South End you will see a place that looks like a hall. It was a hall like everything else but they held their services in it. It had a stage right there on what we called Saulino Court, now Saulino. We named the street later. We finally put the street through and named it Saulino Court after Father Saulino who was a priest that was at St. Bernadette’s so long and about whom we had many stories. He was very much part of the community and joined with us as did most of the pastors of the churches. They were very much active in working with the schools. What they had there was this hall and they gradually built onto that so they had offices for the priests and that sort of thing. But the hall itself was a very versatile hall. Most of them were down there. Sunday was for services or during the week if there were other services. They set up the chairs and the altar and had the services. The stage was very useful and then they could clear it out. They could play basketball; have gym or their dinners because there was a kitchen and all that there. Then, later on, they decided they could afford to build a school. First of all, they had a convent there, a building. There’s two buildings next to the present building. One was where the nuns lived and one was where the priests lived. Then they built the school and called it St. Bernadette’s School and a section of that was the chapel, the church. So the church and the school were in one building. Then the place across the street became just a hall for bingo and all the things that churches do to raise money and have fun, the social things again. Also, it could be cleared for use for a gym because they didn’t have a gym in the new building. The gym was across the street in the hall and so it was a combination basketball court. In other words (it was) a very versatile building. St. Bernadette’s was just through the eighth grade and then the kids came to Salina for high school.

MR. SEARS: When did they first start the hall?

MISS BECKER: Well, the hall was there clear back in the ‘20s and ‘30s, Then the newer school was built right after World War II in the late ‘40s. They finished part of it at a time and moved their kids in so that took some kids away from Roulo School and Salina. They didn’t take any problems. They wouldn’t keep any of the kids that were problems. They sent (them) back to Salina. So we always kidded Father Saulino about that. He kept all the smart one and the well behaved ones and we got the problems back. But they wouldn’t put up with them.

A lot of foreign born kids are often problems not because they’re naturally that way but because of problems at home or misunderstandings for the same reasons that American born kids are problems sometimes. It’s complicated by the fact that they didn’t always understand English well or made believe that they didn’t. They had problem parents at home. That’s not limited to American parents or the other parents. It’s a universal problem, I’m sure. But St. Bernadette’s then developed and it gradually took more and more of the students in there and that was finally the reason Roulo closed.


Roulo was closed down in (1959) and then it was sold to the City for a very low price. The Boys Club was still there. That’s where the Boys Club started and they still used it for some classes like shop and some other things. We were hoping we would go on and turn (it) into a recreation center and stay a recreation center like it had been in a way for the South End. We asked many times for it to be a clinic or other things involved in the schools so it could be a complete community (center). There was no such thing in the South End except the schools at that time.

Then, of course, down the road as people moved out – a large number of them were Catholics. St., St. Bernadette’s itself declined with the declining enrollment, declining number of Roman Catholics in the area and the people willing to pay tuition. It went downward as far as enrollment was concerned. The nuns still lived there but they worked down in Detroit. They shared their time with the Hispanic people. In other words the nuns had to work at two or three different schools. The priests had to divide themselves between the two churches. The same thing that happens to schools happens to churches. Finally they closed the school itself.

MR. SEARS: What time, what year was this?

MISS BECKER: Well, I’d have to look that up for you but the school itself closed up toward the end of the ‘60s, I think. It tapered off, got smaller and smaller in classes. But the church stayed there. Then, they would use the school for other activities, their social activities and that sort of thing. So they made use of it. They started renting. By “we” I mean the Southeast Council and other groups started renting the use of their rooms for different things. They had a little kitchen there, not much of one but not very good facilities there like they had had across the street at the hold hall.

MR. SEARS: The old hall was gone by this time.

MISS BECKER: No. It’s still there. The City finally bought St. Bernadette’s School. The chapel is back over in the original hall where they were. They’ve gone full circle. They are back across the street in the old hall. It is a chapel now and the priest lives over there. The convent where the nuns lived, one of the buildings became a home for alcoholics. It was there for many years, was very well run and a very good place. We were sorry to see it go. We really didn’t like the fact that the city bought both those buildings, bought all three of them finally and with our development money largely and some from e the City but mostly from our development money. They were going to change St. Bernadette’s into a recreation place but it has had its problems. One building became different kinds of offices for the City for handling some businesses of the city. Now the other one, the third building, is a clinic. We kept looking for a group to lease it. They didn’t want to buy it. They leased it from the City very cheaply and they have put in a clinic and a medical center over there which was what we (wanted) for a long time. So about fifteen years later from the time we started talking about it over at Roulo School, we finally got a private clinic in the South End.

MR. SEARS: So those buildings are being used.

MISS BECKER: That’s right. But it’s gone through a terrible process to get it done but also sometimes not the best use. The Roulo School was torn down and they were supposed to put up housing there or


some kind of apartment building or something. It still stands empty. In fact, we had to fight having trucks parked there. We don’t want trucks parked in a residential neighborhood. So it’s like a lot of Detroit and like a lot of other places here in Dearborn. It’s cleared, town down but things happen that should not happen. Things do not happen that should.

MR. SEARS: How about other organizations within the Southeast Dearborn area? Can you name any of those, especially ones that would have been active in trying to solve problems?

MISS BECKER: Do you mean besides the church groups and the nationality groups? Well, now the nationality groups were very concerned. Most of the people who joined things, joined as individuals but often they also sent representation as from their clubs. For example, the Italian people represented an Italian club as well as themselves. You know, they would have the weight of their club or organization. The Turkish people, the Serbian people all in the early days until they got depleted and wiped out. For example, on Roulo, Amazon and Tractor there happened to be a lot of Serbian, Romanian and Turkish people particularly in those areas. Their halls and their particular churches were the ones to be depleted first or their groups of people. The Romanians stayed fairly strong because they were scattered all over the South End. The Italians were scattered around and then, of course, more Arabic people came in and bought their homes. So you had an intermingling of that. You had quite a lot of Hungarians too. Hungarians hung in there for quite a long time.

MR. SEARS: Did they have a hall or any kind of….

MISS BECKER: The Hungarians did not have a hall of their own there. They met down in Delray across the other side of Patton Park. So Delray was very much a Hungarian section. The Hungarians who lived in Dearborn went down there to the Hungarian Church and activities. In fact, a lot of use used to go down there too. The Hungarians always had very nice parties, very happy gay ones and lots of fun.

Some of them became more and more reticent. They didn’t think it would do any good particularly those that had been effected the most were the most discouraged and they got older. As you get older, you don’t fight quite as much unless you’re a special kind or you get tired doing it.

MR. SEARS: So are the nationality groups gone now?

MISS BECKER: No. There are nationality groups still there but a lot of them are remnants or they are the older people. The young people have moved to other parts of Dearborn or Dearborn Heights.

This year is the sixtieth anniversary of Salina School. Our fiftieth anniversary in ’73, we thought we would have about five or six hundred people. It turned out to have twelve hundred came back to school. The one reason some of them came from far away. So many we found lived within a ten, fifteen mile radius of Dearborn. People who once lived in Dearborn and particularly the South End, tend to settle not too far away from where their roots, where their family, was at least until they became more mobile, the third generation, where they’re moving people away so much.

We’re having a little problem with that age group, the third generation. The grandchildren are transferred with companies so far away and they get lonesome. They do have problems. We got a lot


of calls. Young people tell me, “We’ve got to get back,” or “We got to go back.” So we have an extended family,. I think that’s not just true of the foreign born people. I think American kids are having the same problems these days. But it’s a phenomenon that was interesting to use ten years ago. So many of our people didn’t go too far away to build a new family. It’s been interesting and they come back. (I) meet people every place who either taught At Salina School which was very special. (They) had to be a special kind of person to do it. The people that went there never get very far away from thinking about what they felt like there. It was interesting and I kind of liked it from that standpoint that they were very much family oriented people, community oriented. I suppose that came probably because it is isolated from the rest of Dearborn in a way. For years people in West Dearborn didn’t even know that was part of Dearborn. We couldn’t convince them that the southeast section of Dearborn was like the southwest section. It was part of Dearborn, you know. We got to calling East Dearborn, West Dearborn, Southeast Dearborn and Southwest Dearborn, etc., and Dearborn Hills. We gave out section names because the Ford Plant and all that land in between and industry kind of separated that part of town, isolated it.

MR. SEARS: Now do these nationality groups still maintain the buildings or have they lost all those?

MISS BECKER: Not entirely. Now the mosque had different stages. They call it the jemma which means the meeting place because it was a meeting place just like our churches. The chapel upstairs, of course, they took off their shoes to go into (it). The women sat in the back but later on they got much more liberal. They had their women’s associations and groups like have our church groups. They had (their) federations (with) different kinds of names but all the same thing.

The women do all the cooking and raise the money. The basement was a social hall just like the other churches. We had dinners and dancing. As I said before when the church over there or the school had a dinner, everybody came. If they were potluck, they were very much international. It was fun to do to the different churches. People not only came from the South End, they came from all parts of Dearborn because they knew the food was interesting and very good, fattening but good. So the interest in grape leaves and hataya and eating lamb grew and shish kabob, etc. and the fame spread. The more it spread the more people they had come to the dinners along with the Romanian , Polish and Hungarian and all the other food.

The jemma or mosque also started out as different kinds. It was one of the sects of the Islamic religion but it was not closed in. There were people who were not of that sect who came to the mosque just like Baptist goes to the Methodist Church and vice versa. Protestant groups don’t always go to their own denomination. There was a liberalism about it and they didn’t think anything of it. Christians are welcome to come and I suppose there were even a few atheists around. I don’t know but I’m sure there were and some were of different political (parties). So it was really a cosmopolitan area. It was therefore fascinating.

Then with the wave of things and trouble in the Middle East, they had a great many Yemen come, a great many Palestinians later on. They began to have a change. They have a very conservative group of Islamic people, old world Islamic people and a bit more conservative sect. They finally took over the


mosque and crowded the other people out which was a real tragedy. It was really a semi-violent thing in the sense that it violated rights. They made the women wear scarves again, the headdresses and all the things that they went back to. They didn’t have the dinners and dances. In other words it was a case of the people that had taken the other people in very generously even though they weren’t always the same customs getting pushed.

MR. SEARS: Now what date would you guess this takeover took place?

MISS BECKER: this took place in the ‘70s, about the middle ‘70s really, about eight years ago we began to have this. First of all we tried to warn the City about it, what was happening, that it was violent and even guns involved, not shootings but threatenings - which was very sad. These people we knew all these years (were peaceful). We began to have problems at the school about it too. I mean the more strict Islamic thing. The prejudices against other people began to show which the Islamic faith has never been as we knew it. At least two Islamic sections, I would say, faith had always been very open and unprejudiced. This is why in Israel and the old Palestine they welcome you to Israel. They say, “Welcome, Christians,” etc.

It’s like our own Protestants. Many different parts of the Protestant faith and even parts of the Catholic faith are much more strict about some things than others of us and much less open. Take the communion, for example. You know a lot of us have open communion. If you belong to a Christian faith of any kind, you can take communion while the others wouldn’t . So we have that same thing in Islam, the differences, the more conservative versus the more liberal which you can see in the Middle East today. It would cause problems with other groups and with their neighbors sometimes and in the school. We really had to crack down in the school. I was telling them about their rights but also the rights of the public.

When the mosque first went up, it didn’t have a dome. This is years ago and the people worked hard to build a dome, put the dome on there. We were very proud when we put that up there. Then they wanted to paint it. When they started to put that on raised money, us Christian folks helped them sell Christmas cards to put the dome on. That was the kind of neighborhood it was. When the Baptist people were fixing that little mission church over there, there were Arabic people or Lebanese people, people that knew how to work on things and helped them paint or do carpentry work or something. So, you just joined in and helped each other. Everybody was in the same boat.

Like the Depression, everybody was poor. When you’re foreign born you might have arguments but you know you’re in the same boat when you come to a new country.

MR. SEARS: Does this continue to be a problem in the schools?

MISS BECKER: Well, not so much now because we’ve worked harder and brought the people in for classes and opened up a line of (communication). Of course, they have to work at it all the time. The Southeast Dearborn Community Council and A.C.C.E.S.S. have tried to work with the school on doing that, the Mothers’ Club and the P.T.A. and holding classes in the school for having English classes for


some of the foreign born, also having classes in Arabic for the children in some cases so they can still talk to their parents.

The problem was we were having the little kids come to school and learn English and they wouldn’t learn Arabic or they hadn’t learned it in the old country. They didn’t go to school in the old country. Some of the people that came were so poor they hadn’t been to school. They never learned to write their own language. They could speak it but not write it very well. So they were mixed up with the people and we had to separate the people that were fairly well education in their own land versus the ones that were not. That’s hard for American teachers to do without some help. That’s one reason we got Arabic or Moslem (people who spoke Arabic) aids to help us. We had to but that was no different than back in the 1930s when we had Polish people. We used to get the people that knew English and the other language to come in and help us all the time. We had to. We couldn’t just stand there and get mad in English.

MR. SEARS: So there might be some children coming in from the Near East who might even be past the beginning stages of school, older than the entry age of school, and they might really not be qualified.

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. You see, one reason over the years at Salina, we had a different program than they had in lots of schools. We had to and we asked to be different that other schools until they started spreading out in other schools. We had it in some other schools too but we had to be different at Salina. We had to have a different curriculum, not a lesser curriculum, sometimes a broader curriculum in a sense because we couldn’t spend a year learning English and fall behind in geography, math, social studies, science, etc. We (had) to do things simultaneously or do something to help them. One reason we brought in people who could speak the foreign language. Our trouble wasn’t just Arabic. It was Yugoslavian and some other people that came from Europe after the Second World War. It wasn’t limited to the Middle East. They just happened to be somewhat larger in numbers. But the others, they would hire part-time that could speak that language and part of them were volunteers – half volunteers and half paid – because most of them worked more than they had to work. In other words, they would get paid for part-time but they would work extra like the volunteers do. They do more than they get paid for. A lot of them were pretty nice that way. It wasn’t just women. It was men who came in.

A man who just recently died used to come down, one we buried about a week and a half ago, Mr. Eeie, was one of those men that was a Lebanese leader in the area. Early on he came down to teach not only how to dance but help us pronounce words correctly when we were learning Arabic and help the kids. The dancing was the most fun. He’d bring his sword and his durbutei. That’s a drum, in case you don’t know, or his cod. That’s like a mandolin and his handkerchief teach us how to bend over backwards and pick it up. They had different dances, circle dances. He would come up in the classroom and sit and talk to me and try to tell me some of their customs and also why. Then I’d have him talk to all the kids so the ones who were not Arabic could understand not only the religion but the customs. He was one of them. He was a kind of leader. Then he would also straighten us out on who were really cousins and who were just calling themselves cousins. Everybody was everybody’s cousin whether they were or not. I guess some American families are like that. They call everybody aunt so-and-so even though they are a distant relative or a friend. They were very much that way. We had to be careful about who we talked about


because it could be somebody’s real cousin. That was part of the South End tradition and why Salina was different and still is.

MR. SEARS: These nationality groups, were they cooperative with the S.E.D.C.C.?

MISS BECKER: Some more than others. Some of the clubs were gung ho to be part of it. They would all send representatives just like now. We would get from some of the groups on the Southeast Dearborn Community Council right now. We have a board but we always send out notices for the general meeting to every organization in the South End including the school, from the Mothers’ Club to the different brands of Islam and the church groups. There are no Protestant Church groups left there. Unfortunately, the last one moved out south of Dix – or was partially driven out in a way – because they wanted to enlarge the park, which is another thing we had to fight. We wanted the park there but we didn’t want them to drive the church out. They had a nice little church down there. It was all torn down about five or six years ago, the park south of Dix where the skating rink was. What we had asked them (to do) was build a fence. They had a fence but we wanted a high fence like they put around baseball fields so the baseballs might go up and over it and land on the roof of the church. That was alright especially if they put the diamond at the other end. Well, instead of solving the problem, the same old way we so often solve problems, they did away with the thing they thought was causing the problem. If people are in the way, you do away with the people. The church finally got out because it was so pestered by the kids and the baseballs and things going through their windows. It was easier for them to go elsewhere which is the thing that we were fighting against letting people of non-Arabic people move out. We didn’t want that to happen. We still fight that battle.

MR. SEARS: Can you name some of the nationality groups that are still active?

MISS BECKER: the groups that Helen (Atwell) can name for you and the Arabic groups, for example. We have some clubs down there. There is the Yemeni group and the Palestinian. In fact there are two different Yemeni groups. Some of them wanted to send representations. Others of them stayed aloof from the S.E.D.C.C. until they found out that that was where they could get help from the City. Then they showed up and asked how come they were not represented. Then we reminded them that we sent them notices of meetings and put flyers on their door and all that. But they are no different than other people. They come when they have a problem of their own to solve. We’ve tried to convince them that they have got to be interested in other peoples’ problems in order to have their own solved. The Italians learned that long ago. The Romanians and the western Europeans are used to cooperating, working together and the Lebanese were and the earlier Arabic people. We had a few Jordanians there and the other groups. They took it for granted that they joined the Council or got together. Businessmen that used to be on the Dix Avenue, the ones that were there a long time, they automatically came and were interested. As newer people moved in, they kind of looked down their noses at “those busybodies” (and) had to go talk to them. Then, if they thought we could help them solve a problem, then they came down. But that’s no different than Americans are.

MR. SEARS: You’ve mentioned the Yemeni and the Palestinians. Are there some other groups that are active now and cooperating?


MISS BECKER: The problem with the Yemeni is they fight each other just like the Italians used to do. We had two Italian groups. The one was considered kind of conservative and they called the other people Communists whether they were or not. In fact they claimed they were all atheists, that they really didn’t belong to the church, those laboring Communists. It’s like all the groups, I guess. They have ways of making the other group look bad if they didn’t want to cooperative. Again, that was one reason for the S.E.D.C.C., to pull together non-political and non-religious in that sense. Not un-religious and un-political but non, so that everybody was welcome. The A.C.C.E.S.S. group too was another group that really started out to help pull together.

MR. SEARS: the two “Y”s, where are they located?

MISS BECKER: Well, the Y.W.C.A. used to be in west Dearborn, the Young Women’s Christian Association right here at Monroe and Newman Street. They took over the old telephone building and that was the Y.W.C.A. Later on they built the Y.W.C.A. out there just across the line in Inkster or Dearborn Heights- that little section between Dearborn and Inkster, that little strip just beyond Beech Daly Road. They built their own building but still the people of Dearborn or Western Wayne “Y”. It started in Dearborn and a lot of us are on the board or members. It’s called Western Wayne because it includes Inkster and Livonia and Westland and Wayne.

The Y.M.C.A. never had a building. They met different places. They finally got some land given to them on Ford Road. The “Y” is in the middle of all those churches which is a good place for a Y.M.C.A., since it means Young Men’s Christian Association. It became the family Y.M.C.A. because most of the people who belong to it are families just like the Y.W.C.A. has men members and men on its board, etc. The “Y.M.” has admitted women and children.

MR. SEARS: So these two “Y” groups have done some work down here?

MISS BECKER: Oh Yes. The members of both the “Ys” were on our committees down there and they ran things, helped run things like the Boys’ Club. The Y.W.C.A .long ran the program for the Mothers’ Club, arts and crafts and different things and helped them organize the Girl’s Club.

MR. SEARS: Now are we talking about the sixties or the seventies?

MISS BECKER: Well, in the fifties and sixties. A.C.C.E.S.S. really grew out of getting a group from the International Center and the Y.W.C.A. was pushing it – the Y.W.C.A. and some of the church groups, the Lutheran Church out of St. Paul’s and other people like that. Several of the churches got together and said, “We need to do something about bringing the people together not just on a religious basis, a non-religious basis in the sense that it would be all religions and all nationalities and would make them understand the Arabic people.” In other words to help absorb the Arabic people into the local culture and also learning English but also to bring services to everybody like helping with not only the language but immigration papers, etc. They do many services and their service orientation has grown. Well, then they became more closely connected with the downtown International Center helping them more but they still get some of their funds through donations from the churches and groups like the “Y” and


helping them with their programs. I’m sure some of those people from those organizations are still on their boards, (the) citizens’ boards or advisory boards.

MR. SEARS: You mentioned the Lutheran Church a couple of times. Was there ever a Lutheran Church in southeast Dearborn?

MISS BECKER: Not that I remember. I don’t think there was ever a Lutheran Church there – people that were in the Lutheran Church over here on Beech, St. Paul’s, and a couple of other Lutheran Churches. That one particularly had an assistant pastor and his wife who were very much interested. The Methodist Church happened to have an assistant pastor whose wife worked with the Y.W.C.A. and was very interested in Outreach and doing something with the nationalities. They came to some of us early – way back in the forties during the War and right after the War and the fifties. They all worked through the Girls’ Club that Sarah MacGuffey started down there. She was connected with the “Y” and started the Girls’ Club.

MR. SEARS: Is the Girls’ Club something similar to the Scouts?

MISS BECKER: No. It’s like the Boys’ Club in that the Boys’ Club started over at Roulo School and it was an interesting group of people that started that. They had the Boys’ Club over here on Telegraph, the same people. It became Boys’ Club of America but it really started as the Dearborn Boys’ Club. Then it joined up with the national organization. (The) Boy Scouts and other groups belong to it in the sense that they participated with it. But the Boys’ Club went beyond the Boy Scouts in that it was activity oriented and class and recreation oriented and crossed lines. The Scouts were a very good organization. We always had Scouts in the South End but the Boys’ Club was a broader thing. Then there was nothing for the girls. So, Sarah MacGuffey came down to the South End from West Dearborn. She died a little while ago in Dearborn and we have some of her papers coming here to the Museum through Dorothy Guimares. They were close friends. Sarah was quite a lady in town here and did a lot of activities, did a lot of very good things.

But, anyway, down in Salina there were those churches and those organizations that as part of their philosophy – I suppose you would call them local missions in a sense – started out trying to do something for the people down there. Also part of the aim was to get the rest of the town to understand and accept them. They used to set up a speakers’ bureau. I was one of those people. I would take people from the South End with me and we would go and talk at the Presbyterian Church. The women’s organizations particularly would ask us to come and talk to them and bring people with us and tell them about Islam and tell them about their customs.

MR. SEARS: Now these groups, Boys’ Club, Girls’ Club, Scouts, etc., where would they meet?

MISS BECKER: The Boys’ Club was in that Roulo School. Even before it closed, they gave them the gymnasium area and some rooms for the Boy’s Club as it was and then after it closed, the Boy’ club stayed there in that wing. They had shops because the shops were at that end of the building on the first floor. Then they built a club out here in Dearborn on Telegraph and they met different places. They met at the “Y” for a while and different places like that where they formed the Boys’ Club until they


could build their own building and then they moved. They kept both places for quite a while and then this one closed down because it was too much work to heat it and keep that building open for that. That’s, of course, the Boys’ Club of America and it became a nationwide organization.

The Girls’ Club was just the Salina Girls’ Club. That’s what it was. It was just for that particular area and it did a lot of good. It helped a lot of girls because we didn’t have too many extra-curricular activities for girls. We had basketball and volleyball but they didn’t have competitive things for them. They didn’t have a lot of after school activities particularly for girls and that was the thing they did for them. They took them on a lot of trips to different places like the Art Institute. They would take them over to Canada and camping every year. There was always a camping program. They could go into summer camping.

MR. SEARS: Do they still have any activity in Southeast Dearborn?

MISS BECKER: I’d have to check out but I’m not sure they do. The Arabic boys are more oriented toward their church activities. The young boys and the men over there in that very conservative group, men and boys, do a lot of things together. Like over at the Islamic Center at Joy and Greenfield is a big center or Detroit. I had dinner there Sunday. There were about four hundred people there. They are form all over Detroit.

Then the group that used to be in the mosque in the South End – like Helen Atwell’s people and Abrahams and those people – just bought a building on Chase Road. They wanted to build a couple of years ago.

This is a shameful thing about Dearborn that really makes me ashamed of my town sometimes. There are things I am ashamed about Dearborn and most things I’m very proud of. These people were deeply religious who don’t believe in drinking and smoking but some of them do just like good Christians do. They don’t drink but some of them do smoke. If they drink at all, it’s a few of their kind of people and very lightly. They are religious and they wanted a place since they were driven out of the mosque. They wanted a meeting place. They were meeting at the Ukranian Hall and the Italian Hall where they rented. They tried to get the Garling offices down there just this side of Greenfield. Well, the people protested so much. They would have gambling; they would have prostitution and all this kind of thing. Of all things to say to the Arabic people who are so particular about their women. So those people kept them from getting that building. They said they wouldn’t let Garling sell to them. It was a real tragedy. They tried to say it didn’t have enough parking but it did. They thought they would buy more land near it as the buildings were closed there which was happening but also that they would ultimately move from there to a larger place. In the meantime, they wanted a place for their religious classes and their services. The most socializing they would do would be maybe have some dinners there. There are actually two groups looking for places in Dearborn. You may have seen in the paper the big hullabaloo about the Cadillac Place down there and that’s for one group. They are a more conservative group but the liberal group – the old timers from the South End, the Lebanese and people that have been second and third generation people – have bought a place on Chase Road, north of Ford Road over there near the credit union and our A.F.T. Building. It’s an empty building, a very nice building. That’s been there


quire a white, an electric company. They will do it beautifully, I’m sure, with good taste. People can’t complaint about it and there is parking space. Anyway, they had to do it quietly because of prejudice. This is a real tragedy that the so-called good Catholics, good Protestants and good Christians can still have these terrible prejudices against another religion which is one of the things that bothers me.

Another thing that bothered me is so many of them that are the most prejudiced speak with a foreign accent. They have lived here maybe fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, still talk with an accent. (They) came here from a foreign country themselves and are prejudiced against newcomers – sometimes not newcomers, third generation people – because they’re different, a different religion. They don’t know; they’re ignorant about it. This is a terrible thing in our land. You know it shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t happen in America.

People think we haven’t been that way in our country but we have been. All our history is marked by that kind of thing, doing things to other people. We don’t like to think that way but, in a land that should have not have been that way, it often has been. Fortunately it’s been balanced by people who felt the other way. But it’s something that we have to work at all the time. Prejudices and fear of differences and ignorance do terrible things to a county and a community. I suppose that’s really what public schools are all about.

I have a great deal of hope in this new generation. I really do. There are a lot of them still very ignorant about a lot of things but I do think because the other side of the coin is this fractured family business is facing up to the fact that there are a lot of people out there that, despite radio and TV, make is so a lot of use are very much alike. There are people out there that think differently than we do, live differently, have different customs. There’s nothing wrong with them. They are just different. So I think maybe this forcing people to go live in a few different places in America may make people a little more tolerant. On the other side of the fence, it homogenizes us too much to suit me. I think people in America tend to, in some ways, become too much alike. I mean they want everybody to be the same.

MR. SEARS: the old melting pot idea. Of course, it’s sort of been rejected today. Yet I think that when the melting pot idea was popular and was being practiced maybe it did minimize some differences but, of course, it did mean these people were losing their own characteristics, their own background and customs. I wonder about whether they can urge everybody to maintain their own customs. Can they do that and still get along with other groups?

MISS BECKER: There are parts of the world and parts of our country where they do it very well. I think that the South End was an example of that, that people were many nationalities. You could be one nationality and live right next to another nationality.

They might argue about some things and do their yard work but they borrowed recipes from each other. They sent their kids to school together. They came to the school meetings and had to read the same report cards.

MR. SEARS: That’s right. I think we can get the history of the South End down and get the story made available to people. It might be instructive to people to see how a group like this, a very small


community, managed. Your huge cities have ethnic diversity but they tend to be scattered in the Ghettos. Here this was a little group. We’re going to talk about the clean-up parades in South End Dearborn.

MISS BECKER: Well, now, that is a story in itself. Once again, the thing centered around the school. The school was really like the community center where we had our recreation in the evening. The Recreation Department rented space and we came and had recreation free any place in Dearborn. This was before they built the swimming pools over at Lapeer Park and right around the other things. At school they still do. The schools in Dearborn are recreation places in the evening.

Salina was one of the earliest. When we need it most, they did all kinds of things at school besides classes, things that were recreation. Among the things that we did early right after the Way (in fact we started before the War in a way), we used to have clean-up days where we would clean up the school. We would clean up the school yards and we would get the people around the community to clean up their yards.

The growth of the idea then caught on with some other schools. The main thing that happened, I would say, was that one year my father, Marshall Becker, had a parade again at Oakman School. He was having little parades around the neighborhood, around the school yards, for most anything the kids could dress up for or make use of learning something. So he would have parades and this one they called their “Clean-up Day Parade”.

At home one evening we were talking about it and he said, “You should have that over at Salina”. I said, “We already have clean-up.” He said, “But you should have them do a little parade.” The next year we both had clean-up parades, the Oakman School and the Salina School, where we marched not only around the school but around the neighborhood. The kids may little costumes and they made their signs. They went out into the community with their signs telling other people they should clean up things. The children made signs, some of them little people signs and some fancier.

MR. SEARS: Ho w many years do you think this went on?

MISS BECKER: Well, this started before the War and then after the War it went on. Finally, the City decided to take up the idea in the 1950x and we had (it) I don’t know just how many years. I would have to look it up but for three or four years we had a City-wide parade down Michigan Avenue for clean-up. All the schools came and joined that parade. There were as many as were allowed to come, a goodly group like the bands. Then, the best ones came over to march in the parade. They were all good, of course. Naturally, all the kids do a good job. Then it got rather complicated to do a City-wide thing on Michigan Avenue and all getting the kids over there. They went back to doing individual schools. During that month of May was always a clean-up week. They scheduled the clean-up parade so the Mayor and the Council and the Keep Dearborn Beautiful Commission – City Beautiful Commission, which was developed a little later – could send representatives and/or different department heads. In addition, we had equipment like the big garage (trucks) which the kids like to ride in. Always somebody got a chance to ride up there and other kinds of equipment. They would be spaced in between groups of kids. We would always lead off with the school band, etc. and start with the smallest ones up to the largest ones


at the end. Sometimes the kids made floats. They would take carts or those push things that we had in school. The first ones who had first divey on and reserved them got them, the four wheel dollies. They would fix up those and build them, spend a lot of time with crepe paper and other stuff. Butcher paper was the most popular. It didn’t run quite as much as crepe paper. The things grew. They still do have clean-up parades in Dearborn. Every school has their clean-up parade. It spread to West Dearborn. I think possibly West Dearborn had something clear back in their history too.

Dearborn was a great town, both ends of town. We’ve always been great for parades. Any excuse they can have they get together for a parade or celebration and the clean-up parade was very important to the kids.

Then, later on, they had a boy and a girl from each school. They would be representatives on the junior clean-up. They didn’t call it City Beautiful Commission. They had a junior commission. That was the older ones. They always had a kind of a luncheon or dinner early on. They got together to plan so it was coordinated and set up a schedule so the parades would be not all happening the same day at the same time. They had a parade in the morning and the afternoon, two different schools. Five or six days would be divided among the schools and it got to the point that so many schools had them that the City people had to divide themselves up a little more.

MR. SEARS: Sop the officials could be present.

MISS BECKER: Right. In some places they had little platforms or little steps or something. They all gathered back at the school and somebody was the emcee. They would greet the people and a few people would speak and introduce quite a few others. We tried to keep the kids still to listen but it’s interesting. Sometimes they brought them to auditoriums. In nice weather they would stand outside. It’s an interesting week and, if some people want to see what really goes on with the kids, that’s an interesting week to visit the schools.

MR. SEARS: Now before we leave Southeast Dearborn and go on to talk about your particular experiences as a teacher, one last point I’d like to make and we talked very briefly about the funding of the South East Dearborn Community Council.

MISS BECKER: Well, the South East Council had a dollar a year dues or two or three dollars a year dues. Actually, we would call it a donation so we could use it for postage, etc. and it was dues. We have cards that say South East Council and even though we don’t pay our dues, we can still belong. Every year we tagged our little driver’s aid and say “Hey, pay up. We need (money) for postage.” So people would pay their dollar or it was three dollars for a family. Right at the moment we can pay up to five dollars but there is a three dollar basic membership. The five dollars is for those of us who want to do a little extra. So it is kept low and they get their money’s worth in letters and flyers and stamps. We had a court case and all that and out of it grew the City’s willingness to apply for some funds to do something in the South End.

MR. SEARS: Applied to the Federal government?


MISS BECKER: To the Federal government and the State (government). Finally, what came out of all this outside funding (was) various special things by the State. Most of it does come from the Federal government, our HUD money or Community Development money. I think it was 1974. This is the eighth year. We had funds. Each year we would have (a) Citizen’s Advisory Committee. That’s made of people from the South End plus those of us from around the town that are appointed to it because of an interest in it. I’m chairman of the Citizen’s Advisory Committee and we will have a meeting soon. We’ve had different chairmen for that. That committee is only as good as they let us be in the sense that if they don’t call us and have a meeting with them to explain things every once in a while, we get lax. I mean “they”, the city or the people in charge of things, get lax about seeing that they get the people together to advise them. So we have to push a little bit and say, “Hey, when are we going to meet? When are you going to listen to what we have to say about it? Don’t make your decisions. If you need us to okay things, you get us together to say if that was good or fine. We are not that kind of committee.” Our general meeting of the South East Dearborn Community Council, which happens every three (months) – we have to have four a year at least of the Council itself. We invite those people to come usually and make reports to people. Some things are approved ex facto. But there are other things we say, “You haven’t done that we want done.” While we don’t have a legal standing per se, we do have the pressure standing.

MR. SEARS: Somebody comes from the City?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. That’s usually our program. We invite the City people that are responsible. No matter how small our crowd, they show up. Our people are very good at asking questions. They have been training for a long time. It’s been going on for a long time. The way to find out is to ask questions. If they have something that bothers them not only to ask the questions but to say something about it at a public meeting so that they don’t just gripe some place in the background. That was early on part of our training to the community that it wasn’t good enough just to sit home and talk to your neighbor.

MR. SEARS: Now this funding – what is it used for?

MISS BECKER: The funding has been used different ways. The funding was divided into different kinds of things depending on the kinds of things we felt it should be used for. If that was satisfactory to HUD downtown, our City would get the okay for it and it was fine.

MR. SEARS: (Was it) all HUD money?

MISS BECKER: Yes. Government money but it comes from different kinds of funds. Not all of it is HUD. There are some other government funds in there too. The things were to be used for rehabilitating homes that had been allowed to deteriorate, to help them to do that either by small grants if their income is low enough plus private. Just part of it was a grant. But they could also get low interest loans. Usually people were doing things with a combination of those things. They would get a grand of so much, depending on their income. The more income they had the less likely they were to get a grant. The figures changed a couple of times, depending on inflation. Then, most everybody in the South End was eligible for low interest loans if they could make a list and show that it was going to be used for not just the fancy work but the buts of the thing – safety, security and really bring things up to code. So


there’s been a lot of that in the last five years. In addition to that, other (funds were) to be used for the Center, for recreational activities and the park in the South End. Lapeer Park funds, part of them came out of there and part of them, a swimming pool. But the City paid most of it but they were helped by those things.

MR. SEARS: Where is the swimming pool?

MISS BECKER: right in Lapeer Park. Summertime pool and tennis courts, etc. We said we needed a community park and development. The Lapeer Park has been there for years but it had been undeveloped. In addition to that, there are things – quite a long list of other things- that were to be done like improved street lighting, help for the business district, etc.

In addition to that we asked, in the beginning of the second year, third year we kept saying we needed some funds to run the South East Council, not just the club work or the organization work but we needed an office. We needed some funds that pay rent. We needed to rent something and utilities, somebody to man that besides the volunteers. Finally, in about the third year, they consented to put in enough to pay a couple of part-time people and the next year a full-time person was (hired). The first full-time person was Helen Atwell.

MR. SEARS: Was that about five years ago?

MISS BECKER: Yes, about that. This is the fourth year I think that she’s been paid. For one thing, she went back to college and finished her degree. She got it in this kind of work because as a student and as a mother, she worked with us for a long time on this project in the South End and marched with us, met with us and had been an officer in the group. When she went back to college, her work was largely in this kind of community planning and working with the community. When she got out, we knew she could get a higher paying job someplace else but we particularly asked her if she would consider. She said she would like to come back to work in the South End. Then she would feel it had paid off what she had done. So we urged her to do that to be first director. Then Lee Swanson, of course. Lee is a remarkable young lady and her husband, Jon, had been our president of the Council and did a very good job. She acted as secretary and we’ve all taken our turns. When they came back from Yemen from his three year stint with Syracuse University and the State, they jumped in with both feet. That was about ’74 or ’75 when we first started trying to get funds. They decided to invest in the South End. So the bought an old apartment house which was very hard. I’m not sure it was a wise investment but they decided to put their money into something in the South End. So they did it and it’s been very hard on them, I’m sure. They still own it but they have somebody managing it because they are away again in Yemen.

MR. SEARS: How many families?

MISS BECKER: They are apartments not families. They are apartments and so they were mostly single people. They are all single men that they have.

MR. SEARS: How big a building is it?


MISS BECKER: Well, there are fifteen apartments in there but they had a large section of the front section for themselves. Then she always kept one apartment to keep South East Dearborn Community Council material in. They really only had thirteen or fourteen apartments when they went there. Lee really started to dig in about ways to use the funds and did a lot of research and application for grants for us. When we needed a secretary, we persuaded them to put enough money in the budget to give us a half-time secretary. Now Lee worked far more than she got paid for. You know she worked almost full-time but she got paid for half-time. So that’s the way we keep that office open. We pay relatively low rent. The owner came from the South end originally and we are good to him too. We keep the place up a little bit and care of it.

MR. SEARS: What had it been before your people moved in?

MISS BECKER: You know the Romanian Hall where A.C.C.E.S.S. is? Well, this was also the Romanian Hall and it was a church. They used it for a church until they built that church, St. Peter and Paul.

MR. SEARS: That’s why the….

MISS BECKER: No. That came later. Then, when they were out for quite a while, I used it for an office temporarily. That’s why out group went to Jon and said “Can we (use) it?” They paid him a little higher rent than I did but I still keep turning my files over to them. They keep the files there from the school. I turned over about fifteen boxes of material.

MR. SEARS: Is this about the time you retired?

MISS BECKER: The time I retired.

MR. SEARS: What date would that be?

MISS BECKER: June, 1977. (It) was the next year that we got it for an office, 1978. The things that Lee did then -- that really began to push our interests. She would take time to do the application for grants and see if we could get funds and apply for them. We tried to get them then to turn part of St. Bernadette over to us or give us a room there for activities, recreation. Actually, it’s a relatively small school and church. The chapel is the church’s. That became so much a recreational and meeting place that it really was not big enough for what we needed to do. By that time the Roulo School was gone. Roulo School was the first one. We thought that would be an ideal place to have everything in it from clinic, recreation, the arts, our offices and offices for maybe a couple of other groups there that would pay us a little rent for it. So it would have been very good. Unfortunately, it didn’t go that way. Then we started simultaneously with St. Bernadette’s to work on the St. Peter and Paul idea, the museum idea. It’s one building that is really rather pretty architecture that would make an interesting focal point.

MR. SEARS: How many years had you been thinking about St. Peter and Paul?

MISS BECKER: Well, we started back when Rev. Surducan, (his) family and the Romanian people decided to close that church and build the one on (Beech Daly) in Dearborn Heights. As soon as we knew they were going to do it, we started talking about it but they were asking $50,000 for it. That was


early in the seventies. As soon as they moved out, we tried to protect it. I would walk over from school to see if everything was alright once a day. I told all the kids to keep watch for things. Despite all that, the gross would grow a little long. They boarded up the windows, which was absolutely necessary, but it does show that when a (building) is closed up when (it is) board(ed) (up) it triggers more vandalism in a way. They would break the boards off and they would get in. If they really want to get in a place, they can get it. They would break the locks off and go in. It wasn’t always kids. Later on it was older people, I’m sure, who took stuff out of it. There was a kitchen there. There were those beautiful windows. That’s what broke our hearts. About five years ago we pleaded with the City, when it could have been gotten for $15,000, to take some of our money because some of it was eligible for arts or historical preservation for funds, earmarked it for that, buy that (and) pay them back a number of years from the funds. The church itself sold it to us for a dollar. Then, about the time we got it, somebody stole most of that beautiful wrought iron fence.

MR. SEARS: About what year did you actually acquire the property?

MISS BECKER: Just about a year and a half ago. This is the spring of ’83 and it was a little over a year ago. It isn’t even a year and a half that we’ve owned it. That doesn’t mean we didn’t make plans for it. We drew plans and ideas for it before that.

MR. SEARS: I think it was March of last year, 1982, when you had the committee and the consultants and took a tour. That was just shortly after you had acquired the building.

MISS BECKER: Yes. I would have to look it up in the minutes but I think it was in January or December that we got it or November or around there. I handed (over) five dollars and Helen Atwell said, “Now you buy the church.” They said, “well, I’ll give you four dollars back.”

MR. SEARS: When did those consultants get chosen? As you say, Lee had been applying for other grants but now we’re talking about this grant.

MISS BECKER: But we had this in mind before that. Lee started working on writing different companies a couple of years ago.

MR. SEARS: Let’s see. One of the grants came from a corporation, didn’t it?

MISS BECKER: That’s right, Mobil. There were two or three corporate grants, two corporate grants, I think, and one from the Humanities.

MR. SEARS: Was it the Mobil grant that paid for the architectural studies?

MISS BECKER: Yes. And then the planning of the thing. Well, you know how you brainstorm or wishful thinking. Lee was very good at taking wishful thinking and putting it down on paper and seeing what could be done about it and we asked (about) local funds but we couldn’t get anything locally. I mean we talked to people and the times were getting tighter for one thing. There were things like the Sisson Fund and some of the others are local foundations. If we get really going on it, I’m sure we could have (gotten) some money from them. Those small foundations are very careful that they only give for


education. We consider history and museum as education but they don’t put their money much into the hardware, the building itself. Once you get it going then they will help you. Whereas the bigger foundations will give you the other kind of funding.

MR. SEARS: You did obtain a gran so that you could hire the consultants. That was a Federal grant.

MISS BECKER: Right, and then we asked the City people who were working with our funds in the budget put something (in there). We asked them three or four years ago to put fifty thousand dollars aside to work on this project once we got it because we were looking down the road then. They didn’t do it or they put it kind of tentatively. Then they transferred it as unused funds again to something so each year we (would) say we want that $50,000 or more to do the work on that church once we get started. We have gotten some funds to use. They have let us use some of the budget funds to hire those young men to help clean up inside and that sort of thing. So we have had some City funds. Our government funds have (been) used for those minimum wage group of young fellows who go in there and they get paid for maybe three hours. They work eight. Again, it’s an incentive for a little money for people but like a lot of volunteers who are dedicated, they work twice as long.

MR. SEARS: So, have you never gotten anything from the State?

MISS BECKER: No, not yet. Some day we will apply for the arts historic events. There are grants from the State. Right now I notice that historic things and cultural things are being cut back from the State. Everything is being cut.

MR. SEARS: I think that covers funding.

This is a continuation of the interview of February 17, 1983, with Iris Becker by Winthrop Sears and we are now turning to the subject of her life as a school teacher.

MISS BECKER: I suppose you want to start just when I started teaching there. Well, I started at Roulo School in the fall of 1934. I graduated from the University of Michigan in June of ’34 and went on to summer school to do a little extra work and finish up my teaching certificate. I wanted that extra and I had planned to go on the next year and work on my masters.

Mr. Lowrey, who was the superintendent of schools then, Harvey Lowrey, called and offered me a job. Now this is the middle of the Depression and you don’t shake your head “no” to a job necessarily. I didn’t want to teach school. I wanted to be a political journalist but I got my teacher’s certificate to satisfy my parents, both of whom were teachers. I thought, well, I’ll get my masters in political journalism and go out and be a politician or a journalist. He wanted me to come home and teach in Dearborn. I don’t know whether my folks put him up to that or not but, anyway, he told me that he wanted me to come and teach at Roulo School. I knew that was a grade school. I said, “Why, Mr. Lowrey, I’m trained to teach in junior or senior high school not elementary school.” He said, “Oh, well, you can teach elementary. If you can teach junior high and high school, you can teach elementary.” That was the logic then. I don’t agree with it but that was the logic. I said, “Well, maybe I could do it but I really don’t want to come home and teach. I would like to go on and finish.” And he said,” I’m asking


you to come home to Dearborn to teach school in the South End of Dearborn at Roulo School.” I said, “Why?” He said, “I’m not asking just anybody. I’m asking you to come home and teach in the South End because you are the one that has worked with the South End people and tried to do something about making people understand.”

In high school Walter Reuther and a whole bunch of us were part of a group that were students that tried to do something about doing away with prejudices against different groups. I had been active in that group. So he said, “I’m not just asking anybody. I’m asking you to come home and help us in the South End.” Well, I couldn’t resist that. Now who could resist that flattering statement? But, anyway, I said, “Okay, I guess I can teach English and Social Studies and things in the elementary grade. Is that what you want me to teach?” He said, “Oh no. I want you to teach Music, Art and Gym.” That really floored me. I said, “Well, Mr. Lowrey, I can’t teach Music, Art and Gym. I’m not trained to teach Music, Art and Gym. I’m trained to teach Journalism, English, History, Social Studies, Political Science, and Geography. All those things I’m trained to teach and you want me to teach Music, Art and Gym?” And he said, “Yes, I do. You have always been a musician and you sign and you play musical instruments and you know music and you got A’s in music in school.” I said, “Yes, of course I did.” And he said, “And you direct a choir and all that kind of thing so you can teach Music.” And I said, “But Art?” And he said, “Yes, you’re good at handicraft. You have been doing it all this summer, playground work and handicrafts and supervising that sort of thing so you can do that.” I said, “Well, what about the Gym?” He said, “Well, you’re a good athlete. You played on the girls’ basketball team, didn’t you?” Now that was his logic. He said, “Besides a good teacher can teach anything.” Now that’s what he said. I didn’t believe it.

Of course, I do believe a good teacher can teach anything if they work at it hard enough and work long enough and do a little extra training, etc. But I just don’t think that’s automatically true. Teaching is a job you have to work at and often wiser and older heads than your own can teach you a lot that you don’t know. That’s why you have teacher training.

Finally, I consented to come over and I came over to teach. Besides they offered me $1,200 a year. That was “$100 a month, which most people were getting $1,000 to $1,100. Teachers in Fordson and Dearborn got paid by the month twelve months a year, not on a ten month basis. We liked that.

So I got $100 a month that first two or three years teaching and went to Roulo School and taught Music, Art and Gym. Once in a while I taught some other things too. When there was somebody absent and they couldn’t get a substitute teacher, then we cancelled the Gym class, Art class or Music class and I taught English, Social Studies, or some grade like fifth or sixth grade. So I was used to studying at most everything.

It does teach you to be versatile and you learn fast. You go home and study up or you go and ask people that teach those things a lot of questions. They kindly help you a lot. Then, in those days, we had supervisors too that went to the schools. There have been ups and downs of that. We were the Fordson system and were not the Dearborn system until later. We had very good supervisors in


different fields that would come and help you and teach you some things, not in every field but particularly in the Arts and stuff like that. Not in Gym.

I ended up, of course, having the fifth and sixth grade boys’ basketball team and some other things like that. I bought myself a second hand Oldsmobile coupe. My dad got tired of driving. Marge Lincoln (that was Marjory Jahr) and I (went) to the South End of school before he went over to Oakman School to be principal. He was a principal and that’s way over by Chase Road. He would drive us girls because there was no transportation. Marjory lived two doors from me. So we would drop her off at Salina School where she was teaching. Then he would drop me off at Roulo and if I didn’t have a ride home, one of the other teachers or somebody like that, he would have to come and get us and usually I worked late. It worked out. We got along but that lasted about a year and a half. Out of desperation, my father helped me buy a second hand Oldsmobile coupe for $600 whole dollars. Boy, that was a lot of money. Then I could pick up Marge and we could drive by ourselves. The other thing out of desperation on teaching at that school.

Old Mr. Bill Hart was the principal. He had a son, young William Hart, who was the principal at William Ford School and a couple of other schools. A nice young man. But old Mr. Hart, who was our principal at Roulo, was a very elderly gentleman. At least he seemed very elderly to me and would give us a ride home from school. Sometimes he would be talking away and drive down the wrong side of the street or down the middle of the street. I could see cars coming at us. He would pull way over to the left to make a left turn on a two-way street because he was kind of absent minded. Also, he would be talking way and so I would just kind of hold my breath part of the time. I’m not usually a scared rider but I told my dad, “I just can’t ride home with Mr. Hart any more. I just can’t do it. I would be a nervous wreck coming home. If the day hasn’t ruined me, he does.” So anyway, for a number of reasons, I got a second hand Oldsmobile. It was a good thing I did because I had the baseball team and I could park the baseball team in the trunk. They could lie on the back ledge, two of them. So that’s the way I carried the baseball team.

A lot of those Italian men up and down that street, on Roulo particularly. There were a lot of Italians on that street but there were other nationalities too – Serbians and other one too. Anyway, I had bright red hair and I got invited home for lunch or dinner quite often to the Italian people and other nationalities too. It’s fun to go to different nationalities. But the Italians I remember particularly because it was those Italian men – I think they came down from the Italian Club to help me supervise the baseball team. Then I could get them to transport them (baseball team) when we went to some of the other schools to play. We were the champions of the sixth grade teams. They had good training, not from me but from those Italian fellows. As they got older, those men would say – some of them were older then but when they got real old, they would say, “You are the cutest redheaded school teacher we ever saw.” So, for a long time I thought they were just interest in sports.

They would have a day when the parents invited their teachers home. They still do in the South End. They invite us over for tea, coffee or for lunch or (go) to supper. There is still a little of that tradition left over there. They would invite me to dinner. I got acquainted with a variety of kinds of foods but particularly the Italians. The thing that bothered me at the dinners besides all the fattening food. I was


quite a slender person when I went to Roulo to teach. At the end of the fourth year when I was teaching there, I was a little bit plumper. It was partly that Italian food, all that good Italian food and other nationalities. The thing about the Italians and all the foreign people, they drank wine. The Italians had a particularly poisonous one called Dago Red. I’m not a drinker and I didn’t smoke. Once in a while I take a glass of wine or something like that. But they would serve me wine for dinner. They were insulted if I didn’t like their wine. Most times it was homemade. So it was doubly insulting to refuse it. Well, they didn’t serve it in little wine glasses. It was in big glass tumblers. So I’d sit there and eat and be talking away. Just to be polite I would sip it down to about a half an inch or an inch below the rim of the glass. It was never filled an inch or half an inch in the glass like you do at dinner. Theirs was always up to the rim and I would be talking away and I’d think; “Now I don’t have to drink any more of that. I can eat my dinner and just eat.” And I’d look back and there the darn thing was right up to the rim again. You had a hard time getting away from an Italian lunch or dinner, at night particularly, without being a little worse for wear. I never drank that much but I got tired of sipping.

A few points to remember about Roulo School. At the time there was an argument between Detroit and the City of Fordson – which was Springwells- where the boundary line was. They considered it part of the Detroit school system and the new City of Fordson considered it part of their territory. It was actually within the Dearborn (then Fordson, Springwells) boundary line but, like the Whitmore-Bolles School in West Dearborn, the school district overlapped. There was an argument just as it was in southwest Dearborn on Whitmore-Bolles. In southeast (Fordson) it was over the Roulo School. The court case was settled there during the 1920s. When I was in high school, I remember it was going on. Then, when I went back to teach there, I could see why it was such a valuable school. It was a beautifully built school. It was mentioned in national magazines as one representative of the finer new schools that were being built during the twenties and the facilities it had. It had a nice gym on one end. It had good shops and an art room built for art not just a classroom that was turned into that. It was representative of what a good elementary school should have. In addition to that, it was very well built and designed and (had) a good heating system and was very comfortable. In addition over its doors and around its edges were those lovely Pewabic tiles and a lot of East Dearborn schools had those. They had an especially beautiful design around the top and around the doorways. We always admired it. Besides, it was on a very lovely shaded street (Amazon and Roulo in that little section) separated from the other section by the fields between that and St. Bernadette’s and Salina. We had to walk across the fields to get to school if we went over to the junior high. That’s why there was a junior high in Salina (and) also an elementary. The South End had lots and lots of people and the Amazon-Roulo section, Roberts and Edsel, had enough people to support an elementary school by itself. The building also had a large playground. It was kind of like a community center again like the Salina School was to the other section. It was like a park-playground. Patton Park was across the way but that’s where the children in that area could play.

At Amazon and Roulo were those huge Lombardy poplar trees, some big maples, not very many elm. The hug tall ones made the most beautiful rustling sound. Of course, they were hard to clean up when the leaves fell but it was lovely, Amazon and Roulo. A large part of the houses on Roulo were single homes but there were quite a few double too. On Amazon there were a great many two-family, even


four-family flats. Those big huge houses are in other parts of East Dearborn. So that describes that community fairly well, I think.

MR. SEARS: Do you have any estimate as to the number of students attending Roulo School?

MISS BECKER: In one year it would be like four or five hundred in the school. They tried to get down to two fifty, three hundred but that’s why as it went down in number of students is when St. Bernadette’s opened. It drew quite a few away but also they made use of it for other things like the Boys’ Club and the recreation, a great deal of recreation in that building during that period.

MR. SEARS: How long did you teach there?

MISS BECKER: Four years. I started there is 1934 and then in the fall of ’38 I went over to Salina.

MR. SEARS: Can you give an estimate of the average class size during the period that you were there?

MISS BECKER: In those days we had very large classes all over.

MR. SEARS: Was it customary at that time?

MISS BECKER: Yes. And some often divided classes because schools were crowded in Dearborn and East Dearborn particularly. We had what I would call today the classes that we would object to. We would have anywhere from thirty-five at the most and the classes became larger later, forties and fifties particularly. Then we began to taper off. One thing nice about the Roulo School was the teachers and principals worked very hard at dividing classes up so that the slower students would be in smaller classes. That was early on, working out things. We had a lot of activities there. There was a very active Boy Scouts. Mr. Wolfe, who was there, was head of the Boy Scouts in a large part of Dearborn. We had a very good troop of Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and different things there and a tremendous amount of activity in the school.

MR. SEARS: In 1934 when you were first teaching in the Southeast End, was the community completely built up at that time? Had most of the building taken place in the 1920s?

MISS BECKER: We had tremendous growth in the twenties. In the 1930s, of course, building slowed down because of the Depression. (There was) a lot of public buildings built because of W.P.A. work and we had parks and stuff like that. A lot of good work was done by the people of the Works Progress Administration and other groups. But it was a difficult time. One thing about it is that everybody was in the same boat. So it was very difficult for people. They did have jobs that they could do and they had welfare, of course, lines of people. We used to go with the people to stand in line because they were ashamed to go to stand in line until they got over that. When I came home from college during that period before I went to teach over there, I used to go to the Welfare (office) and stand in line to talk to people and sometimes with friends that had to go there. In fact I wrote some of my papers at school on the way people felt and their remarks. So, when I came to the South End, I was prepared for a lot of the problems.


MR. SEARS: Is this what the superintendent was referring to when he hired you? He referred to your having had previous experience in the Southeast End?

MISS BECKER: Yes. In a way that was. I had friends down there like the group that I mentioned about that quite a few of us belonged to. That’s the one that the Reuther boys and the rest of us belonged to, Merwin Lewis and the rest of them, the Four F Club.

MR. SEARS: Four F Club? What did that stand for?

MISS BECKER: I can’t remember all the things it stood for but it was a thing in the club. It was working on different things that would benefit schools. That in itself was made up of a lot of people who worked and went to school too.

MR. SEARS: Was this before you went to college?

MISS BECKER: Yes. I was involved in it and then out of that came some of us on the Student Council and the groups that decided we had to do something about prejudice against foreign born people and the poor, but particularly the foreign born. So we had activities and things together. We invited people into each other’s homes and we used to visit homes in the South End, take students and work together with the parents and students, getting people to understand each other better. I can remember some of the people that lived on Oakman Boulevard their parents were foreign born and only first or second generation who were some of our most highly prejudiced against people newcomers to the South End. So we really were so busy in high school we didn’t have time to do a whole lot. But our aim was to do away with prejudice against new people.

MR. SEARS: How big of a group was this?

MISS BECKER: There were probably forty of us in high school. I would say it varied in enthusiasm and how much time we had to put into it but also how dedicated we were to the idea. We had a group called the Girl Reserves which was part of the Y.W.C.A. and they really were kind of a group that made us think about this. A lot of use that were Girl Reserves worked in that, people that had been active in youth organizations, church organizations, etc. that really were concerned about this belonged to this kind of group. Anybody could belong but it was some of us were very active.

MR. SEARS: Did these groups operate over a period of years?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. Of course, I was only in high school there three years. I think it went on for a while. Yes, I’m quite sure it did. During the Depression it was very much needed, of course. When I left for school in 1930 for college, it was very bad times. Worse times were coming, the Depression years, of course. In ’34 that was just after the Roosevelt people had gone in. The things of 1934 then were pretty bad and the competition for jobs, I think, was one thing. People worry just like now about foreign born people or aliens taking over jobs. People want to compete for them or the things that we produce. The fear is created by that competition. Then Mr. Lowrey called me to come back, there were definite problems in the South End. There were raids going and all kinds of fear of Communism.


MR. SEARS: Police raids?

MISS BECKER: yes, police raids and things like that. It had been on stills but the Prohibition period had just ended. There were also things going on in the South End, I mean the prostitution, the things that often grown out of Depression years, things that make a community grow worse. Most of the people in the South End were concerned about what was happening to them and a large part of them, of course, on welfare.

There people also had other things going for them. They were very good gardeners and the could make do with things. Old world people were very good at making things, putting together things on a little bit. So, they had advantages as well as disadvantages. That was the reason, I’m sure, that Mr. Lowrey said when he asked me to come back. He was not asking just anybody. He was looking for somebody that knew the community and cared something about it. Anyway, that’s why I ended up at Roulo.

MR. SEARS: Now during those four years that you were there, what would you say were the predominant nationality groups at that time?

MISS BECKER: Well, as I say, when I went there, there were over fifty nationalities in the South End.

MR. SEARS: Even then?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. That was the big thing. The twenties and thirties were when we had your biggest variety and some balances that too. There were rather large groups of many nationalities there, very tiny numbers of some groups, of course, and some of them were mixed people. You could call them Yugoslavs but they would be mixed between being Serbians and something else if they got along together. You know, they intermarried. So we had different nationalities represented in the same family from Europe.

MR. SEARS: Any that really predominated?

MISS BECKER: Yes. Of course, the big group around Roulo were the Italians, those nice Italian families who fed us too much and gave us Italian red wine to drink, if you were a drinker. If you were a non-drinker, they were insulted if we didn’t take their homemade brew. Also the Romanians, of course, were large numbers, Hungarians. Those I would say were the three biggest groups at that particular moment in time but there were many. There were lots of Serbs, a lot of Yugoslavians. Well, look(ing) at the names at the time, it was a United Nations. It really was. Greeks, Lebanese, quite a lot of Lebanese even then, you know. That’s the say the Lebanese came largely from the Highland Park Plant. A lot of them had lived in Highland Park and then came to the South End.

MR. SEARS: They came from Highland Park to here when the operation shifted over?

MISS BECKER: That’s right. There were many reasons for it. That’s the period of such huge growth. As we were talking about the other day, the Dearborn area – what is now Dearborn – grew 1,000 percent between 1920 and 1930. It was the fastest growing area in the United States and, of course, the big


growth was in the East End, the Fordson or Springwells end, and particularly in the South End. Those fields just sprouted houses.

MR. SEARS: People wanted to live within walking distance, I suppose, if possible

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. They moved right in around on the fields around the Ford Motor Company and walked to work. That’s what made it an interesting, fascinating place and I liked it. For one thing, I liked different kinds of food but also I like different kinds of people.

MR. SEARS: Now what grade did you teach?

MISS BECKER: I taught the fifth and sixth graders mostly but, well, fourth, fifth and sixth because that’s the ones they let have Gym, Art and Music. The lower grades, the teachers taught it. I would take them once in a while or the teachers brought their kids to the gym or took them outdoors to play. We didn’t have so much Gym, Art and Music in the first, second and third grades except what the teachers taught. I would help them do art work or music.

MR. SEARS: Now in the Art and Music would you go to the classroom?

MISS BECKER: No. We had an art room. That’s what was nice about Roulo School. It had its own art room. We didn’t have to lug our stuff around. It was there. Salina always had an art room too. That’s one of the things we fought about later, losing the art room and they fought to get it back. We lost it for a year but we got it back.

MR. SEARS: And, of course, for Gym they would come to you. How about Music?

MISS BECKER: We had a room for Music.

MR. SEARS: Now, in the under grades probably the teachers taught everything?

MISS BECKER: Yes. They taught the Music but they could bring them in to the music room. While I was teaching Art, they could use the music room. It was a nice school to teach in because of the facilities as well as the smallness.

MR. SEARS: Did you say it was built in the 1920s?

MISS BECKER: Yes. About the same time as Salina School was built, the new Salina School at that time.

MR. SEARS: Oh, there had been a previous Salina School? We’ll get to that later. (Are there) any teachers in Roulo that you particularly want to mention as having made some outstanding contribution or active in the community work or anybody that stands out in your memory?

MISS BECKER: Well, the principal was old Mr. Hart, Bill Hart, Sr. He was a very interesting person, active, elderly man, almost ready to retire. He was active in the local community and well known. He had a family that was very active. In those days everybody went to Mt. Olivet (Methodist) Church or to the Catholic Church. There were only two churches around except in the South End. There were a couple of churches but I’m talking about a Protestant church and the Catholic churches. There was St.


Barbara’s, St. Al’s, and St. Clement’s Catholic churches but there was only about one or two Protestant churches in town. Everybody that was Protestant knew each other because we went to the same church.

Mr. Hart was a very fine man. He was of the old school about a lot of things about teaching. These new young teachers, all of us, were young teachers. We had some ideas that he didn’t always agree with and we used to have to work around him. We became very good manipulators of the principal because we wanted to try new things. We fortunately had some teachers that (had) strong leadership roles and we did a lot of things. We talked him into letting us do some things that were experimental and take the kids on trips that he didn’t believe in that sort of thing. Nowadays you have trouble taking them on trips not because you don’t have buses but teachers could be sued if there is an accident and all this business. So the things we used to do, teachers are warned not to do any more. We don’t take them in your car any more. We didn’t think anything of that. That’s the way we got to places. We got some parents lined up and we went places. Otherwise we never got out of our own little niche to see the wider world at all. Once in a while we could get a school bus; you know that they would let us take a big group. But Mr. Hart also was a gentleman that I used to ride back and forth with to school occasionally. I told you about it. And he would get busy talking to me and we would be talking. In fact, there were two of us that rode sometimes. I’d be in the back seat, for example, and he would talk over his shoulder particularly at me.

MR. SEARS: Are there any other teachers?

MISS BECKER: There was Mr. Bull, Mr. Sheldrew who was a very fine leader in the community. There was Mr. Sheldrew.

MR. SEARS: So they had men teachers in a grade school?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes, oh yes. The shop teachers were men. There were a lot of teachers. The music teacher who came over had been there was Miss Patch. (She) was a tall red haired lady, Anna Patch, and she was a music teacher at Roulo and Salina. They decided they needed her full-time at Salina and other places. That’s why they turned the Music over to me, the only one willing to take it, I guess. But she had been a very good Music teacher and she came back over to Roulo every once in a while to help me out, to help me teach the kids in the chorus and this sort of thing, when we were putting on some musical play or something. We always had an operetta or something even them.

MR. SEARS: Even in grade school?

MISS BECKER: Yes, in grade school. I had some very good students that were born hams and very good singers. Val Tachadorian (?) graduated from Salina and Fordson later and did the windows over at St. Peter and Paul. We still have some of his art work in the school. I have some of his old fourth grade art work when he made posters. I took him downtown to Mrs. White who was working on the Depression W.P.A. artist program. He took classes from her for a while. Then the Delgado (!?) kids, Louis and Delores Delgado, were Spanish-American kids and were very fine dancers. They took lessons. I used to help take them to their lessons outside. Then they would help me put on the show. (Delores) usually


got the lead because she was the best singer and dancer. Then, of course, she went to Hollywood later under a different name and became an actress for a short time until she got married. Oh, there are a lot of people that came out of that school and became very, very good business people in the community, artists, musicians. This is true of Salina too. There were people that worked hard to become somebody. This was true of Roulo School, a lot of the Italian kids. Zubel, of course, was Armenian. There were a lot of Armenians, by the way, in that end of town too. There was the Armenian Hall and well let’s see. There were a lot of other teachers that were in there. There was a lot of good (teachers). You had to be good to teach there.

MR. SEARS: How many teachers were there in the school at any one time?

MISS BECKER: Well, I would have to look to see the list on Roulo. There were probably fifteen teachers I would say> Some of us doubled up and overlapped but we did have two Shop teachers and part of the time we had a man Phys Ed teacher that came over part of the time (when) I was there who took part of the class. So I didn’t have to take all the Phys Ed classes because I was really overloaded.

MR. SEARS: Did they separate the boys from the girls at that age level?

MISS BECKER: Yes, at fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. Now they did some things together. You know, there were days that they had Gym together but there were also activities in which they were separated.

MR. SEARS: And it was these fourth, fifth and sixth graders who made up the baseball team?

MISS BECKER: Yes, fifth and sixth graders particularly. The fourth graders competed and the fifth and sixth grades usually ran the baseball team.

MR. SEARS: Were there any other extra-curricular activities besides that coaching that you engaged in after school hours?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes, of course, we did activities. As I remember once we did a lot with those kids. After school was the craft work, handcraft and things like that and little games and things in the good weather, recreation of some kind. I would work on the baseball team and there were men teachers. There were only about four men out of the fifteen teachers and most of them were family men. So they had other things to do too. I suppose that some single girls like me kept lot of those after school activities because they think we didn’t have to get home. I’m trying to think of some of the other things. I know we had a ceramic class down there. We had a teacher. Ione thing about the Depression again, like I said, there were artists who needed jobs. So they would give us an artist in residence they would come in and teach certain skills, of course, that I didn’t have. One of the good things about the Depression was those projects that they had. We could use some right now I guess, particularly in the arts, those beautiful murals. So many of them were painted during that period. The walls of our schools, a lot of those were painted during that time.

MR. SEARS: Why don’t we turn to Salina? You (went there in) the fall of 1938?


MISS BECKER: Right.

MR. SEARS: And how long did you stay with them?

MISS BECKER: I retired in ’77. The thing about Salina to remember is that in 1938 when I went over there, it was just beginning to come toward the end of the Depression. It wasn’t the end but it was different than it had been, beginning to be different. There was a problem about Germany in the air and the feeling about unrest in Europe and the things that were going on over there. The next summer I was to go to Europe. I was already planning to bicycle through Europe with a group of people. People were talking about, “Do you think you ought to go? It doesn’t look so good over there.” So that year was the year of strain for me. It was also the year of Mr. Ford’s 75th birthday celebration and I was working on that all year. So, it was a very busy year for me at the school because I was involving the school people and the community. My life was all mixed up between my teaching and what I was doing for Mr. Ford’s 75th birthday, 1938. So it is a kid of mixed year in my mind, a very busy year. In fact, toward the end of the year, they gave me some time off to work on it.

MR. SEARS: What subjects were you teaching at the beginning at Salina?

MISS BECKER: Well, when I went over to teach at Salina, I went to teach fifth and sixth grades, not to teach Music but to teach fifth and sixth grade. I think I started with the fifth grade and then carried the same group on through the sixth grade. It was a new experience for me. One reason I left Roulo was that I just could not take the schedule at Roulo anymore. I really couldn’t. It was too heavy. I would go to work at 7:30, 8:00 o’clock in the morning and then I wouldn’t get home until 5 o’clock, sometimes 6. It was a really very, very heavy schedule and I had to get out of it. Of course, the situation was complicated the same way my life is now, by trying to do too many outside activities as well. There were a lot of things happening in the town, things that I was part of. I needed to spend a little less time at school on some things, other things that I wanted to do. I practically lives at Roulo. Later on it became the same way at Salina. When I first went, I taught fifth and sixth grades and the first few years at Salina I taught the grades. I taught fifth and sixth graders in classes, taught all subjects. Whether we were good at every subject or not, elementary teachers taught all the subjects. In addition to that, I would substitute for the Art or Music teacher because I had an Art and Music background in teaching. So, whenever they couldn’t get a substitute, I ended up teaching some Music or Art.

MR. SEARS: There again, did the students go to the special rooms for Art and Music?

MISS BECKER: Yes. At Salina they did. We had a little auditorium before we built the new auditorium, a little auditorium up on the third floor. It held about one hundred fifty people and a stage. We could have music. We had an art room that the kids could come to so the teachers could have relief from the students largely. That’s what a lot of time the arts were used for – so the teachers could have a prep period which is both ends of the arts. You need special teachers to teach it. Yet it should be tied in with what they do in the classroom too. It’s hard to make a schedule out for a school with not enough teachers. At least during the war years at Salina we had plenty of teachers.

MR. SEARS: Oh, you did?


MISS BECKER: Yes. It was a time of great prosperity. We had too big classes. The classes were too large but at least we had Art, Music and the special classes. Our classes were way too big. I don’t mean that we had enough teachers in that sense. We had a teacher in every room though but the school was crowded. We had anywhere from eleven hundred to thirteen hundred students.

MR. SEARS: Now why would there be an increase in students?

MISS BECKER: During the War?

MR. SEARS: Yes.

MISS BECKER: Well, a lot of people had moved into town during the Depression and then we had a baby boom.

MR. SEARS: Now these war workers who came in to work in the plant, did they bring children with them?

MISS BECKER: Yes, especially a big influx from the South. A tremendous influx from the other parts of the country too.

MR. SEARS: We understand that Henry Ford did attempt to do some recruiting in the South and then brought people North during the war.

MISS BECKER: Yes, very much. We had a tremendous influx of Southern people, all parts of the South especially from the formerly very depressed areas of the South, Kentucky and Tennessee. We began to have fewer from the coal mining states, West Virginia and those other places because the coal mines were busy. It would be an interesting study if you could really find those people but you can’t any more. At any time I used to think it would be an interesting study. I became very adept because of my experience in the South End. When I went to the Canteen during the War and helped run the Canteen, I could tell where people came from and they were usually surprised. I could tell them whether they were from Mississippi or North Carolina or South Carolina because I had so many different Southern accents and we learned to distinguish between people that were around the Mississippi region and the ones from the Southeastern part of the Unites States. We learned to recognize names and accents and so forth.

MR. SEARS: Later on did you ever go back to being a specialist teacher or did you always remain a grade teacher?

MISS BECKER: No, during the War I moved up to junior high because the men that had been teaching junior high went off to war.

MR. SEARS: And, of course, at junior high level they were all specialized classes.

MISS BECKER: Not all of them. We had specialized classes but, for example, Art classes and Social Studies were often what we called core classes. You had Social Studies and English together. We developed a lot of that during the war period in Salina and other schools in Dearborn too but in


coordinated studies, I suppose you would call it, but we called it core. What we attempted to do was extended period like a two hour period in a class rather than a one hour period so we could have time to work on a combination of things in addition. We were talking about Salina core classes. We could do several things with one class to finish up on this phase of Salina. Moving up from the elementary to the junior high was a beginning of a very varied situation for me. I taught Social Studies and English. Depending on the year and the way the schedule worked out, I might end up some time during the following hectic years teaching Music and English or something else, English or Social Studies depending on who we were short of in teachers, the things that happened to the teachers of the scheduling or how crowded it got.

It you were a principal and your teachers and you sat down and tried to work out a schedule for the junior high where you have all kinds of classes and mixed classes and five hours a day with planning sixth hour that’s another thing. We worked at planning that one hour would be a preparation (where) every teacher would try to have one hour a day or an average of fifty minutes a day for preparation and getting ready for classes. It didn’t always work. Sometimes it was four of those a week. But it was different (every year). We worked very hard at trying to work out something that would give people preparation time besides just before and after school. Our principals fortunately (from) Mr. Hotchkiss on to the other later principals we were very good at trying to work out something if it would be done. But it was like putting together a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. If you have never had to schedule, you have to do it some time to really put yourself in the principal’s (place) and the people that have to work on the schedule.

MR. SEARS: How many teachers at Salina?

MISS BECKER: That varied all the way from forty-five teachers up to as high as seventy teachers depending again on the prosperity at the time. Now, some of those were part-time teachers like we might have a part-time Music or Art teacher who covered either Roulo School or some other school after Roulo closed. That is also hard on a teacher, running from one school to another, but it had to be done.

Then, we would sometimes have part-time classes too. The people who taught the foreign born sometimes were part-time people or their shared time with another school later on.

MR. SEARS: And those people spoke a foreign language?

MISS BECKER: Yes, particularly Arabic although we did have some people that worked with Yugoslavian people. We had quite a few Yugoslavian. Romanian people were a little easier because Romanian people could help us. When you are speaking about how we cope with the languages, that’s how we coped a lot of the time. People in the neighborhood came in. They were volunteers. We worked later on with the aides when we had enough funds to hire part-time aides. Those aides were people who could speak at least one other foreign language, particularly Arabic, or some other foreign language that helped us work with the students. But that was a short lived program which lasted about four years. It was one of those programs underwritten by the government with the understanding that the City of the local school board would take it over if it worked. Well, we got money from the State for that three,


four years but the local people didn’t want to go on with it because they said it would be something for Salina that the other schools didn’t have. Therefore, they couldn’t do it which was sad, really.

MR. SEARS: Yes, because they have their special needs.

MISS BECKER: That’s right, special needs. Later on they went back to doing it. (We) had to do it when the problem got worse. If they had kept the program going, the problem would not have been so bad down the road.

I did have a piano in my room when I taught there because they didn’t have a place to put that old upright piano and organ. So they put it in my room because they knew I’d use it. So that was our recreation in my room. We would stop doing our work and have a sing

MR. SEARS: How (did) you get into social action?

MISS BECKER: We’ll go back from where I was talking about Salina School to the beginning. We attended Fordson High School. We had come here in 1926 and ’27 and then we went into the new high school which was a junior and senior high school, the new Fordson High School. There was no Lowrey school. It was a school that was not only new but dynamic but it had a lot of young teachers that weren’t much older than the students in the sense that they were in their twenties mostly. They were full of enthusiasm like a new school is. A lot of wonderful new things were happening. We had a lot of money in the town. The new City of Fordson had a tremendous amount of money from the Ford Plan. Eighty-five percent of taxes at that time were paid by the Ford Motor Company (at) the end of town. So Fordson had money. Now this is before we consolidated, of course, and then we consolidated in 1929. So this is when I was in high school when we consolidated. We came here in ’26 and I went to Fordson in ’27. So it was ’27, ’28, ’29, ’30. The thing that was interesting to those of us who were there a lot of things that we took for granted – as we look back- were really remarkable. We found ways to use a lot of that money with a lot of special activities for youth and the teachers were involved a lot with the young people. A lot of them had come over from Salina when it was a high school and Miller was a high school. Those were the older teachers. As I say, there were a lot of new ones hired at that time. They set up programs, for example, lecture series. We had some very remarkable people come to us to talk, or cultural series. Carl Sandberg came to talk. That’s where I first heard Carl Sandberg. Concerts, Yehudi Menuhin, as a boy prodigy, came to our high school. This sort of thing. They were things put on both by the school and by the community at that time in that new Fordson auditorium. So a lot of the things that other people didn’t have we seemed to take for granted in our town. It was a town that was very prosperous until the 1929 crash.

We didn’t even notice the fall, the crash, too much in Dearborn or Fordson until there was a lag because of left over prosperity. Then we began to feel it very badly because of the auto industry and so, just as now, it becomes more intense. But out of that intensity of the growth of things and the concern, we had many other kinds of things that developed. We had organizations about environment. We had science and math (organizations), etc. One of the groups that was the most interesting to us was that group that we called the Four F Club. It grew out of a group of young men who worked and went to school full-time. Merwin Lewis became Assistant Superintendent of Schools later on and held many


different jobs in the system before he retired, was a young teacher that was a sponsor. That group of young men and those of us who were on the Student Council, Student Government and other activities – the girls of that group and caliber (I suppose you would call us the intellectual type in the school) were concerned about special problems and that sort of thing. I remember Edith Maples and Ethel Pierson and the girls were excellent students and were serious minded. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t have fun but we took a lot of problems seriously and especially when they were problems of growth in the town. Among the growth was this prejudice that I was talking about. We worked with this Four F Club group. Walter Reuther was the president of that group.

MR. SEARS: Was he a student at Fordson?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes, he and the Bishop boys. Victor wasn’t, just Walter. Roy was older, of course, and Victor was younger. But it was Walter who went to school there. He and Victor lived in Dearborn. It was quite a large group. The two Bishop boys, I don’t know whether you remember them or not in the history of the development of the union, but they were a goodly number. Fordson was one of the earliest schools that I know of that had a work/study program that allowed these older students to go to school full-time or almost full-time and work at Ford Motor Company at the same time.

MR. SEARS: Was Walter Reuther one of those workers?

MISS BECKER: That’s right.

MR. SEARS: So he was older than the high school students.

MISS BECKER: That’s when he was president of the club. Yes, they were a little older. Walter and most of the boys – some of them graduated with me in June of ’30. Quite a few of them graduated the next January. Walter was one of those who graduated the next January. He was in the ’31 class or ’32 class. That’s when we had two graduations a year. We had semesters and we had a January graduating class and a June graduating class.

MR. SEARS: Did you say this group was about forty people in membership?

MISS BECKER: It seems to me. It varied I’m sure but the Four F Club, the girls, were kind of auxiliary in the sense that we worked together. We used to go on the picnics with them and have the rap sessions. We would call them rap sessions now. We didn’t call them (that then). (We called them) discussion groups, where we discussed the problems about the local community, labor problems.

MR. SEARS: This was the Four F group?

MISS BECKER: Right and the girls that worked there. The Four F group was mostly boys.

MR. SEARS: Were girls excluded?

MISS BECKER: Girls didn’t work in the Ford plant.


MR. SEARS: Oh, I see, the Four F Club were people, older people, who worked in the Ford plant. So then you girls were sort of allowed to …

MISS BECKER: I wouldn’t say we were allowed. We did. There was nothing to allow one way or another. It was a natural group that came together. They tended to be the serious intellectual boys and we tended to be the serious intellectual girls. We had interests in common in that we studied the problems here. The teachers were the head of the groups like Merwin. There were other teachers, too. There was Ferris Lewis, for example, and other people in the school, women teachers that were concerned about issues, the forward looking people. They encouraged us to discuss problems, both political, civic and social. It just happened that prejudice against the foreign born was one of the things that was of concern to us because it would show up in our schools as a carryover from home. That happened to be one of the problems that we worked with.

MR. SEARS: How often did you meet?

MISS BECKER: Well, at least monthly but it was most often than that because we had discussions almost every week. Our activities were set up with a lot of after school and pre-school activities.

MR. SEARS: What would that consist of, those activities?

MISS BECKER: Well, all kinds of activities, anything from debate and photography and music and drama to the serious discussion groups. Then we had a student government body too. We had not only a Student Council but we had a Student Government. In a sense, we had a kind of a court system in that the students made some decisions about how people should be disciplined. A lot of schools do it now but Fordson was early on that. So some of us were active in that and had to be very careful that that was not abused because students can often be far harsher than teachers. They are harsher on their peers than the teachers.

MR. SEARS: Would you consider yourself a friend of Walter Reuther?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. Our friendship with that group extended after school. Yes. We were all through our lives. Victor (isn’t) in this area anymore because he’s down in Florida or Washington. Roy used to come to the activities occasionally. Roy is dead, of course, but Roy used to come to the activities and so did Victor, like the picnics and the weekends when we had the camping out. It was not camping itself but a place like Camp Haven, like the nature camps.

MR. SEARS: You didn’t sleep in a tent or anything like that?

MISS BECKER: No. We went out for discussion like a retreat. I suppose that’s what we would call it now, a retreat. But they would go to some place like Haven Hill or the camps up north. A Finnish group had a place and quite a few of the people had gone to that Finnish (camp). They would loan us that and there used to be Finnish people out there for the weekend too and the families. They were kind of highlights. We carried on an education program in the school itself trying to make it unpopular or unfashionable to be prejudiced.


MR. SEARS: How would you do it, through posters?

MISS BECKER: Through the newspaper, school papers. Then too we used to have meetings and discussions about it.

MR. SEARS: Where other people would be invited?

MISS BECKER: That’s right. But also I’m sure in some of the homerooms it became sort of unfashionable to have that feeling. Now it’s just like a log of prejudices these days. People talk one way and act another or thing inside another. They act outwardly overtly okay but inside they may still have some prejudices. This particular thing in Fordson High School was unusual for its day. Then a thing that came along that helped set people back again was the Depression, the competition for jobs and that feeling. It goes in cycles just like it is now. Unless something is done about it concretely and worked at, no victory is assured. It can recur any time like a disease. But Walter Reuther and those boys were a very great influence on the life at Fordson because when they were older and highly respected, excellent students. In spite of working full-time, most of them were very good students, good minds.

MR. SEARS: Now did they have it during the daytime? Were they able to work the night shift?

MISS BECKER: Yes. They carried a full schedule and worked usually on the night shift, afternoon shift. So they worked very hard, very hard.

MR. SEARS: That’s interesting. So, of course, Mr. Lowrey was aware that you had been in that kind of work and that’s why he particularly wanted you down there in the South End.

MISS BECKER: His daughters, of course, were classmates and schoolmates of ours. We knew each other personally. They were in school with us, of course, and part of our life. Everybody was part of everybody’s life at that time. It was a relatively small town.

MR. SEARS: What can you tell me about the Girl Reserves?

MISS BECKER: I mentioned those because they were examples (of) other organizations. We had Boy Scouts. We took the fleur de lis from there. That’s our book, you know. The fleur de lis is a symbol of Fordson and that’s the name of the yearbook. If you look at it, you will see the terrific numbers of activities that the school had. We had Shop classes that were remarkable things because Fordson developed an idea of learning to work with your hands. That came largely out of the Henry Ford philosophy. If you look at the buildings when you go to Fordson, you notice the beauty and elegance there and the art work. So it’s a combination but there’s a very great functionalism in that place. It’s no longer there but the steam system and the tunnel system under the school is exactly like Fair Lane, exactly like the Ford plant and the other things designed by the Ford people. The problem was later they had to do away with it because they didn’t train new people to know how to take care of it. Just like over at Fair Lane and just like a lot of places. The people that were the engineers and people that knew how to do it died out without recruiting people to learn from them, apprentices.

MR. SEARS: Now this Girl Reserves, did it get involved in social work?


MISS BECKER: Yes. It was the Y.W.C.A. They don’t call them that now. They have a different name for them but we were called Girl Reserves then. So we had the Y.W.C.A. organized there. The Boy Scouts organized.

MR. SEARS: It came from the school.

MISS BECKER: In the school itself. They don’t always do that today. We had all kinds of activities in the junior and senior high school that were what I would call character building, groups that weren’t there just for fun but were there to do something and had a motto and a goal in life.

MR. SEARS: Was attacking prejudice one of the things that was one of these projects?

MISS BECKER: Well, the Y.W.C.A., of course, was well known for that. That was one of the things we worked at. (It is) world-wide organization and the C. in Y.W.C.A. means something – Christian. It meant Christian in the true sense of the word that we try to do something about the problems. So that was an influence on some of us. The people were very active in church work in Fordson. I’m sure they were in this end of town too but, of course, we grew up in that end of town and the churches themselves, especially the Protestant Church, tended to be social action-minded. I’m talking about the Mt. Olivet Church and then, later on, our own church. It’s Methodist now. At that time, when it was built, it was called Mt. Olivet Community Church, right there at Horger and Colson. It was only about half as big as it is now, the physical plant, but it had just been built when we came to town. Being a young town and an industrial minded town, it had that kind of philosophy. Not everybody, of course. I’m sure there were people with prejudices and all kinds of things that the young person would know about and looking at from an older person’s point-of-view at that time. It might have been different my mother and father considered it a very progressive church and the people that were there at the time. Reverend Wilcox was one I remember. The Wilcox boys are still here in town. One of them is Elwin. They were very good and we like it and the reason we moved from there was not because we didn’t like that church. The Congregational Church came out and we had been Congregationalists. When they came up and bought that corner about a block and a half from our house, my mother and father heard about it and they asked for help with the new church. They decided to help the new church. And they took it from there.

I think, too, that the church influence that made us concerned about prejudice, not only against foreign born but the black question, was a question very early in this town. We had problems way back then. We had black people who lived in town and out here. But again, during the Depression we began to have that feeling. When more people started to move in from other parts of the Detroit area I think this is my opinion of what I noticed happening in the Depression – they would move to Dearborn with the big expansion. It was a nice place to liver and we had combined the two towns into one. It was all Dearborn instead of Fordson. We began to have a lot of foreign born or first generation people moving to Dearborn. When Jack Carey was still Mayor, they brought their prejudices against black people with them. So we had an increase in that prejudice. By the time Orville Hubbard became Mayor, he wasn’t Mayor because of that. When he was Mayor, he satisfied the people whether he felt that way or not. We’ll never really know but he did what he thought the majority of people wanted. So we have the big


rise of that problem that’s still causing us trouble in Dearborn. I mean our reputation makes us unpopular whether we deserve it or not.

Since you want to know something about my youth, I’d like to talk to you a little bit about the high school from which we graduated. We were all very proud because it was such a new high school. It was a beautiful high school. It was a very expensive high school for its time and nationally famous as a new high school for its beauty. We had just been in for three years when I graduated. I was in the first full senior high class to graduate, counting tenth and eleventh grade as senior high school. We had junior and senior high school in our system here. The name of our book had been chosen by the first group of seniors. I was a sophomore. It was the ’27 group that came in. They had chosen a very fancy name and a symbol, the fleur de lis. I always thought if I had been around, they would have named it after me because fleur de lis is the iris. So I was always especially proud of the yearbook. They used to kid me about it that somebody must have had me in mind. It is a lovely heraldic symbol and it seemed to fit the Gothic quality of the school.

Anyway, mine was an exciting year – 1930. We had had two years to grow in development programs in the school and so many things that other schools did not have. That’s partly because we were new and partly because we had lots of money. It was a very rich end of town and I probably should remind people that we had just combined in January, 2919, into one city and had changed the name from Fordson and Henry Ford District and Old Village of Dearborn. We had all because the City of Dearborn and we extended from Wyoming to Gulley Road and on the north from that irregular boundary to an irregular boundary line on the south. It zigzags around. We also should remember that we also were still three school systems. I had better explain that right away.

There was the Fordson District and it stayed the East Dearborn School District. Then the West End was the West Dearborn School District #7. Then there was, in the middle, the Henry Ford School District which was just one very beautiful school, the Henry Ford School. That was the district where Mr. Jahr and Henry Ford, Sr. were both on the School Board along with other people. Cecil Millard was the Superintendent of Schools there. In West Dearborn schools, a man named Ray Adams was the Superintendent of Schools. In the East Dearborn schools was Harvey Lowrey and, later on I’ll tell you some things (about) how we came to Dearborn through Mr. Lowrey. A lot of people came to Dearborn because Harvey Lowrey asked them to come to teach here. Those of the East Dearborn teachers came from different towns around Michigan, most of them young teachers, came to teach because Mr. Lowrey asked them to come here. He was looking for some of the best teachers, both young and older. We were very fortunate in our schools in East Dearborn to have very progressive and interesting older teachers. So we had teachers that were very active in doing things with us and interested in seeing that we did a lot of interesting things as well as being good students.

We started out with the idea of quality education not just for the bring students but across the line. The students that (did not have) as high I.Q.s as other people had other ways of learning. There were a lot of classes designed for that purpose and also a tremendous number of classes designed to work with their hands as well as their head. They were trying to follow the Henry Ford principle of learning by doing. It was an exciting time to be alive in Dearborn and going to school. We developed a philosophy about our


town that required us to take an interest in the world around us as well as the city. It had its causes. They might be sometimes opposed to each other but that was perfectly all right. It would lead to debate and discussion of the issues and it was a time when labor questions were coming in and that very same year, ’29, was when the crash came. Fordson, particularly Dearborn, did not notice as badly as other placed right away because we had a lag of funds, money and support of the automobile industry as well as other business. When it did come, it really hit hard. We really fell harder when we’re up higher. It was a very interesting time to start out being a citizen.

Well now, the Fleur de Lis of that year was also that the Fleur de Lis being a yearbook was dedicated to a man who came to town that year, the same month of the crash. Some of you will remember it was the fiftieth anniversary of the electric light and Thomas Edison came to town to visit Henry Ford and to start the Edison Institute over there and to light the light with Mr. Jehl and Mr. Ford. President Hoover was coming to town and all of these important people coming to Dearborn. We were thrilled and, of course, the papers were full of it. The schools were full of it and so a natural person to dedicate the 1930 yearbook to fleur de lis was Thomas Edison. That’s to home It was dedicated and especially since Henry Ford helped build the school, in a sense. By the way, as a side comment on the schools itself at that time, besides the many activities that I will talk about here in a little while is the physical thing of the building, the stone was copied from the Rackham Quadrangle at Ann Arbor. It was copied from that. It was built just shortly after and the people that designed it. In fact the people always called it the law school, the people that knew.

MR. SEARS: Who were the architects? Do you know?

MISS BECKER: Keogh and Patterson are the builders. There were several architects involved but they really did a beautiful job of building from both inside and out. There was no expense spared to build the school. I believe it was five million dollars and actually it was a little more than that. That would be like thirty-five million today, you know, or even more. There have been additions made to it since then but the basic building (is still there). How beautiful it really is when they get through that cleaning of the limestone. I don’t know who often they do it, about every fifteen, twenty years I think. When they can afford it, they try to clean some of that stone. We were very much influenced at taking good care of the building because it was so beautiful. There was a great lack of vandalism because we were not only taught to take care of it but we helped take care of it. It was partly our job. Some of the things that we had there helped enforce things the young people were involved in the law and the running, the government of the school. We were a rather strict police system. I suppose we could be calling it a posse today but it wasn’t quite that. We weren’t that bad. We really tried to make the punishment fit the crime. People forget we had a twelve hundred seat auditorium. It included a floor and a balcony and it had a lovely big stage and a lighting system. It was not only meant for concerts and drama but also public use, public concerts and lecture system. There was a lot of activities after school in the evenings. They believed very early that schools should be used as much as possible for students and the community. At the same time, we had a very fine recreation program in the city that worked with us. They had a philosophy in the city of having recreation early in the thirties. Of course, I think the ‘30s accented the need later on for that, the realization that to take care of unemployed people. It was very important to have recreational programs and things that people could do. It started out during


prosperous times. The corridors – all along there were walnut cornices and frames for all the corridors. Those gates across were very beautiful and there were gates into each corridor that could close; the lovely lighting. Today they try to keep the spirit of it but they don’t have as elaborate globes. They have tried to keep in the remodeling and the revitalization of Fordson these past few years. They have tried to keep the spirit. There were some changes made that people objected to and they redid them. As I say, we believed in the preservation of the building as near as possible to the way it was built.

The School Board in 1930 and the people – Herb Mitchell was the business manager; Davidow, legal. They did work for Mr. Ford too. And John Malcomson and Fred Maples, a very famous name. Maples School was named after him later. John Alexander. Harvey Lowrey was Superintendent. There was a man named George Brady who was very well known in Dearborn. George was very active in the Historical Society here in Dearborn later on. He was an early, early graduate of the Ford Trade School and the Apprentice School and Jessie Crayton was the woman on the School Board and Sam Watkins. We had one woman on the School Board at that time. By the way, six out of seven are women. Our one man is a little lonesome but he gets along very well with them. That’s Dave MacKenzie.

Mr. Lowrey was a relatively young superintendent, a middle aged man. Forrest Avril was a young principal and we always said he was the most handsome principal in the whole State of Michigan. He was a very fine man. He and his wife were very much a part of the community. In fact, I was one of their babysitters. I got twenty-five cents an hour which was high pay. I not only baby sat I did the ironing. You know how it is; I made good use of my time while I was there.

One fragment for the benefit of the West Dearborn people was the Whitmore-Bolles School. There was an argument that that had been a township school and the school was in the boundary lines of Dearborn when it incorporate and left that township high and dry out there without schools for many years. Those township schools came to Whitmore-Bolles School free of tuition. The Roulo had an argument, not quite the same. Roulo School had been part of the Springwells system and when they drew the Fordson lines, of course, they put Roulo School inside the Fordson School District and let part of west Detroit without a school. So they had to make a cash settlement with Detroit.

I might mention Russ Catherman, who just died two months ago, (was) a very young man. He was the coach and, of course, he became many things to Dearborn. He became a principal; he became a big fundraiser for anything in Dearborn including Henry Ford Community College. (He was) one of the finest men that came out of this town. He and his wife Mr. Lowrey brought from the west side of the State to come over here. Miss Ermie was one of the older teachers, one of those English teachers to whom I was always very grateful. She really taught us how to write and how to express ourselves. Miss Cummings was the librarian, chairman of the whole library system and really helped develop a school library system and later helped with our City system too. She really pushed for libraries in each school. All elementary and junior high schools had libraries and most of them still do. Nell Driess and her name was Nell Dinsmore at that time. Later she got married and she became a college teacher as well as a high school teacher. She was one of the finest teachers I’ve ever known and she’s still living. Lisa Ellsworth was controversial. She came from Olivet College, a Congregational college and a very progressive one. She was the kind of person that we really got into controversy and debate and


argument and she herself tended to be socialistic. This was 1930. Later on we all became more socialistic, as you know, when Roosevelt and the Depression came along. We all became a little more socialized. She was ahead of her time. In a time of prosperity, she was really one of those who made us consider the problems of the poor and the problems of the laboring class. She was very popular with all of us that were concerned with social problems and prejudices. Very great lady. Older that some of the teachers but a live wire.

MR. SEARS: Was she an advisor with any of the groups?

MISS BECKER: Yes. She helped us. There weren’t very many teachers that weren’t advisors for something. Most of the teachers were involved in one activity or more. We took on that kind of a job. Frances Barrett was a very good journalism teacher. I had her for Journalism and she helped us with the yearbook. The rest of these people were all very, very, very good teachers. Caroline Fairchild seemed older because she was tall and awkward and very bright red hair. I was one of her favorites and she was one of mine. She taught languages but not only that, she headed the Girl Reserves. She and one other teacher really worked very hard with us Girl Reserves and taught us how to be waitresses and everything else, you know. So she was very popular with us. This man who has that cap on is Pep Godfry. He was the band teacher, band and orchestra, and he had a gruff voice. He had something wrong with his larynx and he had a brother, Joe, who taught over at Salina in the band. His name was T.P. but we called him Pep Godfry. He had a limited degree. He wasn’t a full degree teacher. He was one of the best band and orchestra teachers in Michigan. Of course, they stayed on even if they didn’t have their degrees if they were qualified in other ways. I remember once he threw the baton at me because I wasn’t playing the right notes on the cello. Hal Goodall and his wife. I remember when they got married. There are several of these teachers in here that got married. These two got married.

MR. SEARS: So women were allowed to continue teaching after they got married?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. At Fordson they were until the Depression came around and then Dearborn was more fussy. In Fordson they were a little farther ahead than most people. But Harold (Goodall) again was a person who taught us to be very fine writers but he was a person who also taught us to think.

MR. SEARS: Was he a Journalism (teacher)?

MISS BECKER: Well, Harold taught several things. He taught history to us. He was with us in a lot of activities. He helped coach the debating team even though he wasn’t debating.

MR. SEARS: Were you on that Debating Team?

MISS BECKER: No. I was in the Debating class but then the best one were chosen to go into Debate. I belonged to the Debating class for one year. We could take classes even if we weren’t on the team of that class. That was another thing that out of most activities came some kind of team. There are a great number of activities that you see here in the yearbook came out of actual classes, like the Pythagoreans Club came out of the math classes, you see. Ray Jennings was a Physics teacher and I was terrible at Physics.


MR. SEARS: A very difficult subject, a fascinating subject.

MISS BECKER: This Science teacher that I want to mention, Ferris Lewis, he was a young teacher with bright red hair. There have been a lot a redheads. But Ferris also became a professor and he wrote a history of Michigan and he did some things on Dearborn history that may be used for some teaching of local history. Ferris was a very good Science teacher. He also became a member of the Dearborn Historical Commission later on and was on the Commission for quite a while until he retired and moved up north. He died a couple of years ago.

On either side of him in the yearbook are two well-known people who still live in Dearborn over there in the co-op (Morley Manor) and that’s Merwin and Alice Lewis. They were a young couple that started out and got married here in Dearborn, etc. He was our History and Government teacher. He was also (in the) senior session room. He is the person who (we) gave our excuses when we were absent, you know. We couldn’t go through the west hall or east hall and (without) our morning excuses. (He) was the person who was the head of that Four F Club that I mentioned, that Walter Reuther and the fellows all belonged to (and) worked full-time and still went to school. This lady back here, Ems. Ellsworth, was active with us girls and was interested in social problems. He (Merwin Lewis) was with the young men and we were the groups that combined to have discussion groups and go to a couple retreats where we had workshops and that sort of thing. So it was a combination kind of leadership of the school (and) that stimulated ideas of involvement in social problems and to do with prejudice that I had talked about. One of the reasons that I went to teach later on in the South End.

MR. SEARS: This teacher you just talked about back here, the one who….what group was she sponsoring?

MISS BECKER: Aletha Ellsworth? Well, actually it was the….

MR. SEARS: More than one?

MISS BECKER: yes. It would be more than one. It was like group discussions and she was a co-sponsor of a lot of things. As I say, she would help train us in Debate also. We had a debating coach, the debating team did, but in debating class – our classes overlapped. You know, we may do a lot of team-teaching nowadays but our teachers did a lot of team-teaching back then. You know the English and Drama worked together and the History and Debate worked together. We would get a good debate going. In debating class we could use it for credit and our research for credit in English or History depending on the problem. The thing about Merwin Lewis, for example, that should be of interest to Dearborn is what he later went to become Principal, an Assistant Superintendent and member of the Civil Service Board with the city for many years – a great number of other activities, sometimes behind the scenes but also very, very active, both of them, in the town, in the history of the town. (They) helped me make the history.

The next page of teachers should be of interest because, as I say, Mr. and Mrs. Nieman had the romance part of our school system for a while year. The kids always wondered if they were going to get married and sure enough, they did. They became Bertha and Lester Nieman and he was my Chemistry teacher


and he gave me my first C which broke my heart. I didn’t spend as much time on it as I should have, I’m sure, and until I went home and my father simplified and explained it to me the simple way. Then I went back and got a B. There were people like Vard Martin who was very much a part of the Shop classes of which we had a great many. A whole wing was just Shop classes not only drafting but Woodworking, Machine Shop. In fact, Fordson was a training ground for kids who went over to the Trade School and a lot of kids in the Trade School or Apprentice School were sometimes sent over to Fordson for classes. It was teamwork between Ford Motor Company and Fordson School.

This lady, Evelyn Mar Smith, how well I remember her. Isn’t she a pretty teacher? She taught us French. Not only her looks and that bobbed hair like that but her dark eyes. She made us speak French in class and that was Vera Mae the kids that got in the French class, you know, that was something a little different especially if you got into the top class, the A class, the ones that could speak it fairly well. There are other ones there that were very interesting. There’s Josephine Smith, the librarian who later did a great deal more in Dearborn, Jo Smith, very well-known lady in Dearborn

Here’s another Smith (Sabra). We had quite a few Smiths. Mr. Tagg was the man who was head of Industrial Education and he was tremendous. It was innovative. It was still not done in a lot of schools. The West Dearborn schools didn’t have shops like that until later when they had Industrial Education. So Mr. Tagg was very important in the life of the town.

That handsome gentleman there is Mac Whalen. Of course, he was the hero of a lot of the girls because he was the best looking coach. He was real flirty, you know. But a very nice person.

There’s Erwin Yinger. Mr. Yinger was also one of the Yingers, the nephew of the Mayor, the man who became Mayor (Floyd Yinger) or had been our first Mayor of Fordson. When we (consolidated), he was the first Mayor. But, anyway, Yinger was the Mayor until we combined into the city and then Clyde Ford became Mayor. He (Erwin) was one of the Yinger’s nephews and nieces that was here. Yinger Street is named after their family, as you know, and “Punch” (Duane) Yinger, the present Councilman, is a nephew of his. But he was a very fine teacher. He was kind of deaf which is unusual to let a person who is partly deaf teach, but he was an excellent teacher, deaf in one ear.

This young lady right down here was Mary Lila Zang and later on she married and then she got divorced and went back to her old name. Then she became head of the Drama Department at Henry Ford Community College. She was our Drama coach and I was in the play.

If you will look at the plays I was in, I was usually an old lady or character part. I wore my hair in a braid or I could powder my hair, you know. I had longer hair for one thing. I could do it up in a knot. Most of the girls had bobbed hair but Lila said I would never make a good actress because I had too many distinguishing features. I didn’t know what she meant so I was determined to be good at drama. By golly, I went off to college and took Drama, not as a minor or major but as an extracurricular activity. Of course, as you know, I became one of the most active people in Drama in Dearborn, probably because Lila said I couldn’t do it. Later one, when we knew each other as adults, we used to kid about it. She would say, “Well, you know I’m a little surprised at times. You always were a good speaker, good talker,


but I didn’t know whether those qualities would make a good actress.” Evidently she thought I was too open and blunt to be an actress. So that was the young teachers.

Here’s the senior class, my year. As you can see we had an interesting set of names. When you think the president of the class was Egidio Todeschini. See what a nice handsome young man he was but he obviously was not an Anglo Saxon. But the next one was. Stewart Norwood (vice president) was a heavy set fellow and then this was a different nationality, this lady, Jeanette Priebe, a very interesting lady, different nationality. Then Eleanor Krey – four different nationalities represented just in those officers. I always thought that was not only interesting but wonderful.

About the senior class, this Fleur de Lis came out early in the year by January. They started working on it in September and then it came out usually in January, after the second semester started. A lot of things about yourself are not in the book earlier but they get as much stuff on you as they can, you know. When I worked on it, that was part of my job to get everything I could about the teachers, (etc.(. I was the news editor that year but I was not a class officer that year. I had been in my sophomore year but , anyway, that was a wonderful year ’29 and ’30. There’s a man named Vince Catapano who became very well known. He just died last year and was the head of our Sewage Department, Public Works Department, for quite a while. He came from the South End and lived down there most of the time until very recent years and was a businessman as well in our community. Just looking at the names, (Victoria) Kosafowski, (Dale B.) Gramer, (Lena) Levenson, (Raymond) Lucas, (Emil) Basilla you can tell that they were names that were.

This was the senior class that graduated in January that I’m talking about. We had two graduation classes a year, you see. Later on everybody graduated in June even though they graduated in January. They didn’t have the ceremonies until the June class. They (would) go on to college but they would come back to graduation (ceremony). That’s when they cut expenses. In those days we had two graduations a year. So our senior class for a year was really two classes. Now this was the senior class for January. It was a really small class and this was the activities as you can see.

Now this was the class for June and we had a different group of officers. John Alcorn and John Kostin and Evelyn Compte, one of the most beautiful girls in our class, a lovely girl and Marian Ryan. Marian, Bea and Kathleen Ryan were a real Irish family in town and Bea Ryan became the head of our woman’s part of the Recreation Department a couple of years later and was well known in this town. And of course, again, Evelyn Marr Smith and Gerald Baker were the sponsors for both the total senior class but you can see that this was called the June class. They had two sets of officers. They really spread around, if you know what I mean, in those days.

Well, to continue where we left off. We pretty well covered the teachers and the officers of our 1930 class of which there were two sets. We can move on to the rest of the class. If you look at the Fleur de Lis again and take a good look at what is written by each one. This is very embarrassing. They put down everything about us and there isn’t too much about some people. You can tell the ones that were shy in the class or a log of people that didn’t spend as much time on activities. But they always had something nice to say about them. All our activities were listed. Something nice was picked out by some


committee about us and then they listed all the activities we had participated in through your high school year. If you look at it, you can see the ones that were because there were big paragraphs about each of us. There is John Alcorn who was one of the presidents and myself and Eleanor who was one of my best friends and over here Evelyn Compte who was one of the officers. You can see she was tremendously active and Les Dayne and some of the rest of them. If you look through the class you can tell, Fran Kennedy, Ethel Pearson, who was Salutatorian. There as a competition between us. We were very close friends but a lot of competition. I always felt badly that I beat her out. She was Salutatorian because she was such a marvelous person. There’s Ed Podlewski and Elwyn Wilcox whose father was the minister of that Community Methodist Church I spoke to you about. You can see that these were people who were very active and participated in many things. Of course, part of that is because there were so many interesting things to participate in as you can see. Well, you wanted me to read what it said about me. It was always very embarrassing to read what they wrote about us (next) to our pictures.

MR. SEARS: You want me to read it?

MISS BECKER: But I also wanted to point out to you that in the picture I began to let my hair grow again. In my sophomore year you will see I had bobbed hair. The only time I ever cut my hair.

Twice I went to the barber and after the second cutting I began to let it grow again because my family and some of my friends – not the girls- persuaded me to get it bobbed. But the other friends were so disappointed that I had cut my long red curls off that I decided I couldn’t stand going to the barber shop and I didn’t like bobbed hair. So I let it grow. You can see by the time I was a senior it was down to my shoulders and curled again. Do you want to read what it says so we get somebody besides me talking on this tape?

MR. SEARS: All right. Iris Marie Becker “Her charm is exceeded only by her willingness to do work.” Class Treasurer, ’28; the Gypsy Rover (that’s a class play), the Loveliest Thing, ’29; Honor Club Editor, ’30; F Club, ’28 and ’29.

MISS BECKER: That’s the Honor Society.

MR. SEARS: National Honor Society, Orchestra, ’28, ’29, ’30; Tractor (the newspaper), ’28, ’29; News Editor (of the Yearbook), ’29, ’30; Dramatic Club, Girl Reserves, President, ’28, ’29; Treasurer, ’30; Service Group (Student government group), ’28, ’29; Captain Service Group, ’30; Fleur De Lis, ’30. You can update it from there.

MISS BECKER: Well, of course, spring is a lively time in any school. In our schools at that time, of course, there were especially lively. But just like in town, as you very well know, spring picks up things and everybody tries to crowd in all the activities for the organizations in that last April, May and June. It’s a wonder they get anything done in school at all. They have so many activities, the teams and all that sort of thing. So it was really an exciting thing to be a senior particularly and I’m sure we neglected work. It’s a good thing you have some scholastic credits built up so you can live on the lag for the spring because I’m sure we neglected getting things done with all those activities. Also, the activities were important in making choices because the job of choosing us later as Valedictorian and Salutatorian, etc.


was not only in our scholastic record but what we did to serve the school and the community. While the Salutatorian and Valedictorian was largely marked we had to have at least a B+ average to be Valedictorian and be in the top 5% of our class but the person that’s Valedictorian and the Salutatorian are often very close together and the deciding thing.

In fact Ethel Pearson, who was the Salutatorian when I was Valedictorian, had practically the same scholastic record, an A- record. She, I think, lost out a little bit on it because the margin of difference was my activities. She had a tremendous amount of activities and was very good at them but I suppose (I) was a little more gregarious and widespread that Ethel and had a little more energy and that sort of thing.

The only problem was that made it very difficult was that I was a principal’s daughter. My father and mother were afraid – and some of the teachers that had to make the choice – that people would criticize them and say it was nepotism or something, favoritism to the principal’s daughter. But they asked my father how felt about it. It bothered me that it even came up but he said, ‘Has she earned it?” and they said, “Yes.” He said, “ Then don’t let me being a principal stand in the way.” So that…

MR. SEARS: He was (principal of) an outside school.

MISS BECKER: He was principal of one of the grad schools, but, of course, we were like a small town in those days, you know. It was the Fordson end while it was a fairly good-sized city and a big high school, everybody knew each other and my mother and father were very active in the town, not only in the school but in the whole town. You couldn’t help but understand how people would feel it might be favoritism, that a popular family was involved as well. So that kind of updates it for that year.

We had an interesting speaker for our graduation and we always had Merton Sirice the great preacher from downtown. He was our speaker for out graduation. I remember that, of course, he was a very impressive speaker. The junior class that year was a very interesting one too. The person who was the president of that class was George (Roy?) Cole. He later became the Superintendent of Schools in this town.

MR. SEARS: February 17, 1983. Eighth interview with Iris Becker.

MISS BECKER: Today we are going to talk a little about the time the schools got together into one school system for the war years, the ‘40s and ‘50s at Salina School and the South End. The school system did not join together at the time we became one city in 1929. It was almost ten years later (1940) before we became one school system, that is, the Dearborn system – what we call West Dearborn (and) East Dearborn which was the Fordson system. The Henry Ford District which was in the middle and just had one school called the Henry Ford School. Now we were one school system and Mr. (Harvey H.) Lowrey was the Superintendent of Schools. Mr. (Ray H.) Adams became the Assistant Superintendent of Schools and that’s where they compromised so they could keep titles.

I had moved, of course, to Salina School from Roulo at that time. So 1939 was my first full year teaching there and I had just returned from bicycling through Europe as a youth hostler. I was in great demand


with the students to tell them all about it. I was a very popular young teacher right away because I was adventuresome, I guess. They thought it was fun and we talked at assemblies and different things about joining youth hostels and how important it was to travel abroad. Of course, the war put a stop to all that because Poland had been invaded that September.

The whole year was kind of tense with war already going on in Europe. Already our teachers and different people – even though they were exempt – were talking about going off to the Army and be trained, etc. Everybody was taking training even though the United States was not involved in war as most people who lived through that period know. We were all kind of on edge, as I remember it, at the time. We were sure we wouldn’t get into the war. We’d help, of course, but were not really in the war. A lot of us were very much against the war (and were) considered unpatriotic. I happened to one of those. My parents did not believe it was necessary to go to war. It should be done with negotiations, etc. and that the war could be stopped if they worked at it. The feeling about polarizing that became more noticeable as we went along.

In 1940 and ’41 was a very tense time, the different incidences that happened. Some of us believed they were created incidences. We didn’t know what was the truth, what was the half-truth and what was the whole truth. And so the period of ’39, ’40, ’41 and a tense time in America where we had the people who were for peace and not going to war versus those people who thought jumping and we would end it, get it settled. If we got in, it would be a short war and all that business. As we know, it turned out to be a long one.

Then, of course, toward the end of 1941 came Pearl Harbor and I think everybody remembers where they were that day, that Sunday it was announced – the attack on Pearl Harbor. Most people in the Midwest had just come from church when we heard it. Well, it changed things a lot. Of course, even those of us who had been against the war and had other ideas about it once the war started we joined in, you know. We were at war then. (We stood by our country) whether we thought they had done the right thing or not, not that we were pro-Hitler or pro-Germany. (Some) felt that people should (have ) worked harder at negotiating a peace and settling the war. Nobody really thought that Japan would be the one that (would) trigger our entry. So there were all kinds of theories and those of us who were very much in favor of Franklin Roosevelt and to whom he had been a hero, for those of us – a lot of us who were against the way – we people tended to blame him then from that group. You never know the full truth about things but once you are at war you have to try to make the best of things.

At the same time, the thing that made (this time) a period of unrest and other action was that we were organizing the union at the same time. You remember the 1940 and ’41 was the time that Walter Reuther, the Bishop boys and Frankensteen all those had to strike, sit-down strikes. They organized the Ford Motor Company and that was really a time of excitement but also worry because people were pitted against each other, family against family. There were people brought up from the South to break the strikes and break the union. Salina School was right in the middle of it.

MR. SEARS: You were so close to the Rouge (Plant).


MISS BECKER: Yes. I walked out the door one day to go to my car and a tire iron flew past my head. It was a group of men in the one car chasing another car.

MR. SEARS: They weren’t really aiming at you.

MISS BECKER: No, They were throwing at that car but it came within inches of my head. So it was that kind of time. In addition to that, the teachers – the Fordson teachers particularly – had been active in forming a more militant or active organization than just the Michigan education Association. A lot of them felt that that was not serving the needs of the teachers, particularly when we had the needs of women teachers who were being discriminated against in the other system, the West End system. Fordson had a single salary schedule. Everybody had a salary based on years of experience and the amount of education. The Fordson system was one of those systems that had worked very hard to bring that about. When we joined the West Dearborn system – and, of course, the Henry Ford district was quite progressive too, the West Dearborn system was not that much so. We had to mesh the two systems together in more ways than one and, among them, the way the teachers felt about things. So we worked hard in that period, the same time a ware was developing, the same time the unrest of the unions at the Ford plant and that business going on. We were developing and formulating a new union, A.F.T. or D. F. T. here in Dearborn. So it started in those early 40s. It was the beginning of the Dearborn Federation of Teachers which was part of the A.F.T., American Federation of Teachers, A.F.T. of course.

MR. SEARS: Were you one of the organizers?

MISS BECKER: I was an early member and I worked on the idea. I did not join. I was very busy in the war, etc. I didn’t join the first two or three years because it was the war years and I was too busy, although I did go to meetings, etc. and then I joined. Then, in fact, I belonged to both organizations. I had been an officer in the Fordson Teachers Club and we had worked hard to make that a more militant organization, not just a social club. Peop0le like Merwin Lewis and the rest of them developed the M.E.A. Actually, the M.E.A. of Fordson was a much more organized group – if you want to use the word militant in the sense that it went out to fight for demands and bargain for teachers. So we had finally two groups that really competed with one another to do more for the teachers, for the students and class size. It wasn’t just for teacher salaries. It was for better working conditions, lower class sizes for the right things for the students and education of the students as well. So it was a lot of working within the system to do that.

A lot of the administrators had been active teachers in the sense that they had been not only good teachers but they had also been active in the teachers’ organizations and part of the leadership. Therefore, their background tended to be empathetic to what the teachers were trying to do. This then was the time of the development of unionism and more militant teachers’ organizations as a whole. Later on we all know that the State Board and most of the school system asked the teachers to vote on which of the two organizations they wanted to represent them. We voted and the majority chose the A.F.T.in Dearborn. More schools in Michigan probably have the M.E.A. because the A.F.T. was the kind of organization through the union in that it forced the M.E.A. to become more the same way and (went)


as high as the national, N.E.A. While we had a struggle and a difference in them, they have by competition have to represent the teachers better than they otherwise would. That’s a good idea.

Going back then to the war, the men after Pearl Harbor – even before but after that, of course – a log of men teachers left the system. They went off to the service. We had a lot of women coming in that had been wives of teachers or substitute teachers became what they called the more or less “permanent substitutes” for the war. It changed the staff so that it became a very busy time, very busy time. Then we had a great influx of people to work up here. The town was kind of in turmoil. People came up from the South and also from other places to work in the war factories. We had huge classes and we had to have more teachers. The schools go over-crowded and I’m sure some things during the war were better for education but there were a lot of things that were very hard on teachers.

We had all kinds of activities. We had things like the Canteen for the servicemen. There were three of those in town. A lot of teachers helped and I was the Assistant Director of the Dearborn Canteen, the one on Schaefer Road. A lot of us would leave school as soon as we could after school and head for the Canteen and cook for fifty to five hundred people.

The people of Dearborn were wonderful. They really were. We had a Navy base down at Fords where Henry Ford II was and then we had the Air Force base in Romulus where the airport is. (it) was an Army base, the (Willow Run) Airport. The place was teeming with servicemen – Navy, Army and Air Force. So the Canteens were always busy.

MR. SEARS: What kind of building did you have there?

MISS BECKER: well, we had an old store there and then one on Horger and Michigan that the City finally developed. Of course, upstairs over that building on the corner of Horger and Michigan was later used for our first community center after the war. My mother and I and some other (people) were on a committee that turned that into the Dearborn Community Center after the war because we had none at that time. There was no civic center or anything like that. Later we worked on committees that built what we call the Civic or Youth Center today.

The people of Dearborn were really something, women’s clubs. There were thirty of forty women’s organization just like there are today. They come to the Museum or other places (to) do things. Each woman took one day a month at each of those Canteens. Most of them took one day a month and they would furnish most of the food for that day. Desserts and something for a light supper for the ones that were off duty. The fellows who came from the base in the afternoon would eat some place for supper. A lot of boys came to the Canteens to eat supper. They might go to a bar later or they would go the bar first and then come for supper.

The hostesses, the girls – our young ladies – (were) very much chaperoned. In fact, a couple of those girls that are down to that meeting downstairs today were two of my hostesses at one Canteen. The girls worked at both Canteens. We used to organize them, take them down to the base for dances and they asked us to bring the hostesses for the dances either out at Willow Run or down here at the Naval base at Fords. We had a very good time. In those days we really had chaperones for the girls. We


wouldn’t let the girls go any place that there wasn’t an older adult driving the car. Our old cars got a lot of use. We couldn’t get new model cars. We had to use the same cars all through the war. Well, by the time the war was over, mine had been well used. Of course, it was that big Oldsmobile.

MR. SEARS: Did you get extra gas allowance?

MISS BECKER: Yes. We got some extra gas allowance. We didn’t get paid for it but we could buy it at least. It was cheaper then. But the women, the girls and the men of this town would take the soldiers’ and sailors’ wives into their homes. Sometimes, if I couldn’t find a place, I’d call home and say, “Dad, can you sleep in with mother tonight so we have your bed?” The wives would come here to visit. They would have no place to go or if, for example, the men could get away from the base to visit their wives. People in town would let the wives stay at their homes and the husband could come and stay for the night with them. There were all kinds of things. I would hate to live through it again but it was an exciting time in that we were so pleased with what people did for other people, so many lonesome people.

There were several of our girls who were hostesses who married sailors and soldiers. A woman who later became my sister-in-law married a soldier. Later they were separated and many years later she married my brother. There were quite a few weddings at the Canteen and we would have showers for them. They would come from some home. They had been engaged and they decided they would come and get married. We would arrange the minister and put up a little bower or something or bring some flowers for the bridge. So there were a lot of things.

Dearborn was known as a great town for the way they treated the service people and we are very proud of that. This did interfere with our school work.

The young people, too, were involved. The young people would come with me to the Canteen and help me sweep and that sort of thing. We would also have things like Mr. DeKay and a couple of our fellows were in the Air Force. When we had special doings at Salina School, the two fellows who were flyers came up from the base and did a flyover down over the school. It thrilled the youngsters you know. They later came back to teach after the war to Salina. Mr. DeKay and a couple of the other fellows that were in the Air Force were training down in Grosse Isle Naval (Base). So the young people were very much involved in the war effort too. I think they learned as much from what they did outside of school as they did in school about history and other things. We tried not to prejudice them against other people because we had very many foreign born people, including a lot of people that suddenly were supposed to be our enemies. Later in the war, they became our allies. Somebody told us they should be our enemies. I don’t know why but it was very confusing to young people. After the war, we had to convince them that the German people were nice people. All of a sudden the Russians were bad people and they had been our closest friends. So it was a very confusing time for teachers and students after the war. The period of the war itself and the ending just seemed like it would never come. It was a long war. It really was. The Vietnam War was longer and more dragged out. But the Second World War really, when you figure we really were going at it from 1939, even though we weren’t involved, until


1945. That was a long, long war. It made a difference in the youngsters and the way people talked and worked.

Then, following the war, that tremendous period of great prosperity bothered a lot of us, the materialistic feeling after the war, that things had become so important to youngsters because of that prosperity, the things that had been done. Nineteen forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight and forty-nine were periods when Michigan was a tremendously prosperous state.

The death of Roosevelt was a thing I can remember. We were in the classroom when the announcement came about (Roosevelt) dying. The youngsters all began to cry, the teachers too. We couldn’t help it. We had a picture of Roosevelt on the wall that he had sent us and autographed during the 1930s. It was a sad time.

MR. SEARS: Where were you teaching?

MISS BECKER: Then I taught Social Studies English and all the other extra things that you have to teach, Journalism. That was a side thing I did quite a lot of as a part of my classes – Speech and Drama. After the war, we persuaded them to put in special activities or special crediting under Speech and Drama but at that time we incorporated it with our English work. We had coordinated studies or core. So we used English and Social Studies and Political Science and then we worked in Art and Music and all the other things along with it as part of what we called Integrated Studies. We worked with the art teacher, music teacher and others to make a well-rounded education. We used to even try to work the science teacher sin as part of our reading program and visa verse. About the only thing that we didn’t work with the math people. That was kind of a thing that didn’t work very well into the Integrated Studies, although I still think it could have in many ways. Of course, we had Reading. The reading of math very much depended on how good an understanding of very dependent what youngsters knew about reading, comprehension. Anyway, that was the war years – largely.

To continue with a little more about the war years and coming over to Salina from Roulo, I think I ought to mention a little about the teachers themselves and how dedicated a group they were. They always had to be a little different than other teachers to teach in the South End from what I said about going to Roulo. (A teacher) had to want to go to the South End to teach because there were things that were difficult about it. But there were things that were wonderful and fun to do. The, of course, was the fact that there were so many nationalities. When I moved from Roulo to Salina it was quite different. I moved from a small elementary school just four or five blocks across the fields to a big K through nine schools. The halls were crowded and there were all kinds of activities. It was a buzzing place. The teachers themselves were very interesting and very helpful. When I taught elementary classes, for example, there were people like Miss Abbott and the girls Mandy Rutilla – three obviously Finnish ladies from the Upper Peninsula. Two of them are still here in town. Perkarinen is up in the Upper Peninsula again. She went back there after she retired.

Then a remarkable lady named Anna Henn. Anna had been one of the first teachers there in the teens in the little one room and two room schools there. She had the longest teaching record there. She became the counselor. She not only was a teacher but she was the girls’ counselor and a counselor not


only to the girls but the boys. (They) went to see her when they didn’t want to go to the boys’ counselor. She was easy to talk to, a maiden lady. She was also good for the teachers. When the teachers wanted to blow off steam, Anna was the kind of person they would go sit (with) in the office and get rid of your frustrations. Our practical psychiatrist, I guess. A really remarkable lady who lived over near St. Alphonsus Church and went there to church. Henn Street is named after her family here in town. She was inter-related to a lot of people in the St. Al section. Some of the other things that happened during those war years in the early 1940s and later after the war continued were the Clean-up Parades that we had spoken of before. It was a time when people, as part of patriotism, picked up metal, anything that was (thrown) away and sold it for scrap and that sort of thing. Also, it was combined with Clean-up.

MR. SEARS: This was the very beginning of the Clean-up.

MISS BECKER: That’s right. We had done it in a small way before the war but then it became a kind of patriotic thing to do. It was all tied in with what activities that we did. We kept our place clean and it served purposes to organize the youngsters. It was after of during our Clean-up parade that they did the flyover for us as part of our thing and the (Clean-up, Fix-up, Paint-up) came out of it.

I don’t remember the first year that we did it but we had been having different nationality foods at Salina School for ourselves.

The Mother’s Club of the PTA or whatever group the mothers represented always had dinner for thee teachers at the end of the year. They still do. And they brought stuff that they cooked, homemade, the different kinds of nationalities foods. (It was) more varied in those days than it is now because there are fewer nationalities . The larger part of it is Arabic – delightful food. But in those days there were many more varieties of food. Now we have maybe eight to ten different nationality foods. In those days we had thirty-five, forty different nationality foods. The food was good and our fame spread. People would come from other parts of town. So we decided to make sure of that as an advantage for fundraising. We began having some international dinners there and different years in different ways. We sold things; the youngsters sold things. We had different things around the school to show off the art work and the different things that the youngsters did. Other years it might be just a dinner for fundraising purposes. Then we might put a little program on in the auditorium. Some of those pictures that you were looking at that I was talking about came out of some of those programs that we had. The people were in costumes and they danced or sang. That was toward the end of the war and then the 1940s and ‘50s that continued.

MR. SEARS: Children’s drawings at least tend to be sort of similar for a given age but now in a community like this where there were such a wide variety of ethnic groups, would the children’s drawings be just as similar or would their home backgrounds make their drawings different?

MISS BECKER: Well, I don’t remember too much difference except children tended to be colorful. They liked color and lots of it. I suppose most youngsters do but we were very fortunate in having a good series of art teachers , music teachers, too, but art teachers particularly. We had elementary Art and we had junior high Art. We had a different teacher for each part because we had so many students. We


taught Art in the Fordson schools at least a couple of days a week. One day a week they would come to the Art room and the teacher would work with them but it depended upon the circumstances. Our youngsters were very good at artwork, very, very good artists at Salina. They were always winning prizes because they were (not only) observant, but also colorful and interesting and the art teachers encouraged that. We had also worked with ceramics as well as watercolors and painting. After the war, we had other remarkable young art teachers come in and we had the reputation of being good at art at Salina. The teachers that came there liked the children because the youngsters were interested in working in it. Not all of them, but there’s always that group. We were fortunate in having art teachers that could make youngsters like art, the ones that didn’t.

MR. SEARS: How about the Arab children? Did they have any difficulty with Art?

MISS BECKER: Oh no. Most of them – not all of them – were just like the rest of us but most of them were very good at design. Math, Art, design go a lot together. But the art teachers not only taught them to just draw pictures but they taught them about different kinds of Art and how to sketch. So they had been very fortunate in the art teachers at that school just like they had with some of the other teachers. It was all part of that thing that I mentioned that they had to like that.

Right now it is very difficult to teach over there in many ways because so many of the students cannot even speak the language and yet those teachers that are there, most of them, find it fascinating, hard to teach, but fascinating to work. It still continues to be a school where the parents try to learn what the children are cooperating. They are cooperative with the youngsters. They are community oriented. There are exceptions but most of the parents expect their children to learn in school and they want to find out how they do and what they are doing. They are supportive.

MR. SEARS: the behavior problems are less in that area?

MISS BECKER: It’s a different kind of behavior problem. The problems that we had mostly in those days came because of broken homes, very poor homes, especially in the South, drinking problems with parents. This is one thing we do not have with the Arabic children. Their parents do not drink to amount to anything. If they do it’s very lightly. But most of them don’t drink at all. So it is always kind of amusing when they worry about Arabic people getting drunk or something because most Moslems do not drink. I they drink it is very moderately. They are moderate in most things except some of them tend to gamble. They like gambling. I remember that the Hungarians and all the rest of the nationalities used to sit in the coffee houses too and play cards. I think that was largely to get away from their wives. But the different between the Arabic man and the other ones, those men in the older days went to the bar and played cards., etc. Even though they weren’t supposed to gamble .They drank beer. The Arabic drink coffee. They really are coffeehouses with a few exceptions. The Arabic men and women do not drink. It’s against their religion, as you know. Smoke, yes, but drink, very little if at all.

The 1940s were very great times of excitement. We had some other things too. In 1938 we had Mr. Ford’s 75th birthday and in 1940 we had a pageant down at Ford Field. In 1941 we had an Arsenal of Democracy pageant down at Ford Field. That’s when Mr. Ford showed us his plastic car. The South End people and my church, First Congregational, and the people of Salina School were a big core. They had


the Player’s Guild and the Historical Society, any group I belonged to somehow or other got roped into being part of any project.

MR. SEARS: You managed those (pageants)?

MISS BECKER: That’s right because you know I wrote and produced a lot of that stuff. Anybody that I came in touch with usually got drafted to something to do some writing, some directing or some dancing. You will find in the old program that all the schools are represented well and the different organizations. Bus, Salina School always had a special job to do. They did a lot of the hard work and fortunately we had principals as well as superintendent who thought it was valuable for youngsters to be active outside the school as well as in the school. In other words, getting out into the community and serving or working in the community could teach children as much as being in the classroom. I was grateful for that because of all the things we could have possibly have gotten don with the City.

The City Recreation Department is separate from the schools. Our city government is separate from our school government. They work very closely together, particularly the Recreation Department, and so some of the big projects. I was on loan sometimes to the Recreation Department or City. That’s why people thought I worked for the City – but I didn’t.

MR. SEARS: So, did the Recreation Department sponsor the Ford Field pageants?

MISS BECKER: Yes. It was a combination of the Recreation Department, the City and the schools. Most of the time we got a committee together representative of all kinds of groups. The City would be the core of it, took care of the expenses of Ford Field and that sort of ting, odd expenses. Sometimes we had to go out and raise extra money to do it too, the different shows. We went out if it was a parade or something and got backers for this or that. So it was all of our activities. Over the years here in Dearborn have been a combination of people furnishing some of the money, the business and the City. The City did the work and the labor, the businesses and the individuals did the financing and the work and the people made costumes. All the things had to go into it, everything from writing, directing, costuming, makeup, all the things that people can do that have talents, scenery painting. We always had a lot of talent in town that could do that. Between the Players Build and the other theater groups, we had a lot of talented people. It came largely out of our school system. There was just tradition, I think that school, City and community were one thing. You probably noticed that about Dearborn a lot. Everybody belongs to one, two, three up to a dozen organizations. It’s been that way for as far back as I can remember. The schools tended to be that way. I don’t know so much about the West End but I’m sure they were too because the West End was very active in things. So it must have been the same idea.

MR. SEARS: While we are still on the subject of these pageants, how was it that you were the one that was picked to direct it? Who picked you and how did that come about?

MISS BECKER: That was during the 1930s when we used to get together because we were interested in Drama, etc. Some of us belonged to the Players Guild. We always had a kind of a civic group too that we belonged to that. We could do different things. We would get together and put on plays at Fordson. Down at Ford Field we used to do melodramas. Some of the people from the Players Guild and this


other group were all kind of working together like it is today. Some of them belonged to three different drama groups; some belonged to one. Everybody worked together.

One year, 1936 or ’37, when Mr. Ford gave us Ford Field for a dollar, he and Mrs. Ford gave a speech. They both talked and we’ve got recordings of that. They talked about different things. What impressed a lot of us younger people, many of us were teachers or young people just out of college. Mrs. Ford was very gracious but Henry said something. He said something that impressed us very much. He was already in his 70s because it was almost his 75th birthday. It was two years later. They were both in their 70s or close to it and he said, ‘Mrs. Ford and I hope that you enjoy Ford Field as much as we do because we people in Dearborn enjoy playing as well as working.” The word that impressed us is the word “we”. He didn’t say “you”, he said “we” which made us convinced that he thought of himself as a citizen of Dearborn.

Some of us who were there got to talking. “It’s going to be his 75th birthday in almost two years away. Why don’t we form a committee instead of doing a melodrama down there around July and August – like we have been doing – why don’t we do something special for Mr. Ford’s 75 th birthday?” So we started getting people together and Cec Bigelow and Ed Bigelow but Cec Bigelow particularly and Mrs. Pickard, Dr. Pickard’s wife – Dr. Pauline Pickard and Katherine Bryant. We just got together. They all belonged to the Players Build, of course, and we said, “Let’s write a script.” We started doing research and I assigned them all different scenes to work on. So we would write scripts for the different scenes and then we started to put them all together. It took almost a year just to put the script together.

MR. SEARS: Did the pageant all relate to Henry Ford? Was it episodes in his life and that sort of thing?

MISS BECKER: It was the story of Dearborn called “The Man From Dearborn” and it dealt with everything starting with the Indians and the French, then up through the years. It covered more than a century and a half of Dearborn history. This is a script and a little program. There were so many people in it that we couldn’t make a big program. We couldn’t afford it anyway. We made a small program, trifold, and it’s got the names of most of the people who were committee people, directors and all that. Unfortunately, we don’t have a list of everybody but more people got acquainted from the East End and West End. That’s one good thing. Those of us who worked on it were from the East and West ends. So we kind of pulled the town together a little bit. We always thought that ought to come out of anything we did as a City-wide project. This ought to be part of our philosophy that it would bring people together and make us into one town called Dearborn instead of two towns. So I think we succeeded.

I remember a girl named Loraine Bucklew(?) who worked with me and she met a fellow named Leo Beebe at that time. That’s where they met and Loraine was our Woman’s Director of Recreation. She came from Kalamazoo and Lea – I knew him from school. He taught at Salina and he went to Fordson. But that’s where they met. Later they were divorced and married again. There are people all over town who still say, “I met my husband or my wife” or “That’s where I got acquainted with so-and-so” during that first pageant and later on too. In fact, a lady came up to me just Tuesday. I was over here at Manor West with the Stroke Club. She said, ‘You may not remember me, Iris, but I’m Mrs. Traydell,” and some other name. I don’t remember the name from the time but she said, “All my children went to


Oakman School and your father and mother were so good to us when we needed you the most during the Depression. Then we were in your show. We all were in your pageant in 1938.” People still remember that and a long time later, in 1976 when we had the Bicentennial Pageant, many of the children, young people, of that time, children, grandchildren and then some of the children who are not middle aged played their parents in the Bicentennial show in 1976 down at Ford Field.

MR. SEARS: Did you try to redo some of the scenes?

MISS BECKER: We called and said, “Would you like to play your parents from Dearborn history?” And that’s what they did. In a way, it’s been kind of fun to do that but the reason I mention it together is because the activities with the City that I was involved in were very much a part of the school and vice versa.

MR. SEARS: November 10, 1983, the ninth interview with Iris Becker. Now we’ve already talked about Roulo School and a great deal about Salina. But I have a few more questions about Salina, extracurricular activities at Salina that you were involved in.

MISS BECKER: Well, all the teachers were involved a great deal with the students at Salina or most of the teachers were in special activities. We encouraged the youngsters to be active and choose things after, before school or during school. I helped them with their student government, to organize their court system on what they called their “police system”. They were the monitors. Then we had a student court and our problem with the student court often was the students were too hard on each other. They were harder on each other sometimes than the teachers were. People might think it would be the other way around but it wasn’t. It was often (we) had to temper it with a counselor and often (we) acted as the defense. So the student government was an active thing there at Salina and they did a good job.

MR. SEARS: How many students would be involved in the student government?

MISS BECKER: There were two representatives from every homeroom. See, we had a homeroom system then and there were two representatives elected just like their officers were. They had the election. And that’s another thing…

We had election campaigns, made signs and put them up. They) had to be careful where (they) put them. (They) couldn’t put them just any place. (They) had certain places where (they) could put signs. They had to be certain quality. They couldn’t just be scribbled. They had to be artistic and, of course, they competed with each other to make the best looking signs. So we started our people at Salina in political activities at an early age. Yes. And they took an interest in city government and they had a constitution.

They wrote their constitution back in the 1930s. Before I came, they had a constitution for the school and it was revised over the years. Student government changed in different ways as (we) had different principals. Basically there was always a student government there and still is of sorts even though with the changes in the school. It has been not as active or as well organized – I would think – because of the


cutback. They took the ninth grade out. Once in a while an eighth grader would be elected to be the mayor of the school but most of the time the mayor came from the ninth grade. You see, it was based on city government, council and mayor type of government. But that was always fun, a lot of excitement, a lot of motivation to investigate, look up issues and understand the basic formation of government and also for parliamentary procedure. We used that because there was a counselor and an advisor for the court and there was an advisor for the council. Later on the court was done away. We had monitors still and that was run through the Student Council, directly through the Student Council and the teachers. But they helped make decisions about the school, certain decisions the students could make. It was a good experience for the boys and girls in junior high and elementary too. The Elementary (students) learned from it because, even though they were not part of the junior high. They looked forward to that happening to them in the seventh grade and it effected the way they acted in the school – the reputation they built up for themselves. So there were a lot of benefits and sub-benefits to such a project.

MR. SEARS: How often would the Council meet?

MISS BECKER: They had a meeting every week. They usually came before school. At least once a month they had a meeting after or during school because we had what we called homeroom periods. We would have homeroom class meetings. The council people at those homeroom class periods reported back anything that they wanted to know or, if it didn’t come out in the Bulletin. So it was a network and it didn’t always work right because of lack of communications or someone not getting things out on time – just like regular government. There were failures. Some didn’t fulfill their job as well as others. As a while, they did a very good job and it was one of the nicer things I enjoyed about Salina.

Another thing, we started the cheerleaders in junior high. Junior highs did not have cheerleaders and the girls didn’t have much of anything to do with the sports except the intramural sports. That was limited. The athletic activities of girls were limited and some of us felt that there should be more of a chance for the girls to be a part of that program. They boys had a chance to play games against other schools. The girls didn’t have at that time. They developed that later. In the meantime we decided at Salina we were going to have cheerleading for the team. They could go to the games the and we would have to supervise them. We had to worry about all that, be sure they got there and taken care of. They were chaperoned. If (we) worried about all that, (we) would never do anything. I guess that’s the trouble with a lot of things today. There is so much worry about getting sued or having some kind of failure that (we) don’t try to do things. But we decided to do it and it was agreed.

We were kind of isolated over there and we could get away with doing some things that some other people couldn’t , I suppose. But besides we had teachers that were interested and helped the kids do it. I was trying to think – we did so many things, activities. We had a lot of extra plays and the programs for the PTA. Things like that were extracurricular. The kids had to work extra on them. (We) came early in the morning and (we) stayed late at night. That was one reason the development of the music wing and the auditorium were so important to us. We had so little room for special activities up to the 1950s. After we built the additions, they were beehives of activities.


MR. SEARS: That’s the auditorium that’s called the Iris Becker Auditorium?

MISS BECKER: Yes. Before we built that part of it, we had built the band and music room first in that wing. We built half the wing and a couple of years later they built the auditorium and the rehearsal room. All that I notice when I go there, the whole wing. So it’s a good thing we added it.

MR. SEARS: Did you get involved in the PTA much?

MISS BECKER: Well, when I was there we were. We tried to keep the PTA alive and well. PTAs are not easy to keep alive and well. We have a very active mothers’ club and therefore a lot of them were PTA people. We tried to develop an interest – the fathers to take an interest. So we got quite a few men to come. Our biggest problem later on – and I think now that I’ve gone – I notice the PTA is very small. A large part of our problem in a lot of schools, I think, is the same one we (had then). The parents don’t come out to the meetings and the teachers don’t come out to the night meetings. Now I know there are reasons for it. They have extra classes. Many of them live a long ways away and it’s difficult to come back in the evening. For a long time at Salina we took turns which I thought was a good method. Some of us came to every PTA meeting, or almost every one, or to special activities. But we all signed up to come, scheduled different people. Teachers would schedule themselves. So there were all a certain number of teachers at every activity, elementary or junior high teachers, which I thought was good and fair. It was easier for some people to come than others, of course. For those of us who had busy schedules but didn’t have children and lived fairly close by, it was easier than for others. Most of the teachers at that time were good at coming to at least two or three meetings a year.

MR. SEARS: You mentioned the Mothers’ Club Could you tell me a little about the Mothers’ Club?

MISS BECKER: In Salina, we had a Mothers’ Club for a long time and I hope they continue it. It gets smaller sometimes. Again, mothers can’t get out. The foreign born mothers have a little harder time getting away because they have children at home. So it tends to be some of the older mothers with older children or when all the children are at in school or a child old enough to bring along. There are complications. The Mothers’ Club was made up of representatives from each elementary room. Then for a while we had representatives from each junior room too that came. It finally seemed to be mostly representatives from the elementary grade rooms. The YWCA people furnished them a leader and so they had interesting discussions. They came a certain day of the week in the morning and they had coffee and refreshments. (They) talked and discussed but also they did a lot of art work or craft work. They would talk while they were doing crafts. They had a teacher from the “Y” or some place that would come and teach certain skills and crafts over the years. So it varied. This was a social, learning and art experience.

Then they would help us put on those dinners that I talked about. They would work with the PTA on different projects. Often a lot of them were the same people, you know, some of them overlapping in membership there. It tended to be that people you could call on when you had a paper drive or a book sale or anything like that or a dinner. They – the Mothers’ Club, and the PTA. – always put on the teachers’ dinner at the end of the year. The next to the last day of school they always had a luncheon and invited all the teachers to come to lunch because the cafeteria (wasn’t ) working at that time. All of


them would bring food and overfeed the teachers the next to the last day. They still do it and get the word around and invite a lot of the old retired teachers to come back. I go. I still go back over. I try to remember it. It’s fun to see some of the old timers. It’s kind of fun to get together. That’s the Mothers’ Club. The Mothers’ Club also the “Y” and different ones help support the Southeast Council over the years and (their) way of getting things out through the school. Also, some of them supported ideas like the “Y” did, helped support the “Y” in the starting of things like ACCESS.

MR. SEARS: Is the “Y” sort of responsible for ACCESS?

MISS BECKER: Well, the “Y” was one of the groups. The “YW” and the “YM” and some of the church groups around in Dearborn were on early committees that looked for places or some kind of organization to do social services in the community for foreign born people – not just Arabic but for foreign born. The ACCESS group had a place in Southwest Detroit. Helen and Ismael and a lot of them belonged to it down there. But they needed a place to move to. They moved to the Hashmie Hall in the South End and then they finally got the place that recently burned on Salina. But the organization that supported it, gave early money and helped to do things about it, (was) the YWCA, the same people that were supportive of the school. The People from other parts of the town, like some of the churches and the two “Ys” but particularly the “YM” , helped support the early days things like the Girls Club and the Boys Club and all those things. So it had a history of support.

MR. SEARS: Now the Girls Club and the Boys Club, that was nothing to do with the school. Was that separate?

MISS BECKER: No. It springs usually out of a need, I think, for it. There was a definite need to work with the boys and girls in Salina. There were many nationalities and a lot of them were poor. That was during the 1940s and ‘50s.

MR. SEARS: Is that when they were started?

MISS BECKER: That’s when they were most active, the ‘50s and ‘60s.

MR. SEARS: Are they still going, do you know?

MISS BECKER: The Girls Club isn’t although they do have other activities. Now they started up a Girl Scouts group every once in a while. It goes for a few years or a Camp Fire Girls group. Then there is a Boy Scout group usually some other time or other. And again, like most groups in moving areas, it becomes strong and develops, gets along well for a few years. Then dies down. Then somebody revives it. So that happens. They just have a nice Boy Scout group now, I understand, developing. They are developing a new girls group, either Camp Fire or Girl Scouts. They meet in the school (or) at the centers. It has to be a joint community activity on most things because so many of the churches and where a lot of activities took place are gone. There were so many activities that boys and girls participated in with their parents in churches. Both the Jamma – the Moslem – the Catholic and the Protestant churches are pretty well depleted in that area.

MR. SEARS: Are there any other churches still there?


MISS BECKER: Well, the St. Bernadette’s is still there but it’s across the street from where it used to be, its other building. Of course, the Mosque is still there but it’s not like it was. It’s a different group. It’s not a social center like it was before. A lot of the Baptists from the South End go to the Chase Road Church , the Calvary Baptist Church on Chase Road, near Ford Road. A lot of the Arabic people that are Baptists go to that church. There are Protestant Arabs. If you look at the Calvary Baptist Church, you will see their sign is in both Arabic and English.

Other extracurricular activities, there were a lot of them. I was always glad we started the cheerleading because it gave the girls a chance to be active. It’s still going strong and they compete for it. The other girls from the other schools get together and they go for training and special things. They get to go someplace like the boys used to do. Now with the greater athletic program, it’s better.

MR. SEARS: Who would train the cheerleaders?

MISS BECKER: We would. I would or whoever. I had them three or four years but one of the other teachers helped me, the gym teacher. I had been a cheerleader when I was in high school, not a very good one. But when I was a cheerleader, I was loud. So it was a good time. We had to take them places. They couldn’t always ride on the bus. The fellows went earlier and we had to wait and taken them right after school. So we had to take them in the cars. That becomes increasingly difficult. I didn’t mind taking them in cars but sometimes when they began to get touchy about teachers driving students places because of accident insurance, etc., we just had to be sure we were insured for that sort of thing. That’s part of what I’m saying. There are so many things you cannot do because there are some problems involved, no just there but in other professions.

The Christmas basket program, we always had the Christmas programs extra that I did. I joined with the music teachers and did the Christmas program, carols, but usually half of it was comic and halfway religious. It was when we (educators) weren’t afraid to be religious. We were not just Christians, you know. We talked about all religions. Religion is part of our history, a very important part of it.

The children loved the Christmas (program). They loved the humor part of it. We had a great deal of fun with the funny comedy things. Sometimes they wrote their own Christmas skits. They also wrote the serious part, the religious part, and as I said, we always put all religions in even though it was a Christian holiday. I suppose some people would have been critical but our people always loved it and looked forward to it. All the people in the neighborhood. Our Moslem children made marvelous shepherds. Arabic children made marvelous shepherds and handsome wise men. Our Moslem girls competed to be Mary as much as the Christian ones did. They loved being Mary. The only thing that didn’t have competition was the baby. We always had lots of offers for somebody to bring their baby but we used a doll.. What I liked about it mostly was that everybody was so generous at bringing gifts. They brought the canned goods always or money but mostly canned goods. We always gave away forty-five to fifty baskets every year. Again, the PTA Mothers’ Club gave money to buy the meat and turkeys, things like that.

MR. SEARS: Now would these baskets be taken to the homes?


MISS BECKER: Oh yes. The teachers and the boys helped deliver them and the principals, etc. We had a list. People would turn in lists of people that needed help over the years. The children loved doing it. It was looked forward to as the highlight of the year. That’s what I wanted to say about the Christmas programs.

MR. SEARS: How about your association with the schools since you’ve been retired?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. I retired in 1977. Of course, I had intended to retire anyway that year or I might have gone another year. I really intended to retire that year. The, of course, on April 15, I had the stroke in the income tax office and I decided for sure I should (retire). I was in the hospital and they had already planned my retirement party for the seventh of May and they wanted to postpone it. I was in the hospital twelve days. I came out in good shape. It didn’t bother me too much and I was one of the fortunate ones that it hasn’t bothered me that much. On the seventh of May, yes, it was the seventh , I’m quite sure. I May, anyway, we had (it) over (at) St. George’s Armenian Church with the gold dome over on Southfield – I call it Mike McGregor’s Church. It’s the one with the gold dome out on Southfield and about Eight Mile Road. Quite a lot of people, our Armenian people particular, belong or are active out there. That’s where they had the retirement dinner for me and we had a great time. Six, seven hundred people showed up and it was great fun and good food, of course.

I retired but I didn’t move all of the stuff out of my room until the next year. I left a lot of stuff for the other teachers to use, my materials, a lot of things like salt from the salt mines and stuff like that, all those things (I) collect(ed) over the year that are good teaching things. Those are things that are still over there. The kids helped and the people helped me move it out the next year because I just couldn’t get it out that summer. Then we have our office across the corner, of course, the building across, the Southeast Dearborn Community Council. Some of my files went over there. Some of them went down to Lynn Swanson’s place, the ones particularly about the South end. I gave a lot of the files about the Southeast Dearborn history, especially the Council minutes and stuff in those files. They would have them handy to use, (although I) wanted to get a bigger place where we could use them all the more.

They also let me know when there is a special program, especially the musical programs. Then American Education Week, we always have that. I go back for those and there are concerns. I like to go back; I love to go back for the musical things, the plays, if I know about the. I try to go. In addition to that, I still am a member of the PTA> I still pay my dues each year. A lot of the retired teachers do that, pay their dues to the PTA. I try to get over there at least a couple of times a month for one reason or another to keep the contact with the school. Also, I like to see some of the things they need. In the year back in ’71 and ’72 we had the fiftieth anniversary of the school. We had a big celebration of Salina. We had hundreds of people (come), the alumni. At that time a lot of them wanted to start a scholarship program or to make gifts for the school. Some of them did but we have never really finished organizing that desire on the part of the Salina people to see that the kids got in the scholarship program or some other thing. Now some of us are trying to work out with Fordson a scholarship program. Students that graduated from Salina will get a scholarship for a boy and a scholarship for a girl each ear at Fordson graduation.


If they graduated from Salina, they go on through Fordson, a Salina boy and a Salina girl will get (a scholarship). We haven’t named them yet. At the high school graduation any of them that are going on to college, technical school, anything beyond high school, it will be small scholarships to start with, a couple of hundred dollars apiece or something like that. We can develop the fund to have interest in it so it will keep growing. We’d like to start that. But last year several of us gave money for musical instruments, Mike Berry, the Arts Council and a couple of anonymous donors. I gave I guess about $1,100 or $1,200. They bought musical instruments because the kids need that for their band. But there are a lot of ex-teachers from Salina out there, too, besides the alumni that have a lot of loyalty. You talk to most retired teachers. They say the nicest years they taught were at Salina. They enjoyed them the most and had a good time. When they get together to talk, you can tell that. I think that’s why it’s important that the teachers they have now, be sure they get teachers that want to come there. Although I’ve know a lot of people who came there that didn’t want to come, then wanted to stay. That’s nice, isn’t it?

MR. SEARS: When was the auditorium named the Iris Becker Auditorium, right away as soon as it was built or after?

MISS BECKER: It was built a couple of years before they named it, I think. It was almost time for me to retired when they decided to name it, put the plaque on it. I’ve got street and an auditorium – both.

We talked about the street the other day and I said, “Well, I’m a connecting street, a new street.” Some people talked about naming a street for me when they were naming some streets. I feel, and I still feel, the same way. When we talk about naming streets here at the Museum, don’t change a street name that’ s already established. That’s named after somebody else for some reason. People are used to that and they have their address or, you know. You don’t change it unless there is a very good reason for changing it. If you build a new street, fine. That’s good and have a list of people ready. It’s just like the naming of a school, the same. I do think even if they close schools, the name ought to stay on that building if it’s used for something else. Records kept of any buildings torn down and streets changed, etc. It goes into the history and a family history doesn’t get lost. There is a good reason for naming it for somebody. The next generation ought to know what it was. Street names are interesting.

MR. SEARS: Now among the photographs there is a picture of the street sign, isn’t there? I’m quite sure.

MISS BECKER: Oh yes, there is. When they built the new one, I said, “Okay.” It’s only two blocks long but it connects other streets. So that’s what I said, “I’m a good connector.”

MR. SEARS: December 27, 1983, tenth interview with Miss Iris Becker. We are going to talk about some of the principals and possibly the teachers at Salina School.

MISS BECKER: Before I came to Dearborn, there was a small school there in the early days, early 2910s, and a teacher called Anna Henn was the teacher. Of course, a couple of other teachers (were) with her too. But Anna Henn was there and she was there when the new school was built. Anna was there until just a few years ago when she retired in the last ‘50s, early ‘60s. She died about three years ago (1981).


But Anna Henn was really kind of a backbone of the school and one of the most beloved persons of the South End and at the school. She lived on Appoline in East Dearborn and kind of grew up with Salina School as one of its first teachers and one that stayed on.

The school, of course, was what we called “the school.” The new school was built in the early twenties, ’23 to ’25. There was some building built., past of which collapsed in quicksand (in) ’26. Then that new part of the building had to be rebuilt. The whole north end of the building was built. So (we) had a ground breaking. Parts of Salina School were built. Fifteen years ago, or so, we built another wing a little over a decade ago we built an addition to the auditorium. (We) have several parts like (we) do in a lot of schools. Most schools have additions to them. Salina was a three story building K (kindergarten) through twelve for a while. It was when they built Fordson and Miller (that) Salina stopped being a high school and became an elementary, junior high combination. Later on Miller became an elementary and has a different history, partly elementary and administration, which it now is.

Salina remained elementary and junior high. Then, for a while when the township had its problems out in Dearborn Township, they brought in students from out in the township to Salina in the 1940s and early ‘50s. So we had some high school students there because there was not room for them at Fordson or Dearborn High. That’s how overcrowded our schools were in Dearborn. They were bussed to the South End, to Salina and Lowrey. So that over the years made a different in the teachers that we had.

In the ‘20s when they got the new school, the principal that came to stay any length of time was a young fellow named Lyle Hotchkiss. Lyle stayed there until he retired. Lyle was there until the 1950s when he retired. So he was there a long time. He was the principal when I went there and he was a very interesting person, very fine principal, sometimes controversial like all principals are, by the way. You cannot make decisions concerning other peoples’ lives, particularly teachers, without some controversy. The principals go through all the problem that all administrators go through. The school ward, the administrators and the teachers are sometimes in a cooperative position where they work as teams. Other times they are in adversary positions. I presume that’s the same thing in industry too. It changes. (It) depends on who the people are what the situation is.

Lyle was a very kind person to people. Sometimes he was like my father. The principals at that time had come out of the ranks of the teachers. He came from Ford Motor Company, by the way. He had worked for Ford Motor Company and left there to go back to teaching and became a principal at a South End school.

They are relatively young men in the sense that they were in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, at the oldest. Most of them in their 30s. Some of the principals even were in their late 20s when they started out as principals. They were a young staff in Fordson schools. I don’t know about Dearborn at that time. I think they were a little more developed school system. The teachers were young but Fordson was a new system in a sense, new schools, new people, a lot of them coming from out in the state along with Mr. Lowrey. It was a new town. So they were often caught in the middle of trying to be kind and good to people that were their close friends. (They) came up from the ranks and before a principal or an administrator and (they had) to boss (their) old friends who were your fellow teachers or who (were


their) close friends sometimes. (They had) to make decisions. I think most administrators have that problem. So there were a lot of controversy sometimes about some of the school system but it was a lively system.

Then, of course, along came the Depression and (we) had some of the opposite problems. Things happened to us in 1929. Well, Mr. Hotchkiss and some of the teachers I want to emphasize. There were people like Russ Catherman and (the) teaching staff that became Fordson Staff. A lot of them came out of here and I was going to look at the book here. Ervin Howard, for example, who became an assistant principal at Fordson. We all admired him. He was the best looking principal in Michigan we all believed. He was a very handsome man. But now people like Frances Barrett and Miss (Norma) Campbell and other, Harold Goodal, (Fred K. Eshelman, Mildred Game, Paul Jones, our science teacher). These were our teachers at Fordson. Vard Martin, I remember, he had come from there, Alice Lewis, Merwyn Lewis. (They) all had taught at Salina before Fordson High was built and the coach – Elsie Rowden, who was in the office, lived across from Fordson. She worked over at Miller and then came over to Fordson. In other words, as soon as Fordson opened in ’26, then (many) people transferred over and other teachers stayed, of course. Then some of them went over later. Stan Smith I know taught there. There were quite a few others but they had an influence on the kids of the South End. A lot of those people were good at teaching the South End because they were young themselves. Some of them came from foreign born parents. They emphasized with the foreign born people.

The 1920s was the period when the South End grew tremendously, went from a three, four room school to fifteen hundred kids by the 1930s. So that’s a big growth in a short period of time. It had growing pains.

The other thing that I remember from that period was that those kids came from Salina. The whole East End was foreigners in the sense that they were Poles, Hungarians, and a lot of first generation. A lot of people had just come over. But they tended to look down on the people from the South End because they were the melting pot over there. (They) had things that went on there (There were) a lot of the stills you see where those foreigners, especially those Italians.

MR. SEARS: During Prohibition.

MISS BECKER: Yes. They made their own wine. If they were Italians, everybody was sure they belonged to the Mafia. I’m sure there were people that were suspect, if you wanted to look at it that way. There were two or three different groups of Italians, all of whom disagreed with each other. The ones of one club were considered Communists and the others were the conservatives and all that business. You’ll find it in every group and now you find it among the Arabs. Well, (we) found it the same way then. Then those Hungarians, “hunkies” , the “Wops” and the “dagoes” and everything. Those are the names that they were called when they came over to Fordson sometimes. They weren’t always tolerant. But this happened, this dynamism, etc. where they were much more accepted in that period 1927 to 1930, ’31. Now that is tied up to the economic question, isn’t it?

The Depression hit in ’29 but it really didn’t hit Dearborn much for another year or two. Then (we) began to get the more prejudiced. Then the struggle for jobs came. In a period when things get tight,


then people question those foreigners taking their jobs. Well, anyway, most of these people were foreign born, first generation, but not all of them. People didn’t distinguish whether they were American citizens or had been here a generation. If they lived in the South End, they must be foreigners. Therefore, there was a lot of prejudice. Mr. Hotchkiss did a lot of work and the teachers worked very hard to stop that kind of thing. That staff at Fordson, I remember them, were great at doing that. The Salina teachers were dedicated to that sort of thing. Mr. Hotchkiss looked for teachers who wanted to go teach those people. Mr. Lowrey looked for the people who wanted to teach foreign born people. In other words, (they) didn’t go over there unless (they) were willing to learn and wanted to know people. That’s why I say that most old teachers that you talk to and the younger teachers too over the years, they say they are always glad they taught at Salina School. They learned to be good teachers at Salina School. That’s true. They had to. When (they had) to teach foreign born people or mixed groups of people (they had) to learn to be good teachers. After Mr. Lowrey left, Mr. Hotchkiss retired. Two or three teachers stepped into the assistant principal (jobs) who had either taught there before, knew about it or had worked there before. Mr. Lavey came over for a while. Then, later on, Mr. Tomola became the principal. Mr. Tomola is dead now but we had a series of principals after Mr. Hotchkiss retired. It was not an easy job for principals to step in where there had been old established staff. (They) had to work with the staff and sometimes was kind of headstrong. I’m sure we all were in many ways because we were used to working as a democratic group under Mr. Hotchkiss. We met and the teachers helped make the decisions and so did the students in some things. They had a student government clear back in the 1920s at Salina School. They had their own mayor, council and student government. They were used to that. Depending on the year, the principal and the situation of handling it, it had always been that way. Sometimes we had to re-organize and crackdown in people got careless about accepting their responsibilities. It’s only as good as the people that make it work, just like outside in real life. It’s only as good as that. So, over the years, it’s been a long tradition of some self-government or helping to make decisions. I think that’s made (it) interesting. It’s been more difficult the last few years because a lot of the Arabic people who came later and the people, not just Arabic but the Yugoslavs and some other people, came from countries who are not used to making decisions for themselves. That was another challenge. You have to teach them to accept that responsibility and that’s not easy. It’s much easier to make decisions for people and it’s much easier for each of us to let other people make decisions for us, I think. Each new change is a new challenge to teachers in that area. It’s really hard now.

They’ve taken some teachers away from there which is bad. They’ve cut back the staff and yet they haven’t declined in enrollment there. It’s discouraging to some of the teachers. Overall that’s a….Some of the teachers, I think, that stand out over (the years), Helen Martin was over there for a while. She did a lot about getting teachers again to democratize their classroom, coordinate things together, integrating studies. We’ve had some later teachers like Miss Brown who was an excellent art teach who was very good at getting people to make their art into social studies and their English, etc. but the arts worked together. We’ve had some teachers, like Mr. Faes who was the band teacher, who was there many years and just retired year before last (1982). Fred Faes was there for twenty-five years at least. It takes that kind of stability to develop a program especially when (he had) to fight all the way to get


the musical instruments and (he had) to get the time for the kids to practice and develop the arts. A lot of the arts had to be integrated.

Later on, after Anna Henn left, we had another counselor, Gertrude Solms. Gertrude was a social studies and English teacher, excellent teacher. She took over the job of taking Anna Henn’s place, which was very difficult. We always had a boys’ counselor and a girls’ counselor. This is important because while (we) could have a counselor and we do now, it’s much better because – especially girls with foreign born backgrounds. (It’s) a little different than handling the unisex situations and there was so much work at counseling. It isn’t just counseling socially or their personal problems but also the counselors help them with choosing their subjects, their fields, their work study program. The counseling job was very big. So it is very important that kids chose the right way to go. We considered counseling very important so we always had both a man and a woman counselor over there and I hope they go back to that over there. Gertrude was excellent at this.

The may we had was very good too, Bob DeKay. Bob DeKay became an assistant principal and he was very good at that. But he liked counseling better. So he took a cut and went back upstairs to counseling. With (those) kinds of person(s), young people need counsel, substitute parents in a way that augment parents or take the place of parents. They are very good at calling in parents and getting them to work together with the school.

Clarence Dobronski was a wonder assistant principal. Clarence was tough but had a sense of humor. The assistant principal has to be the disciplinarian. The principal does the administration, etc. He can always be the good guy but the assistant principal has got to be the tough one. He’s got to be the mean one sometimes and the disciplinarian. We have been fortunate in having some good assistant principals over there. They have a good one right now over there. I’m very pleased that he’s there. I hope they leave him there.

The history of the Salina School itself is wound up with three groups of people, that is, the people themselves who have been so varied, different and interesting – the teachers and the staff who have been so often a team sometimes disagreeing, which has been healthy really. It’s been frustrating sometimes but health to have that disagreement. A thing that a lot of us had tried to do is to get the disagreement in the open and not in the lunchroom or in the powder room, that (they didn’t) gripe in secret…It (they had) a gripe, get it out and talk about it constructively. So that’s been healthy and I hope it stays that way.

Then, the other group has been the parents, the people themselves. It’s a family oriented area and, while there are a lot of parental problems, there is alcoholism and there are other things like that over the years., not just the foreign born but the Southern people often were an alcoholic problem. As a whole, they have been interested in their kids which has been good.

MR. SEARS: Now, of these teachers, were there any that were particularly, some that were more active than others?


MISS BECKER: I think the Salina teachers as a whole used to be more than they are now, although some of them still are. The Saline teachers were more active, not just socially with the parents in the school but teachers tended to go out into the community and work in the community a lot.

December 29, 1983

We are going to talk (about) Salina School, its contribution to the community as a community center as distinguished from being just a school and any members of the staff of that school that were heavily involved in community work and activities.

MISS BECKER: the isolation of the South End from the rest of the town in the sense that by both the kind of people that were there and the separation, the lack of transportation between the South End and the rest of the town, it was almost like a separate little town, not only physically but in the minds of a lot of the rest of the town. The South Ends was a kind of a separate town and the people outside of Dearborn often didn’t know it was part of Dearborn. It was closer to Delray and Detroit than Dearborn and that was, as I say, because of the many nationalities. There was a place that accepted nationalities and the area to which new people came because relatives were already there.

Looking at its history, you know that it grew up because the Rouge Plant came there and farmland suddenly became a subdivision and (was) developed. The Miller farms, the Roulo farms, all those farms that were there became housing. Some of it was very fast and part of it was self-built. You know the people who were foreign born or came from other places built small homes and some of them were larger. They did a lot of work themselves. Some of it was quality work and some of it was not quality work depending on how good (they) were at that kind of thing. Most men think they are good carpenters and they are not often. But many of them, especially the Italians, were good builders. In addition to that, there were developments by people themselves or groups of people that built those brick homes over on Amazon and the very big and rather nice homes over on Roulo Street. In other works, there were several areas of the South End. South of Dix groups of small homes – and some of them again well built – (are) mixed in among them. In certain section (can be found) two story brick flats, two family or four family flats. So (they) have multiple housing as well as the other. Then (there are) a few apartment buildings built all during this period of the 1920s and ‘30s . So it was a fast growing thing. That’s what made Dearborn the fast growing thing. It was actually the Fordson end of town that grew so fast. From ’29 on you would say that Dearborn had grown a thousand percent. From 1920 to ’30 actually it was the east end of town that grew like that. The kind of people and the separation of the Ford Plant between us and the rest of the town made it a separate kind of community and later on became the “South End”. Usually it was called Salina because Salina Street was the main core rather than Dix. The main drag was Salina on which the school stands and several of the buildings along there were clubs of the different organizations like the Romanian Club and the Serbian group and Hungarian Hall. The coffee houses would be for the Arabic people But these were clubs. There were two Italian Clubs in different sections and then there were a number of little church groups along there too. In addition to that, there were stores. There were houses. So, in a way, that section was like a little town. Its business, its social activity and its homes were all mixed together. Dix Avenue, of course, divided the two sections – north and south. But east and west the center line was Salina.


The area had its name because of the salt mines. It became a rather famous section of town, sometimes infamous, because bootlegging was involved. The Italians and some of the other people made their own wine and they took it for granted and made it despite prohibition because the brought that custom from the old country. Later on there was some prostitution down there and that took some fighting. That caused trouble among the people themselves who were family oriented and objected to the exploitation of their area by people from outside the area.

MR. SEARS: Was prostitution organized by the gangsters?

MISS BECKER: Yes,. There was some – not so much gangsters as there was some hypocrites, citizens that (didn’t) want things in their part of town but (didn’t) object to it in somebody else’s area. Anything that’s a problem, people like to put someplace else. The people that ran most of it were over on Oakman Boulevard. Everybody knew it and some people were afraid to say so but that’s why (we) had people like Chief Brooks and some of the other people that got involved. They used to blame the Ford Motor Company for it. It wasn’t really the Ford Motor Company but some people connected with the Ford Motor Company who often were involved Often the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing even today. This is why the churches, the clubs and the school became the center of social activity. The school, of course, always was more than just a school for the people. It was where you came for your special education, your classes for the foreign born, teaching English and where you came for the programs, where (the) groups came together. They always did.

You know early on when I was still in high school at Fordson, it used to be fun to go over to the Romanian Hall or to some group that was having a special dinner. The churches had bazaars (and) they had their dinners, etc. People (were) invited. It was a way to raise funds but it was also a chance to get acquainted with different nationalities and different kinds of food. Dearborn, at least the East End, was interested in learning about other people’s foods and customs more than the West End. Later on it became fashionable to be interested in different things, the “in thing!” But the East End of Dearborn always tended to have an interest in a wide variety of customs because that was indigenous to that area.

Well, Salina School teachers often went to those things. That was part of the involvement It was fun. It was fattening but it was also fun and it got you out. Most of the teachers lived in Dearborn. They could come back in the evening to supper or something. It was customary. It was part of the fun of teaching. Not every teacher did that, of course, but most of the teachers did and enjoyed it. They got invited to churches for activities. They got invited to homes for activities. So it was a two way street between the school and the staff. They teachers (and) the principal were considered part of the authorities to whom (they) went when (they) had a problem. Just like you go to your priest or your preacher, they went to the school if they had a problem. If (they) had a problem with (their) (children) or (they) had personal problems or something (they) could usually find somebody to talk to. That kind of isolation and interest makes a closeness like a small town. So that’s why I say the school, the churches and the clubs all played a role but it was an overlapping role or integrated role.

MR. SEARS: Clean-Up Campaigns, that was originated with you?


MISS BECKER: They had Clean-Up Parades. They always did. They had to do a lot of cleaning in the South End because it was dirty and smoky from the Ford Motor Company as well as other industries around there. Ford Motor Company got blamed for all of it because eighty percent was Ford Motor Company. But there were others too that were kind of stinky, dirty and dusty and about which (they) could not do much but protest, holler and scream.

People in other parts of the town were friends of the South End. Mr. (John E. “Smokey”) Parkhurst and some of the others that were on the committees and things kept pleading and working with the City for some kind of control of pollution, etc. long before anti-pollution. It hasn’t been just South Enders. Mr. Parkhurst was considered kind of a kook by some people because he insisted that air ought to be cleaner. Well, he was a short man, a very interesting man, but he worked early on about environment in this town.

MR. SEARS: Did he have an official position?

MISS BECKER: Well, he was appointed chairman of a commission or committee (Smoke Abatement, City Beautiful). He was appointed by Mayor Hubbard but even before that, under Carey, they had some. When Hubbard came along, he did appoint quite a few new commissions. If people had a problem, the easiest thing to do was to appoint a commission and it took the steam off, I guess. But at least people did accomplish some things. They really did and it takes a long time to move mountains. The only way to get them moved sometimes is by a lot of mice pushing them.

When (Parkhurst) was an older person, those of us who were environmentally minded rallied around and, again, it was a joining of younger people and older people to accomplish a thing like most things happen. The school was always concerned about it and one of the things that we talked about was that we (couldn’t) do much about the problems but we could keep our own doorstep clean. Hubbard used that phrase later, “Keep Your Own Doorstep Clean.” But we talked about helping the neighborhood clean-up and we would do a lot of things about cleaning up every spring. Before we started the parades, we did that because it was kind of a necessity.

MR. SEARS: You put posters around to urge people.

MISS BECKER: Oh Yes. The kids may posters and signs but then they would offer to help clean up too. They would go along and clean up the street. A lot of people were very neat and they would get discouraged because the streets were dirty. The kids helped clean up the vacant fields. In 1930s and ‘40s Dearborn talked about keeping clean, especially after Mr. Hubbard came in. It grew somewhat with the idea of keeping the town clean. Sometimes people inferred that was racial but the people took it very seriously. Physically, they kept it clean and neat. The inference was that the phrase “Keep Dearborn Clean” was to keep out black people. That’s what people thought it meant and to some people that’s what they said Hubbard meant by it. You had to live up to the term. Whether he meant that in the first place or not or whether certain people did, it worked out for a good thing because it put the responsibility right on the City to help keep the town clean and to have problems to get people to keep their town clean.


MR. SEARS: When did the City Beautiful Commission (come)?

MISS BECKER: Oh, that didn’t come ‘til later. This was before and during the War. They’d have clean-up. Dad decided to have a parade one year around the Oakman School, late ‘30s, early ‘40s. He was talking about it and I went over to watch them what they were doing and he said, “(You) should have a parade at Salina.” And I said, “Yes, we should.” So we got going too about the same time. So Salina and Oakman had Clean-Up Parades that was – I can’t remember what year it was. It was (the) early ‘40s, about the time the War started, about the time Hubbard came into office, “41 or ’42. So we would have little parades and later on they formed a City Beautiful Commission.

MR. SEARS: Would that be in the 1950s?

MISS BECKER: Yes, somewhere around there. I can’t remember. It was after the War that they formed that. Then we would have official Clean-Up Parades. They had Clean-Up Parades down Michigan Avenue at first and then they decided they would put them back in each area instead. It went through stages. Instead of having those big Clean-Up Parades over at City Hall or down Michigan Avenue, each one in a neighborhood (would have) different days. Later on the Commission used to come – and still does- and some of the officials, to each one. That’s why they put them on different days so they can get to all of them. So that’s how it developed. But, actually, before the official ones started, they really start(ed), like all traditions and certain things start, before they are made officially. Only if they turn out to be a good idea (do) people adopt them.

MR. SEARS: Are there any individuals associated with the Salina School, either teachers or principals, that were particularly active?

MISS BECKER: Well, all of them did. Mr. Hotchkiss did. As I say, it was a tradition to be active in a community and again not all the teachers were but most of them were. A lot of the teachers lived at the Fordson Hotel and the Dearborn Hotel or they had homes in Dearborn or they roomed in Dearborn. A lot of times, back in the ‘30s and ‘40s, teachers roomed in other people’s houses. If they came from other towns in other parts of the state and came to live in Dearborn, they would have flats or they would rent places. So it was a varied thing. But involvement, especially in the East End, was a kind of a tradition. I’m sure it was in the West End too. But all of us weren’t always as conscious of what the West End was doing because we were really like two towns, even though we were only one town after 1929. We were still East End and West End and we are not really one town yet when you think about it.

When we were talking the Recreation Department and the activities at Ford Field and the pageant in ’38, those things where we got everybody involved in town that was one of the ideas we had. Henry Schubert and the rest of us did that. We thought, and I really believe, it (would) work. We thought it would bring people in the two ends of town together, which it did. It (brought) clubs and organizations and everything became more integrated. In fact, I think we have gone backwards a little bit in some of them. In our Historical Society we used to have more people from the East End than we do now. You don’t keep a thing in any organization, a church or club or anything exactly the way you want it unless you work at it.


I think what I’ve been trying to do here is to give you a little idea of what made the town work, tick, socially and kind of culturally at that time. The town always was a joining town as long as I can remember. The people were joiners. People joined anything at the drop of a hat. Everybody belonged to one, two or three things or sometimes more. So these things overlapped again so people got to know each other. Anything that needed solving, a committee or a commission was appointed to solve it. This was true of the whole town but particularly of the South End and east Dearborn. I was conscious of (that) during the ‘30s and ‘40s. Now I (am) probably one of the relatively few people who worked in both ends of town all the time. The organizations to which I belonged were – I belonged to so many for one thing and working historically (I) worked with the whole town. Working with the City on things like recreation (I) worked with the whole town. I think that’s probably the reason I have a wider cross-section not only of knowledge but also people I know than most people do in town because of that.

September 29, 1983. Interview #11

MISS BECKER: Speaking of the Salina schools international dinners or getting together and enjoying each other’s culture and food in the South End, it started in the school itself with the PTA, the Mothers’ Club and other organizations. (They) decided to meet at school and get together in the community. It was also fundraising for the school, things we needed for the school. So we had a charge for it, not high prices but a small price. It was one of the ways we raised funds for special things in the school that we needed or thought we needed and I guess we did. The people of the different churches, clubs (and) different nationalities would sign up. We’d say, “Bring something. We’ll have the coffee. We’ll have this or that there.” And then they would appoint a committee to get it together. It would be a little potluck dinner. Sometimes it was well-organized and sometimes it was kind of hectic. They became more and more popular and people from outside the area started coming. The teachers talked about it to their friends and people talked about it at their church, etc. People started coming so much that we had to have it extended over a period of time. That is, they used to have two or three servings. The people would have to come at 5:30, 6:30, 7:30 or 7 or something like that.

That was in our cafeteria. At the same time we would have a way to entertain the people who came while they were waiting for dinner or after dinner. Later on we had it in the auditorium, the one (called ) Iris Becker Auditorium. We would entertain the people down there by having different nationality dances all different things that nationality groups did. Before we had the auditorium, we sometimes did it down in the gym. In addition to that, the students put on displays in the hall display cases or in the rooms. So it became different each year. People had new ideas. “We all do this. We all do that.” Some years it would be more successful than others. It was always fun and we had a good time.

Later on when we had more and more Arabic (groups), we began to get a little different variety of food. It was very interesting. (We) did begin to have some problem with little children coming because Arabic people tend to bring their little kids to programs and to the dinners. So we had to set up rules for that and (they) still do down there. They have to say, “No little children. Leave the babies at home in the evening show.” But they still tend to lug them along. Every once in a while, the stage (performances) get competition from the audience. It’s really funny. They believe in taking their families with them. They don’t have babysitters and the mother couldn’t come out unless she brought them. Sometimes


we tried to solve it with some babysitting but most of the time they get lugged to the auditorium. But they improved as they went along.

The photo sessions were a little different thing. This one year, Mr. Hotchkiss, who was a good photographer and he belonged to the Photographers’ Club, the Camera Club or whatever it was called in Dearborn, got them to come and take pictures. We set up the gym in different backgrounds for those pictures. Every once in a while you would get some with a little painted background. We had that for three or four years. It started out and was a success and it wasn’t just the Camera Club. The local people started to come and the groups themselves would bring their cameras. And the, of course, (We couldn’t) have that without having some refreshments.

MR. SEARS: And what was being photographed? Were the children dressed in costume?

MISS BECKER: Well, it would be anybody that had costumes, a group or a dance group, adults and children or three generations. Some of those pictures showed three generations of the same family like a Romanian group of women in costume. That was the Romanian Women’s Club dressed up in costume. Part of the fun was that people came dressed in their costumes. That was especially nice when we had more of the costumes. Gradually, the costumes disappear which is unfortunate. The ladies get too heavy for them or they get put away in the closets. Then the young girls start(ed) wearing them. So it (was) fun that way but a little nostalgic and sad as time passes. The photography sessions really were very good because it gave us a legacy we wouldn’t otherwise had, a recorded legacy. Tapes were great when they finally came along. I’m sorry we didn’t use them earlier. A lot of oral history (was) lost because we didn’t tape the (earlier) We had a wire recorder at Salina and we made use of that. We had some interesting things on that.

MR. SEARS: This would be for the programs?

MISS BECKER: Yes. A wire recorder and then, later, they had a tape recorder. I kept wondering where those wires went. (We) couldn’t get a wife recorder to play them back after a while. The school sold off the wire recorder. The wired stay(ed) there. Well, the wires were put away and one year I saw this lovely silvery wire. They were using it to hang things with, some wire to hand things with and I said, “Where did you get that wire?” And they said, “Oh, we found it in the cabinet over there.” They had taken a couple of those wire spools and cut some of the stuff off. They thought it was regular wire. So I have remnants of it left some place in the files. But time does bad things to recordings unless we have a place to keep them. The same with some of our records. We made some very good records early on before (we) had tape recorders. They made a lot of records but they get warped and out of shape and people don’t know what they are. We still have some of them.

MR. SEARS: The archives of the Southeast Dearborn Council does have (the) tapes, records.

MISS BECKER: Well, I have some stuff put away. There must be some things in those boxes some place but we also stored my stuff. I’m not sure where they are because I have stuff in three or four different places.


MR. SEARS: So these photographs that you turned over to the Southeast Dearborn Council, many of them came out of these photo sessions.

MISS BECKER: Yes, out of the photo sessions. It was a good idea. Mr. Hotchkiss and the people did that really. We had a dark room there at school and we taught photography to the kids. Mr. Hotchkiss was the principal, of course. Then, there were other teachers interested in photography. They used one of my dressing rooms over there in the auditorium as a dark room. They are still going on.

It depends on whether you have somebody interested in doing it. Part of again activity that involves teachers with students and Salina as a whole has been very good at extracurricular activities for kids on the teachers’ own time. Also, the principals and teachers, over a period of time, have been pretty good at when they gave us enough people over there and cut back staff using some of the time for special activities. For example, when I did Drama and Speech and I did plays and things, I did it after school, an extracurricular activity. They put in my schedule an hour or sometimes two hours a week of my time was in that particular activity – auditorium or drama or whatever you wanted to call it. They did that with several other teachers that were good at their activities instead of having it all on extra time for the teachers, extracurricular after school. They would work into the schedule an hour a week or two hours a week for that teacher. All the teachers appreciated that because most of the teaching staff believed it was a good thing for them to have. Of course, there are always some people that gripe about people having a couple of hours. But most teachers thought it was a great thing. Then, those of us who had that privilege or that duty did a lot of extra work that helped the other teachers put out the school paper. Two-third of (our) time was outside school hours doing something. They had to give (us) at least a third of the time during the school hours to get those things done. Of course, we never thought that (we) taught the basics, reading, writing and arithmetic but such things as art and music and other things, journalism.

MR. SEARS: Now can we just say a word about – getting back to the school as a school – about the extracurricular activities at Salina in the period that it was a grade school and a junior high school, you mentioned a paper. They had their own (news)paper apparently.

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. Most junior highs have their own newspaper in Dearborn. That was part of their (subjects). They had their own yearbook.

The junior-senior high school idea had been just off and on. Most of the time it’s been elementary - junior high, K through nine. We always had junior high school – in especially the East End. Later on the whole town became seventh, eighth and ninth. Then the tenth, eleventh and twelfth was a high school. This is a part of our battle four years ago when they changed that and they sent the ninth graders over to the high schools. So Salina is only pre-school through eight. All the junior highs only have seventh and eighth grades now in Dearborn. They did that to save Edsel Ford and Dearborn High because they needed more kids in those schools. Fordson is overcrowded. Salina is full too. Salina is the one school in town that gains all the time. It doesn’t lose students.

Our people are prolific. People keep moving in but we don’t obey their statistics. We don’t think it was good for our people especially our girls and for our people to mature. In fact, there are people who


believe in a four year high school. I think it’s great. But that’s fine for people that are socially mature to have the old idea of a high school which is four years. That’s old American eight nineteenth century (idea). Twentieth century high schools were junior-senior high school. We did think that’s still a good idea rather than an intermediate school But there are new ideas, new ways of doing things. It has caused problems at Salina.

They have had quite a few dropouts and our kids sometimes have trouble over at Fordson. They are not ready for racing up to being foreign born in an environment that isn’t always good for them. The girls particularly have a taboo from their family about associating with boys. They don’t want them to. So they forbid them from going to go to school at all or isolate them. Then, if they disobey, they have the problem of feeling disobedient. They want to be like the rest of the kids so (they) disobey (their) parents. It does cause problems for South End foreign born students, not all of them but many of them.

I really think it’s not fair. We fought to make Fordson do what the other schools do. We really didn’t need to. (There is) no reason why the two high schools couldn’t have been different. The credits all go to the high school anyway. Ninth grade credits were high school credits. Well, anyway, that’s some of the problems of the school.

We had the same problem when they took the seventh grade out. They sent them over to Lowrey to fill up another school and to phase out the junior high at Salina. They said we (were) going to go down because the population was declining in the east End. So again (they) were going to sacrifice the South End and make them travel over to the Lowrey School on the bus. That lasted a year and a half and we fought the battle and got them back partly through the court case but most of it just shear battling the School Board. We brought the seventh back.

MR. SEARS: Now the extracurricular activities at Salina …

MISS BECKER: The newspaper, the yearbook, photography and dance. We started the cheerleading for junior high. We were the first school to cheerlead the junior high cheerleaders. We just decided the girls needed something as colorful as the boys. It wasn’t fair just running around and the boys having all the accolades and activities. We had girls’ athletics. They just played among themselves and later on they did more intramurals between the girls and different schools which (was) fine. But anyway, we decided to have cheerleaders at our school. At first it was just at the home games. Some of us sponsored them and they made up cheers. They did this and that, had classes and tryouts for football and basketball games. We just had the home games. The girls’ mothers and the sewing teacher helped make their skirts. They had sweaters and got letter, etc. Fortunately we had a principal who would condone this and was, I don’t know whether it was against the rules or not, but Salina always a little exception. Some of the other schools objected to that because we sometimes made ourselves the exception or out in front or something.

MR. SEARS: Was there a choral group or glee club?

MISS BECKER: O yes. We always had choruses and glee clubs but the cheerleader thing we had to raise money for that. So we went out to raise the money. They had to raise the money to pay for their


(equipment) for a couple of years. They didn’t ride the bus. We could take them to the school. So a couple of us teachers (took) them to the other school. The people that (didn’t ) want it to happen watch(ed us) carefully. Finally, some of the other junior highs decided they were going to have (cheerleading). So the principals agreed that it was alright. There was nothing said about not doing it. They started having their uniforms and they got better. Finally, they could buy their uniforms already made or have them made better. But our girls usually made them or made them in sewing class or something. One of the talking points was if they buy football players’ uniforms and furnish uniform s and all that for football and basketball (players), then they ought to furnish something for the girls. So the girls would buy their own sweaters but the school would furnish the letters and the skirts. Well anyway, this is the way it developed over the years. It is taken for granted today that junior highs have cheerleading teams. That’s part of the lib movement, I guess.

But the choral groups were always fun and we have always had very good bands, teachers and all of Dearborn. So we can be very proud for the arts. We have always had pretty good art departments.

MR. SEARS: Would those bands participate in the Clean-Up Parades?

MISS BECKER: Oh yes. The band was always the leader. We would call the City and they would have a (car or truck) with records on it that would bring up the end of the parades that has music on it. So we had music at the beginning and music at the end.

MR. SEARS: Besides the band, would there be other groups of students that would be in these parades, like cheerleaders?

MISS BECKER: Oh Yes. The cheerleaders but also all the rooms. Every room made its costumes out of burlap sacks or bags.

MR. SEARS: They still have them city-wide?

MISS BECKER: City-wide, yes.

October 12, 2984

MR. SEARS: October 12, 1984, twelfth interview with Iris Becker. The last interview was held on December 29, 1983. We are going to talk about some of the teachers who were at Salina.

MISS BECKER: Some of them were at Salina when I first went there. Some were not. They had been there before I came. I came to know them as a student at Fordson because they came from Salina over to Fordson when Salina stopped being a high school in the early days. Miller School stopped being a high school and they opened Fordson High School. These teachers came over to Fordson and were out teachers. Most of them got their start at Salina School and had an effect on the community. They would be both teachers and friends. Some of them came back later to teach at Salina School again. They rotated people even in the Ford Motor Company.


Anna Henn was there. She was one of the first two teachers there when it was the old school, when it was kind of a country school when the Ford Motor Company moved into that area. She was there when they built the Salina High School, as it was called in the early twenties. Then she stayed there until she retired just a few years ago and had a great deal of influence on the community and on the rest of us teachers. She was a kind of a catalytic agent in the sense that Anna was a peacemaker. She was a good counselor. She was a counselor to the students. She became the student counselor and we had both a counselor for the girls and a counselor for the boys. She was the girls’ counselor. She also was a counselor (to) the rest of us teachers and a good advisor. We often went to Anna’s home on Appoline. She (wasn’t) born in Dearborn. She came from another section and came down to Dearborn (to) join the rest of her family, which was an old Dearborn family. The Henn Family. She had grown up in St. Alphonsus parish and started teaching school. So she was kind of a fixture and Henn Street in East Dearborn is named after that family. She will long be remembered by people who went there to school not only as a teacher but as a person.

Then there were teachers like Hal Goodall. Hal Goodall was our teacher in Fordson but he had come from Salina. He had gotten his start at Salina School. There was this tradition in the twenties, even before we became just an elementary and junior high school, of it being a special king of school. It had been a high school. It was built with three floors, a big building, and with shops. Mr. Goodall was a young teacher that had another great deal of influence on the way a lot of us thought. He was a liberal thinker and an activist and helped start cooperative things during the Depression. He and his wife lived around Dearborn until his death. Both were very active in Dearborn. Fred Eshelman was another one that was a very active person in school affairs and activities. He was a very good teacher and then he also was one of those that went over and helped start Henry Ford Community College. I believe they have a building named after Fred over there at the College.

Paul Jones. Paul was a very popular teacher with the students because he was peppy and a good looking man. He left teaching and went with the Ford Motor Company later. They cut back on his kind of program. He was a horticulturalist and had a greenhouse at Fordson. He used to grown such beautiful things and he could really experiment with plants. He was a good person at making one thing about things, scientific things, even though you weren’t going to be a scientist, how important Botany was. It could be an otherwise dull subject and all those things and horticultural in general he worked on. Then, Ford Motor Company wanted him. He wanted to know if I wanted to come and work for him and the Ford Motor Company.

MR. SEARS: What did he do at Ford?

MISS BECKER: I don’t’ know what it was but he worked somewhere in science. He wanted me to come over and work with him in library research. I didn’t want to leave teaching . Later on Paul came back to the school system but he died rather young. He had a great influence on a lot of kids in the science field. He had the ability to make it interesting. I remember he used to come over to Salina and talk to the teachers about how to teach science. When we were teaching grades, we had to teach all the subjects. He would come over and teach us how to make science interesting. He was very good at that.


Alice and Merwin Lewis both taught over at Salina before I got there. By the time I was in high school, both of them were teaching. I think Alice was at the high school at that time too. I had Merwin as a teacher and Merwin is still around Dearborn, of course. He was on several boards of the City – Civil service Commissioner. So he has been a very active person in the community, another one (who) taught history and made it interesting. He was also the head of that group that I told you about with Walter (Reuther) and the boys. He and Alice were the two that were the sponsors of that group that went to school full-time and worked at Ford’s full-time. (He) used to take us out to camp. They were kind of conferences or workshops where you got to know each other and talk. So it wasn’t just the fellows that went out. There was always a group of us gals that were invited to go along and discuss things, those of us that were interested (in) labor problems and work problems of students, the Depression problems and prejudice that I spoke about. That had a later influence on why I went to the South End. Those two still have an effect on Dearborn. They started young and they are still at it.

Elsie Rowden was the clerk at the high school. But Elsie had started before the high school opened. She was over at Salina and Miller both, I believe. I know she had been at Salina.

MR. SEARS: What does the clerk do?

MISS BECKER: A clerk takes care of the office, does all that paperwork, like a secretary, jack-of-all-trades. She was not only a secretary but she was like everybody else. They were personal friends.

They all lived on that row across from Fordson on Horger, the Rowens, the Rowdens and the Hotchkisses, all those houses west of Fordson on Horger. That was “faculty row” or “school board” row. On the other side, on the east side, there were some school board members. It was kind of a hot bed of confusion. Anyway, it was interesting.

Stan Smith. Stanley Smith actually was in Business and Shop. I believe I didn’t have him for a teacher but he was another one that started at Salina and had been there in business training. Again, because Salina had been used as a high school, (there was) a lot of things left in the high school. Since it was a junior high, the ninth grade was really part of the high school as far as college credits were concerned. We had Typing classes and that (was) ordinarily used in ninth grade, in a four year high school. They still are. So we were almost like a high school in many ways on the third floor. But the Smiths were another couple in town that were active socially as well as teachers. It was a kind of community (we) enjoyed being teaching (playing ) leadership role in many cases for organizing, getting things started.

Helen Martin was out teacher in school. She had married one of her ex-student, George Martin, who became Judge Martin. Helen taught at the high school. Later on she came over and taught at Salina. Years later she came over and taught at Salina when she went back to teaching. She was a good influence on the school. She made them wake up as far as teaching and beautifying the school and the school rooms, making it an interesting place to be and bring more art into the classrooms and making (her) room a pleasant place for people. I suppose you would call it coddling the kids but we didn’t think so. The kids worked like dogs. They really did. You could just see them. They just loved to go to that room to work. She was very good with the foreign born and had a good influence (on them). In fact, her room is still there and still has a little label on it “Helen Martin’s Room.” Some of the painting were


given by her and then later by George Martin in her memory. They are still in the school, I hope. She died a few years ago.

There were teachers like Virginia Brown who were at Salina School. Virginia was a very good teacher. She was kind of outspoken and she was good. We could sit down and talk things over at school. Mr. Hotchkiss let us do that and said, “Now if you want to do something, get together and plan what it is that you want to do and work out how to do it.”

What we wanted was more of the arts blended into the Social Studies. (We) have all kinds of the names for it these days and back then (we) did too. Different kind of names for different kind of ways you teach but nothing new under the sun. (We) just go into new cycles and use mixtures of different things, like Social Studies or whatever you want to call it. We combined the arts in English and Social Studies, painting, Dance and Music. All became integrated. (We) found ways to use music to teach Social Studies and customs of countries, not just their wars but their costumes and their crafts. It was a natural place to learn this because they could bring a lot of it from home. Their parents could come in and show us what they did. Sometimes the kids that kind of poo pooed what their parents knew or what their grandmothers talked about suddenly began to appreciate their grandparents. It was good, health education, I think. It made Salina again special. Other schools in town have faced up to that later and have done more of it.

There (was) Fred Faes. Fred retired just a couple of years ago but he is the one that came and took Mr. (Joseph) Godfrey’s place as a band man. Mr. Godfrey was our Band teacher. There were two Godfrey brothers. One (T.P. Godfrey) taught at Fordson and his brother taught at Salina and some of the other junior high schools. He was the quieter type. Pep (T.P.) had a rough voice like he might throw the baton at (me) if (I) didn’t play (the) cello right. I hit a lot of wrong notes. Anyway, I wasn’t very good at the cello. I didn’t practice enough. I was too busy running around doing other things. That’s what he told me too and it was the truth. But, anyway, his brother was over at Salina when I went there and he taught Band. He was a marvelous Band teacher and Orchestra.

(We) always had good bands and orchestras in Dearborn schools especially in the Fordson end. Dearborn has always had a good push toward the arts. Every once in a while we get cut back and right now they are having problem again about it. But, fortunately, we have people who go out and fight a little bit about it. We have enough people in town who think that arts are not frills so that (we’ve) got some balance. Every once in a while we had to fight to be sure we (kept) some Music, Gym and Art down in the grades where they belong. That went on, of course, during the Depression. During the Depression in the thirties when I started there, as I told you before, we had a lot of cheap help. W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) artists were brought into the school and paid by the government to help teach the arts. So (we) got some help in the schools when (we) couldn’t afford to pay (for) things. So, in a way, the arts flourished in a special way. It was cheaper recreation. Forming choruses and singing groups was a cheaper recreation than going to a lot of places. So (we) had a development in this town (as) I told you before. Henry Schubert in the recreation Department developed greatly during that period. The City started doing a lot to help people stay out of mischief and be un-depressed. So the


arts became very important. (A) lot of people in the schools at that time became good artists because we had (the) W.P.A. who were good artists. They came to teach those kids.

Fred Faes was a band man who finally came to our school and took Mr. Godfrey’s place when he retired. He was a young man (and) ended up, like I did, staying all through the rest of his teaching career and became very popular. He (was) very fine with music – instrumental and orchestra. That’s one reason why we have very good high school bands in this town. Notice (the) parades around here (and) the high school bands. (we) don’t get high school bands without having junior high bands and (we) don’t get high instrumentalists without having some kind of training in the elementary (school). They don’t blossom on a bush. People have to face up to that.

People like Gertrude Sohms and Bob DeKay who became the later counselor. Gertrude Sohms took Anna Henn’s place and followed in the footsteps of being counselor not only for students but for other people. Bob DeKay lives down in Florida, I believe, now. But he retired just a couple of years ago. He not only became the boys’ counselor and coach but assistant principal and stepped down from it because he preferred to counsel the students. They needed it. We had that great influx of foreign born students and many problems and the boys needed him.

MR. SEARS: What year would that be about? In the thirties?

MISS BECKER: This is just in the ‘60s because Anna didn’t leave until the late fifties. Before that we had Mr. Wolf (as) a counselor (and) several other men who were counselors. We needed to give the boys more full-time counselors. Anna instead of having boys and first, Bob (DeKay) took over the boys. When you have a lot of foreign born people trying to adjust to a new country you have quarrels and schisms between groups.

This taped interview was never reviewed by Iris Becker. She passed away.


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