September 13, 2000
Classmates fondly recall Old Acme School
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Members of the Old Acme School gathered this weekend for their biennial reunion, drawing more than 70 people each for a formal dinner Friday night at the Park Place Hotel and a picnic on Saturday afternoon at Acme Township Park.
For a school that closed its doors in 1954, that is a lot of loyalty.
"Most people are amazed to hear that it is our early grade school reunion that draws so many," said Marge Newcombe Anderson of Traverse City, who attended the Old Acme School from kindergarten through eighth-grade, during the years 1934-1943. "It is unique to get this many people together after all these years when the school closed in 1954, I think it is special."
Anderson organized the first reunion of her former classmates in 1992 while still living downstate, wanting to reconnect with her childhood friends. She decided to invite anyone who had attended the school and the past five reunions have drawn alumni from many different classes and from as far away as Florida and California.
The evening's decorations featured a display of pictures of the school and surrounding countryside, compiled over the years by alumni John Kennedy of Acme. Kennedy, who attended from 1943-1950, remembered that the two-room Old Acme School was better than most schools of that era, mainly due to its size.
The lower grades, k-3, all went into the building's small room and the upper grades, 4-8, went into the larger one. Before World War II, each class had no more than seven or eight students, which meant that each teacher was juggling four grades and seven different subjects each day.
"What was nice was you knew a lot of the stuff from the grades above you," Kennedy recalled. "By the time you got to something you'd heard it two, three, four times."
After World War II ended the school underwent numerous changes. First, in 1947, indoor plumbing was added, making the two outhouses in back obsolete (and removing the older boys' favorite Halloween prank of tipping them.) The school also got their first male teacher and added a third room in the basement to accommodate the growing population. The school board also bought a secondhand school bus from Traverse City for $200 to transport students from surrounding farms. Before that, the walks could be lengthy for some students.
"I remember we walked to school a mile and a half each way," said Betty Fouch Crawford, one of four siblings who attended the school. "We would pick up neighbors as we went and walk together."
After the war, the school also opened a cafeteria that served hot lunches. Gone were the days of lunch pails, which sparked some reminisces at Friday's reunion.
"We ate lard sandwiches with lettuce and sugar or you might have found a baked potato in your lunch pail," said Bill Van Epps, a city resident who graduated from the Old Acme School in 1938. "I also remember swimming in the Acme Creek during recess, you had to be quick because recess was just 15 minutes."
Even though the school closed decades ago, the red brick and fieldstone school building still stands on M-72. The community built this school after the first Acme school burned down in 1908. That building was located at the K-Mart entrance and Kennedy remembered his grandfather telling him of the debate about building the new school. In the two years it took to build the new school, classes were held in a local church, which is now the Cranberry Christmas store.
Fond memories and close relationships draw graduates of the Old Acme School back to their old stomping grounds every other year. The reunions take these students back to a simpler time far removed from today's fast-paced society.
"It was a good education, we studied math, science, reading, spelling, penmanship, history, geography, although some subjects we studied only a couple times a week," recalled Kennedy, who was born and raised on a cherry farm on Bunker Hill. "There was not much chaos, they ran a tight ship in those days."