This is a picture of Fairmount High School in Fairmount, Grant, Indiana. I attended this school for a year and a half, then we moved to Marion, Indiana. This High School has a lot of history to it. In my family, my sister Alice, graduated from there. Several of my Brattain cousins attended and graduated from there. The most famous family member (and yes he is a part of our family) was James Byron Dean..... I remember the day that I first realized I was going to go here and how excited I was. Mom had taken me to get school books for the year. When we got there, I got even more excited because I spotted a friend I had from 1st grade. WE WERE GOING TO BE IN THE SAME SCHOOL AGAIN.
June Trice and I had started school together in this little school in Fowlerton, Grant, Indiana. She and her mother actually came to our farm and visited with us.
This building is now the Fowlerton Lines Club in Fowlerton but then it was a small school. Nellie J. Barnhart was the 1st and 2nd grade teacher. She taught us to write cursive among other subjects (such as learning to read about Dick, Jane and Spot). We had to "take" our lunches because there was no school kitchen at that time. Our class picture was taken on the side of the school with our teacher. I wish I still had mine or could find a copy of one. Many memories came flooding back the day we took this picture. One of the very memoriables is the last day of the school year. Our mothers would put together a BIG DINNER. It seemed to us kids that this was more food than could be imagined... it was a pot luck dinner but it was wonderful. I attended this school for all of the first grade and half of the second, when we moved from Tony Spence's farm on State Road 26 to Bob Gimmell's farm on State Road 37. There I attended Liberty Twp. School and was away from my early "friends".
Liberty Twp. School.... I started here in my 2nd grade. My teacher was Leona Shugart. What a wonderful teacher she was. She had the most beautiful handwriting. Which was also a source of my embarrassment. You see, I was taught to use cursive in the 1st grade. Well Mrs. Shugart had just started teaching the 2nd graders cursive and here I was doing all my work in cursive. She called me to the desk and told me that I would have to print my lessons.... PRINT, what was that????? So while the rest of the 2nd graders were learning cursive, I was learning to print. She was kind about it but it didn't help that I was shy and was embarrassed, because I did not know how to print.
One of my favorite teachers was a lady by the name of Rozella Buroker. She was not popular with a lot of people (as I found out years later), but she took me under her wing and when she would see that I had all my work done and had nothing to do, she would send me down to the library and let me read any of the books there, until I ran out of things to read. Then she decided she would teach me to crochet. I really appreciated her. She was our Music and Art teacher. In one of her classes she introduced us to stereo music... she played "The Grand Canyon Suite" and one of the pieces was called "Thunderstorm in the Canyon". In that piece was a donkey walking in the canyon... with the stereo, it sounded like he was walking across the desk... I still love this music to this day.
One of the exiting things that happened while I was at Liberty, is one day, we were told we were going to be going outside and to line up along the school yard on State Highway 37 side. As we are watching a motorcade came by... we all waved although we could not see who was in the car. The motorcade was for President Kennedy. We were so excited even if we could not actually see him... We got to wave at the President of the United States
I met a lot of future friends and had a lot of fun in this school. BUT the most exciting thing for me was knowing that some day I would get to go to Fairmount High School... that was my dream.... and then the day finally came. I graduated from the 8th grade at Liberty and the next year I would get to go to Fairmount... reunited with my Fowlerton friends and my cousins... What joy!!!!
Fairmount High School, What a great school to go to. I had hoped to graduate from this school, just like my sister Alice. Not going to happen but while I was there, I had some interesting experiences. As I stated before, I met up with an old friend of mine and we started to compete for grades. We would see who could get the higher grades. And then there were a couple of boys too. One was Gary Stoffer and the other was David Brubaker. So the 4 of us kind of formed a group and competed.
The result of this action led to the biggest surprise of my life... I knew I had been on the "A" honor roll most of the school year but at the end of the Freshman year, I was chosen for National Honor Society. My Sophomore year started with the same group of us competing again and it looked as though all of us would, again, make Honor Society... that was until I moved to Marion, Grant, Indiana.... I only got to go to Fairmount High School until the end of the 1st semester of my Sophomore year.
When we moved to Marion, I didn't know anyone and so being shy, I didn't make too many friends. On top of that, I was taking some classes that were considered Junior classes in Marion and still were Sophomore classes in Fairmount... so I wound up going to the North Campus of Marion High in the morning and then boarding the city bus and going to South Campus is the afternoon. This did not allow me to get to know many kids... BUT I did have one friend that stuck with me all thru my Marion High School days and remains my friend today. We actually were more like Sisters than just friends. Her cousin had gone to Fairmount and she and I were friends there so when she found out I was going to go to Marion.... she called her cousin and told her to look for me... and she did.
Fairmount High School is now a pile of rubble... having been torn down this last week. I watched the video of it being torn down and had a sadness that cannot be described. If you look at the row of windows just above the ones on the left... that was Mrs. Adaline Nall's room. That was the drama room with a stage and everything. That is also the room that James Dean performed in. If you went in the school through the arch... and up the stairs and just continued on straight, you would find yourself in the Auditorium, where many perforances were produced.. If this building could have talked it would tell you of many notables that passed thru it's halls, including Jim Davis, who is famous for being "Garfield's" papa... and Phil Jones who was a CBS New Correspondent... just to name a few. The High School is gone.... but for sure not the memories... Liberty Twp. School is no longer a school... it is all closed up... I always knew I was home when I passed that school.. now it is no longer a school. Yes it important to preserve our memories... someday these places will only be "just memories".




























