i guess if i start a topic, i get to make the first chat.  okay.  this whole site has me remembering people who i knew enough to remember fondly even though i haven't seen them since Orrington School.  most are probly also h.s. classmates, but i never saw them in h.s. that i recall!  ETHS was that big, yes?  and many did not attend ETHS, for a variety of possible reasons, but i don't always know what those reasons are.  i still want to call their names.  

i'll begin with Raum Browning and Peter McCoy.  I believe they both lived close to school, perhaps east, and i know north, respectively.  Raum I remember as just feisty, and quite the strong spirit.  Either Pete or Raum was the one Ms. Wieboldt (sp?) said that classic "don't pay him even negative attention, it only encourages him."  As i recall, i was a pet of hers, and felt quite conflicted in that i deeply admired each of them.  I believe Raum moved away at some point while we were still at Orrington.  

Peter was as close a friend as we could be living in opposite directions from school.  We were in Scouts together.  He was very much into American Indians' way of life and paraphernalia in a reverent way that for me, in my life, was way ahead of his time.  He was also very mischievous.  He moved south, later.  And according to my mother at the time, he drown in an accident in a small lake.  Man, I have been so sad ever since.  I was probly at Haven or ETHS when I heard.

What ever happened to Mike Kane (sp?)?  Is he on one of our lists?  There are many of us Orrington School classmates on this website and I've got two lists of us as I've been thinking, somewhere around.  I'll find them, and personally go around to each and recommend this "chat room" if this beginning seems to be successful.

I have nothing but fondest memories, and the deepest of memories for me are of Orrington School classmates.  Is this normal?  Is it because I already have short(er) term memory loss?  I don't think so, yet.  I would love to hear others' feelings and reminiscences.  And I have lots more I can add along the way.  Blessings to all of my fellow Orringtoners.  Marty Campbell

Good post, Marty.  Hope this generates the communications that you are hoping for.

Marty:

I have a few answers here- Peter McCoy died in a boating accident in Wilmette harbor-

he was working on a boat cleaning crew- in the water- scrubbing the side of a sailboat -

another boat passed very closely(not uncommon in Wilmette Harbor). hit him - and he drowned.

Mike Kane is around, Perry, Fla - has 5 kids 

Nick Howland- did a little research here- there is a Arthur L. Howland Foundation at Northwestern-named after Nick's father-Dean of the Department Of Geology.

I would think they would know where Nick(or his sister Emily) might be-

                         Marty-Thanks For Your Posts-  JP

Hi Marty - It's good seeing you.  Thank you for starting this chat room.  There are sooo many memories of Orrington School, but they were not pleasant.  From the beginning of Orrington School, up until I went to ETHS, I was teased, ridiculed and made fun of.  Bullying was a common occurrence.  I can remember one winter, when kids would be standing outside waiting for me to come out the door.  They made ice snow balls by rolling the snowballs in the gutter of the street to turn them to ice.  Then they were being thrown at me.  I can remember many times when my mother would come to school to pick me up so I wouldn't have to walk home alone.  . 

Some of the people mentioned by you in your post are the ones that were specifically mean to me.  That is all behind me and has been for many years.  It appears that time softens things and the memories become dim.  I have had many accomplishments over the years and I'm well respected in my town.  I have served on your local city council for eight years and I serve on quite a few boards and organizations.  I remember seeing you at the last class reunion and invited you to sit with me and a friend that I brought.  My friend enjoyed you and thought you were an interesting person.

Marty, I remember my mother talking about your parents and how much she enjoyed them.  She had fond memories of them.  Both of my parents are gone now, but I loved listening to their stories of the people that have known over the years.

Hope to see you at the reunion....

Jan

thank you Jan for this straight-up entry.  to me it is very powerful and crucial, though it could have "easily" been left unsaid, i am sure.  thank you deeply.  i see that i went through the entire school experience with rose-colored glasses on, which were not allowed to you.  i surely hope that i was not one of the gang there.  i was certainly a snowball thrower!  full time.  if there was snow, i was throwin.  my father was a bit pieved that he had to leave his job and attend school with me one day because i had hit our principal, Ms. Gertrude Kisch (sp?), whom i do remember calling Gerty, with a snowball (accidentally, but i did throw it).  i was shy and naive to the extreme, outside of my family where i was a bit eccentric and very secure, in those days.  i have no memory of bullying or ridiculing, but i appreciate your words in part my self as a call for self-re-examination.  in my family i sure could be a tease.  i was very VERY in to the Marines, drawing their emblem on my book covers at Orrington.  during high school, when we boys had to register for the draft, i began my serious spiritual journey toward pacificism which culminated in applying for Conscientious Objector status before Evanston Selective Service Board 100 my sophomore year in college.

i remember your demeanor being reserved often, and being aware of difficulties.  later, my mother told me you had had difficulties and that miraculously they had cleared up as you grew older, she never said, at least clearly in a way that i could understand, what they were.  and yes, too, my mother always spoke very fondly of your mother and you.  

it is a shame a small tight protected school like Orrington could not have vigilance and policies to prevent bullying.  it is of course now known far more up-front (i hope) to be a nation-wide social problem of the US and perhaps the whole species.  

i know of one other classmate mentioning a down side of school experience on our website here.  and i applaud you both.  we need to call out our real experience in order to allow us, humans, to not repeat certain cycles forever.

i remember fondly our connection at that, the only eths reunion i've been to so far.  it was hugely special to me to see you glow, unreserved.

i'll remain unsure i will be at this reunion right up to the wire.  but i believe i appreciate more than i could any physical reunion, this website reunion right here.  (and that surprises me more than anyone because i usually so prefer in-person presence.)  thank you Jan for your big part in this.  marty

Hi Marty - You were not one of the bullies I mentioned.  It's funny, I was not ready to go to any ETHS reunions until it was the 25th.  I was going through a divorce at the time and went by myself.  It was unbelievable when I went because people that were formerly nasty came up to me and acted like I was their long lost friend.  They couldn't believe the changes in me.

When I was at the 30th reunion with my friend, it was also remarkable. We were both avid ballroom dancers (I am an advanced intermediate).  The Saturday night dance came and I was dressed to the nine's.  I must say, I dazzled everyone.  When we went out on the dance floor and started dancing, the whole floor parted and people were watching us.  One of the former classmates who wasn't particularly nice to me at ETHS was sitting at one of the tables around the dance floor.  She asked someone at her table "Who are they?  Was he in our class or she in our class?"  The person at the table said "You don't know?".  When she learned who it was, she came over to me afterwards and said "Janet, do you remember me?" as though nothing had ever happened in the past.

That's what time has done.....several classmates have become good friends over time since graduating and I learned that what we did in our past does not matter, it's what we have done with ourselves and our lives that does.  I never sweat the small stuff.  I am blessed with family, friends, and always grateful for those that remain in my life.  I am happy, and content and although I am single, my many friends have given me more than I can ever repay. 

This may be the last reunion that our class will ever have and I look forward to seeing everyone again, even the ones that weren't so nice......that's all in the past.

Jan

I'm from Dawes School in the South of Evanston but have enjoyed reading your Posts her Janet and Marty. It does appear that some of us were just not aware of what was happening right before our very eyes in the same way as even our close friends.

I loved the ETHS experience and growing up in Evanston even though my parents were divorced in 1959 and I lived with my father after the divorce.(very rare in those days) I have been to every reunion and wont miss as long as I'm alive. ( I get teary eyed every time I look thru the IN MEMORY list thinking of each individual who for what ever reason has been cheated out of being with us today and I will not be able to ever see their smiles or their scowls)

My point is that from a group of 5 guys that I was tight with thru out ETHS I am the only one who craves and attends the reunions! 3 of the 5 now state that high school was not a good time in their lives! HUH! I came from the broken home and had no clue they were so unhappy! I thought we were always having a great time.....but maybe thats why my class rank was so low 891 of 919.

But only because of ETHS could I be a college graduate  and have prospered in life.

So Janet I hope to meet you at the reunion. I admire your acomplishments since ETHS and having read them somewhere on this site was totally shocked to read about the bullying and unhappy times you experienced in HS. I wa not in the "IN" crowd but never recalled the sadness you revealed even amongst my close friends!!

thank you Sherwin Jay.

Hi, Marty:

I was part of the Orrington School crowd, but only for the second half of 6th grade after my parents built a new home at 805 Central, and I transferred from Dewey School.  I took notice of John Rosenau's description of how Pete McCoy died, and since it is so full of detail, it must be accurate, but I, too, remember hearing he had drowned at an Ozark lake in MO or AR.  At any rate, Pete and I were good friends.  I remember us taking his Arrow sailboat hull with a Super 10 HP motor up to Lake Geneva.  During the week it was the fastest boat on the lake until the cigarette boats took over on the weekend.  Only problem was the motor was not very reliable, and would stall frequently.  It also did not have an auto-recoil starter rope on it.  So, Pete would take the cover off the motor and wrap the starter rope around and pull, repeat, pull, repeat, pull, until the motor sprung to life, in gear, and we would take off at 30 mph.  The only problem was that Pete became so excited when the motor actually started he would throw the starter rope in the water.  Of course, the engine would stall a 1,000 yards from where he threw the rope and we would have to paddle back with canoe paddles to retrieve the rope and start the process over again.  On that same week at Lake Geneva I remember Pete burned down our mosquito net tent at the state campgrounds when a can of charcoal lighter fluid caught fire and he dropped the can and then kicked it with its flaming contents over the tent.  Poof, tent was gone.  We did catch over 400 striped (white) bass that week, so we had a lot of fun, too.  Strange things that come to mind after all these years.  Looking forward to seeing you at the reunion.

dear Victor.

wow thank you for this rich affirmative and full of detail eulogy, if i may, to both your and my dear friend Peter McCoy!  is it possible you were in the other Orrington 6th grade class than i?  i.e. that of Steve Cohlmeyer (http://www.cohlarch.ca) who i was and remained a close friend of through high school, and others?

thank you for finding this "chat room" on your own.  you may have known him earlier as well, but i think you knew Peter later, older than most of my knowing him.  i did go once with him on his Arrow out of Wilmette Harbor, and remember his devotion, skill, and enthusiasm, including racing aggressively and successfully at a young age.  but my strongest, richest memories were of our times in boy scouts' camping trips, and in his basement at his house making match-head rockets and fire crackers (potential bombs) using coathanger cardboard tubing or used CO₂ cartridges for casing, and packing them in (the cardboard tubes) with pencils, which were a perfect fit, using jetex fuse for fuses, and closing off the cardboard tube at both ends with carefully rolled long strips of paper, with the jetex fuse in the center at the one end (this last when we wanted it to blow up rather than fly high, i believe).

you surely knew he traveled enough with his family to find arrowheads and collected them, along with a number of other old and authentic American Indian artifacts, none of them hinting of tourist purpose, and held them and spoke of them with reverent awe.  sometimes bringing a few items he felt safe enough to let out of his room, to school whenever we were covering some subject related to them.  to me in looking back i've all ways felt he was precocious in his American reverence for Indians which bloomed so much stronger and wider among our generation in later years.  and his affected me very deeply so that he made me ready in a way i would say was much like a spiritual master.

in scouts, he was always the roughest and readiest, most down to and in to the earth, of all of us, probably moving like an Indian scout, though yes he could be clumbsy, it was all in his intention, a very focused (young) man.  At White Pines, he'd gather the needles in abundance for his mattress and i followed suit to the max.  And he led when a few of us snuck down along the river late at nite all the way, i the most hesitant until we were underway, under trees and through bush, to where the road crossed over, and we bought a couple treats at the roadside store there, broaching civilization, just to have proof we had reached, to hold when we got back, to wake up to (bleary eyed) in the morning.

if you and he and i had hung together, he and i would have gone with you your third year in the Army.  i went through Orrington with Guadalcanal Diary (book) on my mind, the Marine national anthem word-for-word on my breath, and the entire Marine emblem drawn quite carefully and accurately freehand on my/our handmade brown paper book jackets.  when my (eths 1961) brother and i forever played war, madly bombing each other's block forts, my favorite, most protected, and longest surviving piece was the sniper lying flat or on his knees with the bayonetted rifle.  i say this not to pretend i know anything of the real life and death you have witnessed.  i was conceived as were perhaps you and most of our classmates, as immediate witness of the miracle of my father's surviving numerous crossings of the Atlantic and the English Channel in the Navy in WW II.  

i'm getting wrapped-and-wound up, anyhow, i am very moved by your sharing Peter's memories of friendship.  and his immediate (to me, always present) relevance to all of the times our class has lived through.  so grateful.

Wow, Marty!!!  A 3 AM reply.  Just wondering - had you not gone to bed by that time, or couldn't sleep?Anyhow, just two comments tonight.  First, I have no idea which 6th grade class was which at Orrington, but I think the teacher's name was Gorby.  I remember both 6th grade teachers had last names that started with "G".  The other name was Ganz, and I think she was my Dewey School 6th grade teacher.  Maybe you can help me out on this and let me know if you were in my class (or vice versa).

Secondly, I think it is interesting that everyone else and you always refer to Peter McCoy, and I never heard of him being called anything but "Pete".  Well, the baseball game is over on TV, so that is about all I can think of now (and probably in the future, too) that pertains to Orrington School.

i was up at 3am recovering from just writing a detailed e-missive in thuh midsts of trying to buy a house for the first time ever in my ever lovin life.  writing you did me well for that.  i had Mrs. Edwards for my 6th grade teacher.  Steve Simmonds posted all our class pictures somewhere on the front pages of this website here, i think there may have been two classes each year.  don't know a thing about the other class' names (cept Cohlmeyer, and now, likely, you).  barely remembered that there was a nother class.  because i am moving and this crazy house i'm considering, i've been and will remain out of touch with this site here for a couple months either side of now.  but important things i still try to tend to.  your post here was one of those.

Marty & Victor:

Enjoyed reading both your accounts of Pete(Peter) Mc Coy. I think some differences are due to

the time we knew him. In my case, Peter and I were friends early in the Orrington experience.

I remember his family home(on Sheridan Road- It was huge) - more spectacular was his

grandparents house on Euclid Park Place(about 2 blocks away). This house has to be 

one of the most significant homes in Evanston. It's still there- I use to run by it when I was training for

my six Marathons. Pete was a great guy- big heart- lots of laughs- thanks for the memories-

see you soon-  John Rosenau

Victor:

I would say you and Pete were Buds - John Rosenau