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www.mybaycity.com June 15, 2003
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Clockwise: Ella Olson, Robbie Baker, Frank Mehnert, Josephine Trapp, Isabel McGee, Adeline Bremer

Central High Class of 1929, Gathers For 74th Reunion

Group of Oldsters Pledges to Meet Every Year as Long as They are Able

June 15, 2003       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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If ever a high school graduating class was on the cusp of history, it was this one.

They didn't know it, of course, but the Great Depression was looming. The Stock Market Crash of Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929 was only a few months in the future.

Five members of the Class of 1929 of Bay City Central High School gathered Saturday, June 14, for their 74th year reunion. The date was June 14, 1929 when 194 fresh-faced kids from the Jazz Age paraded to Pomp and Circumstance in the Central High Stadium to receive their diplomas from School Board President Adolph S. Blanchard and Superintendent Germain L. Jenner.

They have marched on through nearly three-quarters of a century, through several wars and technological developments unimaginableand fantastic. And they are still here, still smiling and still having fun together.



Sharing lunch at the LindenHof on Euclid Avenue were Adeline (Armour) Bremer, 91, Isabel (Campbell) McGee, 91, Josephine (Fladung) Trapp, 90, Ella (Post) Olson, 92, and the self-proclaimed "thorn among the roses," Frank Mehnert, 91, of Saginaw, one of only two male graduates still living. There were 72 boys and 122 girls in the class. Some 48 students had graduated in January, 1929, being evenly divided between boys and girls.

At the reunion, an annual affair since the 55th, there was not much talk of the Crash of 1929, or even of the economy, which seems to be emulating many of the qualities of that depressing era.

These folks were glad to be alive, mourning many friends including several classmates who died in the past year. Josephine joked how she, at age 90, was "the baby" of the class. The discovery of another living class member, Reah Walz, who is in a local nursing home, stirred some excitement and brought the list of surviving classmates to an even dozen. There was talk that another class member, Christine (Loessel) would have been here had she not broken her arm in a fall recently.

Frank brought potted geraniums for all the ladies, as he does every year. He had too many and gave some away to visitors like Joan Weeks, daughter, and Pam Merkeley, grand daughter, of Mrs. Trapp, and perennial guest, Robbie Baker, 86, widow of class member Oscar Baker Jr., who died three years ago.

"I was only 16 and on my first job at the Gibb Welding Machine Co. when the call came in to the switchboard that the stock market had crashed," recalled Mrs. McGee. "We lost what we had in the bank, but it wasn't much." The company survived by consolidating with the Thompson Welding Company of Massachusetts, (later the National Electric Welding Machine Company (Newcor), a stellarBay City employer until recently).

Josephine Trapp recalled being fired as bookkeeper for the Cook Coffee Company, Midland and Litchfield streets, because she got married. "The boss was from Chicago and didn't like women employees getting married," she recalled. She began her working career as cashier at the Wenonah Hotel cafeteria and recalls a tremendous snowstorm which buried the town in 1929. "I walked out the door and the snow was level with the front porch," she said.

Adeline Bremer remembered being sent home on the Friday before Easter, 1929, when two students at Bay City Junior College, which occupied the third floor at Central, died of smallpox. She was sick herself and her mother "was so happy" when it was found she just had chicken pox instead of the dreaded smallpox, a scourge which has since been eliminated by modern medicine.

Frank recalled cutting lumber for the Hanson-Ward Veneer Co., Harrison, at the southwest corner of Cass. "Mr. Ward, the president of the company, kept it going for a while after the Depression," he recalled. He attended Ferris Institute at Big Rapids and, with a two year degree in "higher accounting," found steady work in the office at General Motors for 40 years. Frank was transferred to Saginaw, Flint, Detroit, Buffalo, New York, Cincinnati, Ohio, St. Louis, Missouri, and Oakland, California, before retiring back to his old home town in 1973.

There were personal reminiscenses all around of the city's biggest events of the era, the Water Carnivals of 1930 and 1931. "Gar Wood came with his big cruiser and there were boat races started by Eddie Kriewall, using rowboats with motors," recalled one graduate. "And the big pool in Wenonah Park."

Ah yes, those were the days. Bay City listed its population at 60,980. There were four train stations in town. The Bay City Freezer, 1215 N. Johnson St., phone 2770, advertised "It is CHEAPER to Buy Ice than to Spoil Food." Saginaw Bay was producing 9 million pounds of fish a year.

J. Harry Nelson was mayor of Bay City, Fred Green was Governor of Michigan, and "the greatest secretary of commerce the nation ever had," Herbert Hoover, had been elected President in 1928.

The Central High School Class of 1929 was donning their caps and gowns and filing into the stadium for the graduation ceremony. The economy of Bay City, and the nation, was booming.

The words and music to a popular song of the day, "I'm In The Market For You," were even then being written by George Olson, and were destined to reverberate through the years: "We'll count the hugs and kisses, when dividends are due, 'cause I'm in the market for you."



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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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