1948
The new Lee Elementary School opened in the fall of 1948, with Mr 0. B. Aftreth as its first principal. Over the next 28 years the war babies and the post-war baby boom were to require 18 more elementary schools, plus junior and senior high schools to be built in District 281. In addition to Lee, in 1950 and the opening of Adair Elementary in 1952 allowed the school on Regent Avenue to house only grades seven through twelve, until Robbinsdale Senior High School opened in 1956 and the Regent school became Robbinsdale Junior High School.
Many of the schools were named after Robbinsdale residents:
William H. Cavanagh Elementary (1958). Mr. Cavanagh was local contractor, also a school board member from the early 1930’s to the mid 1950’s.
H. 0. Sonneyson Elementary School (1962). “Sonny” was editor of the Post newspaper for many years. He believed schools were the most important asset of a community.
Frank P. Hosterman Junior High School (1962). Mr. Hosterman was a local dentist who served on the school board for 33 years.
Edwin J. Cooper Senior High School (1964). “E. J.” who was Superintendent of the School District from 1930 to 1965, saw the district grow from 1,100 students in 1930 to 22,000 in 1964, and 22 schools built.
In the late 1970’s the painful process of closing schools began. The Robbinsdale Junior High was closed in 1979, Lee Elementary in 1981 and the Senior High in 1982. The baby boom was long over and these early students were in their “thirties,” living and producing babies elsewhere.
In other news, through bus service to Robbinsdale replaced the old street car line and Policeman, Donald (toby) Johnson started a bike patrol made up of Robbinsdale Boys. He told the Minneapolis Star that the new patrol would help reduce bicycle theft, accidents and traffic violations. As part of the safety program the city issued bicycle licenses. The 15 boy patrol was clad in blue gray uniforms and overseas caps paid for by the Robbinsdale Lions Club. The patrol issued warnings and citations that were brought before a special traffic court. Penalties for violations included copying the traffic laws that were violated 100 time. According to Police Chief Matt Spurzem, the city issued over 700 bicycle licenses in 1948.
This post is part of a series loosely based on the book Robbinsdale Then and Now by Helen Blodgett. The picture at the top of the post, courtesy of Shedon Smith, was taken George I. Smith – probably in the early 1950s.
I was a student at Lee School …1960, in MS. Carr’s 4th grade classroom. I remember studying German via public tv, and a lesson about names of countries and nationalities…the person ahead of me said “Italy” so naturally I said “Italy-an”. Everyone laughed. After school, we waited in our classroom for our buses…I ran when I heard “Bus 23 is here.” I lived on the corner of 40th and Regent.
Ms Carr was so cool. I lived a couple blocks from her and I was her paper boy for a couple years. She lived on 34th Grimes.
She was always kind polite and friendly
From kindergarden in 1958 to 5th grade we lived across from North Memorial and Dr. Benedict did his best to supervise my education at Lee. Wasn’t all that cooperative as I recall, but their persistence and perseverance, despite my really working that modular scheduling experiment, had my ACT scores qualifying me for Mensa. They had no idea where we were as Armstrong transitioned from Cooper’s afternoon shift.
After testing out of every chemistry class when enrolling at Stout State except an honors Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis course and working as a lab aide in the department, was thrown into the deep end when soon after the start of the semester the department head was promoted to Dean of Students, Dr. Ondrus was swamped with lecture duties and I helped that class get through the lab work, staying a week ahead since I was “taking” it too to finish my minor.
The Terrace Theater matinees, Boy Scouts thru the Westphall American Legion, that steep sliding hill south of North Drug with the great swoop at the bottom (gone when bridge replaced traffic circle), Robbinsdale was a wonderful place to grow up, always felt safe.