MANKATO — If they had all stayed around Mankato and gathered regularly, the nine members of the Mankato High School class of 1950 might have run out of things to say by now. But since many scattered following graduation and have reconnected more recently, there’s lots to share during monthly summer visits here.
Theirs is a unique history: Before they even reached that age, Mankato’s 50-year-old high school that had been condemned but repaired in 1939, burned to the ground in 1941. As the only Mankato high school at the time, that forced temporary adjustments.
One decision the School Board had made was to hold junior high classes at the Franklin School and high school at Lincoln School. One they hadn’t made, however, was when and where to build a replacement school.
As such, the class of 1950 was the last to attend and graduate from the Lincoln School building. The class of 1951, while never attending class at the new school, graduated out of the recently completed building that is now Mankato West High School.
Unlike today, where students from different areas of Mankato Area Public Schools go to demographically located high schools, everyone came to one school. This meant that those from the class didn’t necessarily have a long educational history together before graduation. And distance didn’t allow them to do much together outside of class.
Quentin Beadell, who like many in the class will turn 93 this year, returned to the area in 1956 after four years in the service and established himself in the banking business. While he crossed paths with some classmates through the years, he finds these reunions to be special.
“They are good people,” he said. “All the way through. And it’s nice to refresh yourself.”
Classmates Marilyn Philipson Lindsay and the Rev. Russell Lindsay refreshed their high school relationship in a big way more than 50 years after graduation. Both widowed, they reconnected at a reunion and have now been married almost 16 years.
Today they live in New Ulm and served as drivers for William Hoehn and his wife (who is not a member of the class), who live at Mankato Lodge Senior Living. Hoehn turned 93 on Tuesday and was one of those students seen only at school since he lived in Eagle Lake, he said.
Lindsay left Minnesota at age 20, spent time in Tennessee and all over Minnesota, and said it’s good to be back with friends. He’s the youngest in the class at 91; as the only student in second grade at the Kerns School, the teacher moved him up to join the two third graders, he said.
“All of those years, we didn’t know where the rest of them were,” including his current wife, “(or) what they were doing. And here we are. We’re finding out. … We stayed in touch pretty well by telephone and email and those things, but it’s just a rediscovery. It’s nice.”
Added his wife: “It’s been 75 years. It’s amazing.”
At the heart of the reunions is Georgia (Enright) Schultz, who also spent 40 years working in the Twin Cities before returning to Mankato. She’s the one classmates go to when they need confirmation of facts. For example, she confirmed there were 188 in their class.
To get to Franklin School for junior high, they got on a city bus at Lincoln and started singing — “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” she remembers. By the time they got back to Lincoln at the end of the school day, there were only a few bottles left on the wall.
“I went back to a reunion at Lincoln School when they had a grand opening there a year or so ago (for its 100th birthday),” Schultz said. “I couldn’t believe how little the rooms were.”