NOW
Downing Gross Cultural Arts Center
879-0771

FRONT ROW: Glenn Dye, Charles Marrs, _____ _____ Ruby Phillips, _____ _____, _____ _____, Joe Shapiro;

SECOND ROW: _____ _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, Betty Jean Forrest, _____ _____, Liz Breeden;

THIRD ROW: Larry Crum, _____ _____, _____ _____, Forrest Gary, Wayne Sparrow, Van Wayne, _____ Kennedy;

BACK ROW: Alice _____, Beverly _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, _____ _____, and Mrs. _____ Barnes.

BACK ROW: Patricia Richards, _____ _____, Tommy Sparkman, Jack Tesh, Lonnie Scoggins, Roger Heflin, Becky Marshall, and Carol Hollaway.

SECOND ROW: Do not remember names of any of these;

THIRD ROW: Leon _____, Curtis Watson, Grover Lewis, Banning Crossley, Jesse Hodges, Archie Dail, George Helliesen, Mrs. _____ Graham;

BACK ROW: Linda _____, Barbara _____, Catherine _____, _____ _____, Shirley Markoff, Rita Leonard.

FRONT ROW: Wayne Chapman, Clifton Camden, Sandy Hobbs, Paul McPherson, Wayne Dickerson, Sandra Bateman, Carole Minkoff (Althaus), Sandra Boatright, Debby Fink;

MIDDLE ROW: Donald Smith, Charles Winter, David Sage, Skipper Vickness, Max Bartholomew, Carol Buckley, Janice McCain, Gloria Ballowe, David Neely, Richard Harman;

BACK ROW: Ailyn Bromberg, Patsy Blackard, Steve Burns, Mike Miller, Todd Givens, Marc Snyder, Betty Marie Millner, Nancy Lewis, Faye Thomas, and Frances Hollifield.

Saturday, August 19, 2000

TO: Fred Carroll

Newport News Daily Press

fcarroll@dailypress.com

A Newport News High School Classmate (June 1945) sent me a clipping of your 5-17-2000 article about the planned rejuvenation of the old Walter Reed School building. That it could be a candidate for something so modern amazes me.

Someone went a bit adrift on the age of the building (stated as 70 years). Actually built in 1917 as a high school for white children. It was urgently needed to replace the old John W. Daniel School (222 Thirty Second Street), part of which had been used for high school classes. During the early part of the century, the rapidly growing population presented an ever-increasing demand for school expansion. The need then virtually exploded with the beginning of World War I in Europe and the resulting influx of workers to the shipyard.

My mother was in an early class at Walter Reed High School. She remembered the soldiers marching by on their way to Camp Stuart; the hastily built Army base a half-mile south on Wickham Avenue. In the 1918 influenza epidemic the demand at Camp Stuart's hospital exceeded capacity and Walter Reed was temporarily converted into a military hospital. The high school kids enjoyed an off-season holiday.

My Aunt Catherine Phillips lived in Warwick County, but attended Walter Reed High School under a little known arrangement between the County and Newport News. This actually came about as a result of a 1921 annexation of County land by the City. The terms of the arrangement called for the City to pay a substantial sum to the County. But the City was in tight financial circumstances and sought to find some kind of arrangement to use in lieu of cash. At the same time, Warwick County was having difficulty completing a new high school, and their old facility was already bulging. A deal was finally struck which allowed Warwick County to send some high school students to Walter Reed High School. So my aunt, a County girl from near Cedar Lane, graduated from high school in the big city. She and other local students rode in a horse-drawn wagon from Phillips farm to the streetcar line in Hilton.

By the mid-1920s Walter Reed could no longer keep up with the demand for high school space. The visionary Dr. Joseph H. Saunders, superintendent of schools, was able to convince the City fathers to begin construction of a huge new Newport News High School on Huntington Avenue. The replacement high school was completed in 1927 and Walter Reed then became (in today's terms) a middle school. The smaller primary feeder schools in the East End were Jefferson, Washington and Magruder. The rest of us came from little Woodrow Wilson School across the footbridge in the Boulevard section.

I entered Walter Reed in September of 1938 and attended the fifth, sixth and seventh grades there. In those days we only had seven years of grammar school and then went off to high school for a final four. I "graduated" (there was no ceremony) from Walter Reed in June 1941, a few days before my thirteenth birthday.

I found life at Walter Reed to be quite different from that of little Woodrow Wilson. For one thing, there were some pretty tough and competitive kids coming in from Thomas Jefferson. Many of those boys were destined to become football stars at Newport News High School. Some wise person once observed that most of the "really good" football players came from a one-square mile area in the East End. And Thomas Jefferson was right smack in the middle of that square.

Like most Newport News school buildings there were two distinct sides to the building -- and identified by the gender on the rest rooms there. The boys' side (at 24th Street) faced a broad sidewalk which was without question, absolutely reserved for serious jump-roping. We boys would have gladly avoided the girl's side except that Walter (Carney - see: Marshall Courts), the push cart bakery vendor, always parked at the adjacent curb. One had to suffer the embarrassment of being very much out of place while negotiating the purchase of a penny cookie from Walter. It always seemed that when we boys were there, the chanting increased in volume just to taunt us. Sometimes I can still hear the kalop of a two girl rope along with the sing-song background: "Cinderella dressed in yella, kissed a fella in the cella -- kalop, kalop -- made a mistake and kissed a snake. How many doctors will it take?"

Warn the new tenants. There are ghosts at Walter Reed!

Fred W. Field

fwfield@juno.com

1516 Avenida Selva,
Fullerton, CA 92833-1531
714/871-5767

Newport News High School Class of 1945
 

Let's not forget the Seven Oaks and Marshall Courts people: myself (Rick Billings), Peanut Phillips, Mickey Spivey,
Bunny Booker and others. Playing basketball with the rim nailed to the telephone poles at night under the lights...
Playing baseball in the field near West Grocery and Mr. Stein's Drug Store...

Rick Billings of NC - 02/23/03
Thanks, Rick!
 

- Norm Covert ('61) of MD - 09/03/09
Thanks, Norm!
 

Army Surgeon-General George Miller Sternberg was impressed by Reed's work at Johns Hopkins. In 1893 he appointed Reed Professor
of Clinical and Sanitary Microscopy at the new Army Medical School in Washington, with a joint appointment as curator of the Army Medical Museum. One of Reed's first projects in Washington was a collaboration with Sternberg on a smallpox vaccine study.

In 1895, Reed studied an outbreak of malaria near Washington. He observed that the marshlands played some role in the spread
of malaria, yet he dismissed the suggestion that mosquitoes carried the disease.

In 1898, following the declaration of war on Spain, Sternberg selected Reed, Victor Vaughan, and E.O. Shakespeare to examine the American military camps in order to ascertain the cause of the typhoid epidemic. They concluded that typhoid was the result of filthy living conditions. Two years later, Sternberg made Reed officer-in-charge of the Yellow Fever Commission.
 

"— THE DOWNING GROSS CULTURAL ARTS CENTER is a 50,000 plus square foot masterpiece which will encompass The Anderson Johnson Gallery, The Ella Fitzgerald Theater, The Thaddeus Hayes Dance Studio, a sculpture by Richard Hunt, rehearsal rooms, art and music studios, classrooms and more. Soul-stirring music, the magic of live theater, the thrill of dance, the enjoyment of fine art exhibits and events and the celebration of homegrown celebrities has found a new home in Newport News! The Downing Gross Cultural Arts Center will offer residents a place to be both participants and patrons of the arts; a place that identifies, cultivates and celebrates the talents of our youth, as well as our young at heart. 2410 Wickham Avenue. 879-0771."

Courtesy of http://www.newport-news.va.us/intergov/services/servicesa.htm -
03/06/06

Ella Fitzgerald Way to jazz up part of 24th Street

The late Gregory Cherry worked to honor the "First Lady of Song," who was born in Newport News.

By SABINE HIRSCHAUER | 247-4536

April 11, 2008

Fitzgerald, who would have turned 91 this month, last visited the Peninsula in 1993, when she performed at the Hampton Jazz Festival.

"Newport News is always being associated with her name. It's her birthplace," Gilliam said. "This is who she is."

Ella Fitzgerald's life

• 1917 — Born in Newport News

• 1921 — Moves with mother to Yonkers, N.Y.

• 1934 — Competes at amateur night at the Apollo in New York City

• 1936 — First recording

1938 — First No.1 album sells million copies and stays on pop charts for 17 weeks

• 1974 — Performs for two weeks with Frank Sinatra and Count Basie in New York.

• 1987 — Receives National Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan.

• 1991 — Gives final concert at Carnegie Hall in New York.

• 1996 — Dies in Beverly Hills, Calif.