Editor’s note: On Dec. 11, 1816, Indiana became the 19th state in the Union. On Jan. 28, 1836, Porter County was created. A year later, on Jan. 18, Lake County became independent. As the state celebrates its bicentennial, the Post-Tribune will be taking a regular look back at the history of Northwest Indiana.
James Hilbrich, 90, of Lowell has a note on his desk at home and he said he reads it every day: “You can’t turn back the clock, but you can rewind it.”
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Hilbrich and his fellow graduates of the original St. John Township School in Dyer will do just that Sunday when the alumni from classes celebrating 50-plus years will host their annual reunion at the Halls of St. George in Schererville. The reunion committee, led by Richard Snearly and Eileen Thiery Snearly, both from the class of 1962, expect 240 alumni from 21 states.
The high school classes were established in 1908 inside the existing consolidated township school. “Dyer High,” as the school is often called, had just 10 high school students including its first two graduates. The schoolhouse, located where Kahler Middle School now stands, was a two-story brick building, according to Dyer Historical Society records. Students arrived in horse-drawn buses. As the student body expanded, so did the building.
In 1939, an elementary wing housing the first through sixth grades was completed at a cost of $72,000 and the opening was of enough merit to warrant a news article in the Sunday, Aug. 27, 1939 baiduhai. The article described the addition as a two-story building of buff brick to accommodate 260 pupils in eight classrooms.
“It is 100 percent fireproof and equipped with an enunciator system, lockers in each classroom and terrazzo flooring,” the article stated.
A total of 600 students were expected to attend the high school and elementary schools. The two wings were joined by a passageway.
An addition to the school was added in 1956 to provide a cafeteria, home economics, industrial shops, science lab and more classrooms. In 1958 a gymnasium, nurse station, classrooms, teacher’s lounge and offices were added. In 1966, the original Lake Central High School was built in St. John on Indianapolis Boulevard. In 2015, Lake Central School Corp. completed construction on its latest renovation in time to welcome 3,000 students back to school in its 850,000 square-foot building with 125 classrooms, eight science lab, a 50-meter indoor pool and amenities the students and teachers of Dyer High could not conceive of 50 years ago.
The 1944 graduating class had just 40 students, including Hilbrich, he said during a Tuesday night interview at a reunion committee meeting. The Schererville native recalled his high school days and his principal, Charles G. Hunt, a man who served in the military during World War I.
“He was a trainer of young men,” Hilbrich said of his principal. “He decided to train all of us who were going into the service, how to march. He marched us four abreast from Dyer High down Route 30 to the Lincoln Highway memorial seat. Can you imagine marching down Route 30 now?”
The march took place weekly, depending on the weather. “He’d look at the weather and let us know when. If you had a class that hour, you were out of that class,” Hilbrich said as he flashed the smile of a teenage boy who had been let off the hook a time or two. “That was 72 years ago. I’m the only one from my class who has come to the reunion in the last few years,” said Hilbrich. “Only four of us are still alive. One woman lives in West Virginia. The other two are in Northwest Indiana.”
Hilbrich also took some time at the committee meeting to chat with his first cousin, Maureen Fagen Miller, class of 1949. Fagen Miller now lives in Highland. Miller’s father and Hilbrich’s mother were siblings. Their parents were also graduates of Dyer High School.
Hilbrich said his father’s family immigrated to Northwest Indiana from Germany in 1847, before the town of Schererville was founded. The family initially had 40 acres in what is now Schererville, and eventually acquired more.
“The farm was not then a part of Schererville, but the land is now. A lot of the land has been sold. The property (that remains) has been in the Hilbrich name for 169 years,” Hilbrich said.
The original Hilbrich family home, a log cabin built in 1847, was relocated to Scherwood Park near Joliet Street.
“My parents graduated from Dyer High School in 1917,” Hilbrich said. He still has his mother’s yearbook, a handmade booklet tied together with a gold cord. “1917, that was the first year Dyer had a baseball team. There were finally nine boys in the high school.”
Three of the baseball team members were Hilbrich’s father, Roy, and Roy’s brothers Lawrence and Martin. There were six students in the graduating class of 1917 and two of those boys were the Hilbrich brothers, Roy and Lawrence. Roy was younger, but skipped a grade in elementary school. Together they would enlist in the military and attend officer training school at Notre Dame during World War I.
Fagen Miller, who played on Dyer High’s girls’ softball team, carries that memory with her every day.
“I was a pitcher for the softball team and a line drive came right back to me,” with a hearty laugh and a big smile she held up a crooked middle finger as evidence of the game day. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Though Dyer High was a small school, particularly when compared to the huge size of its descendant Lake Central High School, sports played an important role for the students.
According to Jerry Wozniewski, class of 1952, he and Jim Dinges, class of 1951, thought the first football team, assembled in 1948, deserved to be acknowledged.
Wozniewski, who was the co-editor of The Comet, the high school newspaper, said he is very pleased the team realized its goal of being inducted into the Lake Central Hall of Fame on Aug. 16, 2016. He and Dinges had T-shirts made featuring a photo of the team.
“Ken Meyer, who’s 91, and 15 other members of that team were at the ceremony,” said Wozniewski. “Other team members were represented by their family members.”
Wozniewski displayed a picture of the first football program and noted the price tag on it was 15 cents. “As poor as we were back then, everybody bought one,” Wozniewski said.
Wozniewski mentioned his wife, Ruth Dike Wozniewski, class of 1954, was also a co-editor of the Comet. They were high school sweethearts who married and had five children.
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“A lot of students married in the class,” Wozniewski said.
Hilbrich also married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Scheidt. “Our parents were friends and we all went on a fishing trip together in 1939,” Hilbrich said. “Mary and I took to each other. That was 77 years ago.”
Scheidt’s family also lived in Schererville, but she was a 1945 graduate of Bishop Noll. Due to gas rationing during World War II, transportation to school each day was difficult. Mary lived with her aunt and uncle in Hammond during the school week so she could take the city bus to school.
The couple has been married for 68 years and their family has grown to include19 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Hilbrich said he would marry Mary Scheidt all over again.
Nancy Coltun Webster is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.