Checker Cabs and Disappearing Schools on the East Side

Sometimes you just see weird things in Flint. Here's an old Checker Cab that's for sale parked on the grassy divider of Broadway Blvd. In the background you can see — or not see — the spot where Homedale School used to reside. That's the abandoned Brown's Funeral Home in the distance.

Flint Photos: Homedale Park?

This mini park, for lack of a better term, was once home to Homedale School, a victim of the Flint arson spree. Gerry Godin, creator of the All Things Buick blog, shot this from the corner of Davison Rd. and Iowa Ave. today.

Flint Photos: Homedale School Demolition

Homedale School: Past and Present

Homedale School on the East Side as it looked in its early days.

The school fell victim to arson in September. A post-fire photo by John Ehlke of The Flint Journal.

A series of shots taken on Sunday by Duane Gilles, who grew up nearby on Delaware Avenue.

Homedale Elementary School, R.I.P.

It appears the arson spree in Flint has finally claimed Homedale Elementary School. Kristen Longley of The Flint Journal reports:

An early morning fire has destroyed the former Homedale Elementary school, fire officials said. Flint firefighters were called to the vacant school at the corner of Davison Road and Iowa Avenue at about 3:30 a.m. today to find the building engulfed in fire with flames shooting through the roof, Flint Battalion Chief Theresa Root said. The second and third stories collapsed into the basement, she said. The building will be monitored 24/7 by a security team until it can be torn down because of a possibility more walls could collapse, she said.

Go here for video of the fire on ABC.

Here's a moving tribute to Homedale, where my mom attended grade school, that ran on Flint Expatriates on October 7, 2008.

Flint’s Homedale elementary as it appeared from the corner of Davison Road and Olive Avenue in 1940. The west playground (foreground) was used for gym classes that featured soccer, 25 yard dashes, occasional softball and kickball games and after school marble tourneys. Evenings and all summer long the playground was the site of highly competitive neighborhood softball games. The east playground (not shown) was reserved for the younger children who spent recesses playing jump-rope and tag. The east playground did have some small hills where, during the winters, boys learned to ski – without skis. Those hills also served as “bunny hills” in preparation for sledding at the Kearsley Park hill.

A Flint Expatriate Returns to Homedale School
By John Mennear

On the first Tuesday of September, 1940 my mom adjusted my brand new clothes, slicked my hair, and walked me to my first day of formal education – kindergarten at Flint’s Homedale School. Homedale was already an east-side institution. My own mom and dad had received their elementary educations there and now my older cousins were enrolled. But on that particular day, despite parental enthusiasm about my going to school (enthusiasm I was certain was faked for my benefit) I was not ready for academe. Oh sure, they had regaled me with how much fun it was going to be. I would meet new friends and learn to read. Nonetheless, it all seemed a terrible plot to be rid of me. Hadn’t I heard stories about a little fellow who had been put in an orphanage? What a dreadful existence he had endured! What was going to happen to me if I entered that big red brick building?

That first day was hard on mother too. With other apprehensive moms she watched through a classroom window in the hall as the little ruffians, most just as frightened as I, discovered the wealth of toys at our disposal. Oh, the joy! But wait just a second, hadn’t that little wooden boy with the long nose been duped into thinking Pleasure Island was a fun place too?

Eventually, although my vision was blurred by tears, I spied the most glorious apparatus any boy could hope to see. I had never before seen one and only later did I learn that it was called the jungle gym. Of course, to me it was a jungle Jim which made no sense but that first glimpse was all I needed to get the day and, therefore, my entire academic career, off on the right foot.

In June of 1947 I took my leave from Homedale to attend Lowell Jr. High then in later years, Flint Central. Going back to visit Homedale seldom crossed my mind and today I regret to say that it took me 55 years to actually do it. And I’m glad I finally did it before it was too late.

When I re-entered the old school in 2002, I was stunned to see the same shiny oaken floors I had first trod in 1940. Why, could it be true that I even smelled the aroma of the sweeping compound janitors had spread on the floor each day at the close of classes?

A Homedale hallway in 2002. Note the gleaming oak wood floors. What a magnificent job of caring for School Board property. The lockers had been added since 1940 but the ceiling lights appear to be the same ones that lit the way for the author during the 1940 school year.

In 1940 Homedale had a wonderful auditorium where the sixth graders put on their annual spring play and the entire school participated in the Christmas show. Yes friends, we dared to call it a Christmas show in those days.

Every Homedale kid took, for 2 or 3 years, a class called auditorium. There, each week, we were obliged to step on to that stage and recite a poem, sing a song or give a dramatic reading. Looking back at the experience I know it was one of the most valuable classes I ever took — and I was only 10 years old! Thank you Mrs. Peak.
 
The auditorium was still there in 2002, exactly where I had left it, but it was not nearly as large as I recalled. But still, had I been blindfolded and dropped into one of the seats, a single glimpse would have let me know exactly where I was.

The Homedale auditorium in 2002. During an earlier era Homedale students were entertained by Sergeant Wilburn Lagree, the “Singing Cop” and his accordion playing side-kick Don. Flint’s Attic Players, a group of amateur adult actors also used the auditorium as their home stage.

Homedale’s gymnasium was a special place for the east side kids. During World War II, when both moms and dads worked at the Buick, Chevy or AC, we were allowed to enter the gym before school opened so we could play dodge-ball. The daily games in that well-warmed gymnasium assured that every boy would begin the school day with sweat-moistened shirts and sweaters. Gosh, we must have been a smelly gang by the end of the day. Unfortunately, during my visit the gym was no longer in use and it had been locked for years.

Tommy Ing was the all time best player who ever blistered my hide in a game of dodge ball. Tommy was a 5th or 6th grader and we adoring younger kids were terrified when he had the ball. Mrs. Schwartz ran the gym and in retrospect it’s too bad I never thought to thank her for letting us come to school early so Tommy could raise those glorious red welts on our skin by hitting us with that dodge-ball.

In 1940 the only student restrooms were in the basement. Each class, at its appointed time would line up — boys in one line, girls in another — twist imaginary keys to lock our lips for “quiet’s sake,” and proceed to the basement. During my 2002 visit I watched another generation of boys and girls, in their own lines, walking quietly through the halls, on their way to the rest rooms in the basement. I wonder if they will remember those walks when they are seventy years old.

Homedale boys lined up and waiting to return to their classroom after their visit to the restroom. Except for the fact that these boys wore sneakers, the scene was a near perfect throw-back to what went on a half century earlier.

In 2004 I returned for yet another visit and although it was the middle of the school year, the parking lot was empty and the doors were locked. In fact, the old place looked dreadfully forlorn. The building was deserted, windows were covered, the grass needed cutting.

The east side of Homedale School. Evidence of a parking lot that took over the east playground. Covered windows that used to look into the gymnasium where Tommy Ing reined as dodge-ball champion.

I roamed the grounds and came upon one last memento of a time gone by. Mrs. Coates had been Principal of Homedale when my own mom and dad were students there and she continued doing her job when I passed through. There still exists a small plaque laid on the Davison Road side grounds of the school in her honor.

Paint spattered and overgrown with weeds, the stone and plaque honoring the service of Mrs. Coates, Principal of Homedale School.

When I returned to my North Carolina home I searched the internet to find the status of Homedale. Because of declining enrollment this east-side institution has been closed. The building looks (to my untrained and nostalgic eye) pretty sound. I wonder if anyone will take it over and give it a second incarnation.

As an avid viewer of HGTV shows like Homes Across America, If Walls Could Talk, and Restoring America, I can only hope that one day I’ll see my old school converted to condos, or apartments, or even a fabulous one family home (as I had fantasized about back during the 1940s). Mr. Restoration man, if you are out there please hurry – time is fleeting.

One last view of Homedale School from Davison Road. What a fabulous place it was. Here’s hoping it can rise again to a new incarnation.

Flint Portraits: Wilburn LeGree

After numerous requests, I'm re-posting this from April 13, 2008:

All this talk of Homedale Elementary reminded my mom of Wilburn LeGree, "The Singing Cop" who used to visit schools all over Flint. She can still sing LeGree's classic ditties like "The Boys of the Safety Patrol" and "When You Cross the Street."

The State Bar of Michigan presented LeGree its Liberty Bell Award in 1999 and provided this biography:

"LeGree's career as the "Singing Cop" began in 1938 after a rise in rates of children being struck and killed by vehicles. LeGree was assigned to develop a school safety program and incorporate something that would grasp the children's attention -- music. The chief of police overheard LeGree singing and decided to put LeGree's talents to work.

"LeGree and his wife wrote words to popular musical tunes about obeying the law, safety in all situations and seeing police officers as friends. He visited hundreds of schools and sang his songs to children. Before he stopped counting, he estimated that he had performed safety songs to 25,000 students over a four-year period.

"LeGree's songs have been used in 46 states across the country as well as schools in Germany, Australia and New Zealand."

Wild west auction

The former home of Roy "Gypsy Jack" Steffenson Jr., a local legend who lived in the wild west shrine at 1458 Davison Road across from Homedale Elementary for more than three decades, has landed on eBay.

The opening bid is $2,000.

UPDATE: An annonymous reader writes: "Whoever owns poor old Gypsy Jack's home now owes more than $600 US plus penalties in taxes to the city. I drove past the home just a week ago, and it's seen its better days. The photo posted here makes it look so much better, almost when Roy was alive. I would not be surprised if the building was currently condemmed."

Go here for the City of Flint property tax and ownership information on the house.

If anyone in Flint has the time and the inclination, I'd love to be able to post some current photos of the house. Email them to me if you have them. Thanks.

UPDATE: The auction is now complete. Final sale price: $3,050.

The gangs of Flint

There's no doubt you'd be terrified if you saw this gang of toughs coming for you on the mean streets of Flint in 1972.

From left to Right: Gordie Young, offering the same insolent look that caused him so much trouble with the nuns; Marcus Mahan, a Flint cop, last I heard; Charlotte "Becky" Mason, looking very stylish; and Todd, whose last name I can't remember, making the striped-shirt work for him. My dog, Hubie, is in front, most likely scanning the horizon for female dogs. All of us, excluding Hubie, attended Daniel O'Sullivan/St. Mike's at the time.

We're in the well-manicured backyard of my grandparent's house on Illinois Avenue, which is a reminder of how meticulous parts of Flint used to be. You can see a corner of Homedale Elementary in the background.

Homedale Elementary and the Wild West

UPDATE: Readers have written in to the comment section with more information on the Wild West house. It was owned by Roy "Gypsy Jack" Steffenson Jr., a local legend who lived in the cowboy shrine on Davison Road near Olive Avenue for more than two decades. He clearly was not a hippie, but when I met him as a kid I was prone to throw anyone with a beard into that category. He inspired a song by The Travelin' Bluesman, "a track in which the Bluesman describes his relationship with Flint legend Gypsy Jack, a person he credits talking him out of doing something that would have ruined his life forever." (And it's not about taking a job at GM.) The album cover just might be a photo of Gypsy Jack's house, but I'm not sure. NBC's "Real People" show may have profiled him as well. Gypsy Jack reportedly died on September 8, 2003. Sadly, his house appears to have been abandoned and picked over by looters.

There's more information in the Comment section for this post, including some memories on the East Side's infamous Adolf Moses.

Anyone with more details or a photo of Gypsy Jack should feel free to pass it along.

Homedale Elementary School Class of 1973

Homedale Elementary School Class of 1974

I guess I shouldn't be surprised anymore when I hear about another place that means something to me in Flint getting shut down and left to rot, but I was still depressed to learn that Homedale Elementary School is closed.

My grandparents lived nearby on Illinois Avenue. My mom attended Homedale before moving on to Whittier and then Central. I went to pre-kindergarten at Homedale for a few months when we were all living at my grandparents' place before moving to a house near Bassett Park.

I remember there was a big house near the school — perhaps on Olive Avenue near Davison Road — that had been transformed into a sort of Wild West museum by two hippies who owned the place. Now were they actually hippies? All I know is that they had huge beards and long hair, which was not a look my Grandmother McFarlane — who grew up on a 40-acre farm in Maple Leaf, Iowa, during the depression — would take a liking to.

One day grandma and I were walking past the house after a visit to the Homedale playground, and one of the hippie dudes was out in the yard, near the covered wagon they'd installed. My grandma struck up a conversation, complimenting him on the house. When he invited us inside, I was stunned when she said yes.

It seemed like the weirdest place in the world to me. There were wagon wheels and all kinds of other cowboy/wild west paraphernalia everywhere. These guys didn't just have a few things scattered around; the house looked like the prop room for a Sam Peckinpah picture. The hippie took us down to the basement and, as I clutched grandma's hand, revealed a built-in replica of a frontier jail, complete with a mannequin dressed as a sheriff and outlaw dummy in a small cell. (Of course, I now realize there must have been a lot of pot smoked down in that basement.)

Very strange, and mildly terrifying...but amazingly cool! And we made it out alive. On the way home grandma remarked, "Those fellows have too much time on their hands."

I hunted around for some material on Homedale, and I came across a website by a Flintoid now living in Arkansas named Kevin Watkins. He attended Homedale from 1970-1976, and his mother, Wanda Watkins, was one of the playground teachers there for several years. He posted the class photos above and the shot of the auditorium below. (Click on the class photos to enlarge them; several names are handwritten on the photos.) He asks for more information on Homedale, but my email to him got bounced back.

No idea what happened to Kevin Watkins or the Wild West boys of Olive Avenue.

Homedale Elementary School Auditorium

Homedale Faculty in the early '70s

• Mr. Walter Behm, Principal
• Mr. Gary Sullenger, Community School Director
• Mrs. Finch, Secretary
• 6th Grade - Mrs. Carpenter, Mr Field, Miss Porter, Mrs. Patten
• 5th Grade - Mr. Bonno, Mr. Ervin, Mrs. Graham
• 4th Grade - Mrs. Cleveland, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Princing
• 3rd Grade - Mrs. Converso, Mrs. Harrington, Mrs. Robart, Mrs. Leflore
• 2nd Grade - Miss Green, Mrs. Pagel, Mrs. Tucker, Mrs. Ghattas
• 1st Grade - Mrs. Bader, Mrs. Hanley, Mrs. Weatherhead
• Kindergarten - Mrs. Helber, Mrs. Keedle, Mrs. Hans, Mrs. Geiger
  Other faculty: Miss Berden, Mrs. Guerin, Mrs.Katzenberger, Mr. Langley, Mrs. MacKinnon, Mrs. Ray, Mrs. Riggs, Mrs Ryan, Mrs. Benjamin, Mrs. Jarvis, Mrs. Taylor, Mr. Bill Hubbard, Mrs. Linda Munoz, Mr. joe Munoz, Mr. David Dobin.

Civic decay

The former Lowell Middle School sits empty on the East Side. Photo via Jeana-Dee Allen/The Flint Journal.

Some of Flint's biggest eyesores — including Whaley Pool and Homedale Elementary School — are owned by city entities. Joe Lawlor of The Flint Journal reports:

"Throughout Flint, there are at least 17 examples in which public entities -- including Hurley, the city and the Flint School District -- have abandoned buildings they own, a Flint Journal analysis found through a review of property records, a visual inspection of the properties and talking to neighbors.

"In many cases, those buildings are now dilapidated shells, only shadows of the structures they once were. All have been abandoned in the past dozen or so years.

"Myron Orfield, president of Ameregis, a Minnesota-based think tank that examines urban and suburban issues, said problems can worsen in city neighborhoods that experience dilapidated, closed schools or vacant homes that are left to decay.

"'When neighborhoods go into general disrepair, it accentuates people's general bad feelings,'Orfield said."