Kingswood School Cranbrook - Woodwinds Yearbook (Bloomfield Hills, MI)

Page 38 text:

GRAMPA WARD Grampa Ward was a janitor. Everyone in the school and vicinity called him Grampa Ward. No one knew exactly why, and no one cared. He had always been called Grampa Ward and that seemed sufficient reason. Being the only janitor in a rural school with eight grades and six teachers is no small task. It is a job that calls for someone who is capable of doing anything the occasion demands. Grampa Ward s job was a yearly one. During the summer the lawn was always in trim shape, and the school beamed with cleanliness and new paint in the fall. I never knew exactly what else he did in the summer time, but when lunch buckets and books were again brought out he was to be found at die school door smiling cheerfully at all who greeted him, and giving an affectionate pat and word to those so small first graders to whom the world had become so empty and full all at once. Never was there a busier man than Grampa Ward. It was he who after some P. T. A. meet- ing or social gathering at the school went around to see that all the classroom clocks were wound, the doors locked, and the lights out. It was he who took the place of the starched and stiff nurse, now found in schools, when someone had a headache or scratch on the knee. No matter how large or small the ailment, there was always relief in Grampa Ward’s first aid box and sympathy. Tending the furnace, cleaninc the classrooms, burning the garbage, and oiling the floors were a matter of routine in his life. The countless other favors he did for people he did quietly and inconspicuously. One was never conscious that he was hurried or rushed in any way. I believe very few people realized for that reason the tremendous total of tilings he accomplished daily. When the early part of June came around, the eighth grade that was to graduate began to count the gains and losses graduation day would bring. You can be sure they sincerely felt what a hard life they were going to lead in high school when they had no Grampa Ward on whom to heap all their joys and sorrows. But youngsters arc fickle, and on graduation night when they left school with hopes for the future making their eyes sparkle, I wonder how many of them thought about Grampa Ward who was still at school seeing the clocks were wound, the doors locked, and the lights out. Barbara Pfohl SPRING HOUSE-CLEANING In THE spring a housewife’s fancy seriously turns to thoughts of house-cleaning. I hope my reader does not object to the slight variation of Tennyson’s famous lines. This domestic purification seems to me one of the necessary evils that accompanies the joyous spring season. Books and rugs must be removed while that remote bit ofi dust that has been hibernating all winter in some far comer is finally whisked brutally away. Windows must be immodestly stripped of adornment and remain in this uncomfortable state until their only suit of clothing returns from the laundry. We find elegant living room pieces mixing democratically with step ladders and work benches. Dining room, sun room, and library furniture all congregate in the hallway for their annual reunion. When pictures come down, the walls become sullen. The whole house takes on a gloomy air like the morning after. However, it is not long before everything comes back to normal. The home is thoroughly revivified and greets a gay spring with freshness and vitality. It is like the girl who, after she has removed the messy grease from her face and let down her hair from tight curlers, can go to the party confident that her beauty is decidedly enhanced. M Harriet Cooper