Latin School of Chicago

Headmistress Elizabeth Singleton. "She was a remarkable educator and person. She strived always to be fair in her relationships with each segment of the school community. She supported her faculty, gently guided her students who regarded her with respect and maintained cordial relationships with the parents." — Betty Vilas Hedblom '36 If not for the Depression, Latin might be located in Roscoe Village at California and Addison streets. 38 Meanwhile in the girls school, Mabel Slade Vickery's long tenure came to an end in 1929 after 41 years. Elizabeth Singleton, who had taught history at the Brearly School for Girls in New York, became the girls' new headmistress, and a bond of $350,000 was issued to the Chicago Latin School Association to purchase the property at 59 E. Scott St. from Miss Vickery. The dedication in the 1930 Rostra (the girls school yearbook) described Miss Singleton as having "charm of manner, fairness of judgment and strength of purpose." Betty Vilas Hedblom '36 later wrote of Singleton: "She was a remarkable educator and person. She strived always to be fair in her relationships with each segment of the school community. She supported her faculty, gently guided her students who regarded her with respect and maintained cordial relationships with the parents. The excellent curricular standards she brought with her provided the girls school students with an education second to none." Also in 1929, Kersey Coats Reed died. Reed had been a long-time patron who was instrumental in reorganizing the school under parent leadership when Miss Vickery and Mr. Bates announced their retirement plans. Through a gift to the school in his memory made by Mrs. Kersey Coates Reed and Mrs. Charles Schweppe (her sister), Latin was able L AT I N M AGAZINE to purchase property at the corner of Addison and California in 1930; this became known as the Kersey Coates Reed Campus. For the next 20 years, the space was home to Latin's athletic program, including a fieldhouse, tennis courts and playing fields. (More in the athletics section.) According to the 90th Anniversary Celebration Book, the board of trustees had grand plans for the property, including moving the upper school to the nine-acre plot and making it a country day school that would eventually offer some boarding, particularly "to take care of those boys whose parents hibernate in the south." The board of the girls school also had extensive plans for improvements, including adding a separate building for the kindergarten and primary departments as well as space for an auditorium and assembly hall. As Chicago began to feel the impact of the Great Depression, however, these plans took a back seat to more urgent needs. Financial Challenges Chicago was one the cities hardest hit by the Great Depression because of its reliance on manufacturing. Seven hundred thousand Chicagoans were unemployed, and city workers including teachers were paid with a kind of promissory note called a scrip for months on end.

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