Latin School of Chicago

"I came to Latin in 1948. After growing up in small towns, Chicago was like a foreign country to me. I wasn't able to enroll in the school until after the year had started and on the first day, I didn't have my uniform yet so I had to come to school in a black, velvet party dress. If that wasn't enough, I was assigned the unenviable job of class treasurer. My right eye was crossed, I was very pale with fine blondish-reddish hair and I spoke with a Canadian accent. But despite all that I had a wonderful time. I felt accepted by everybody in my class and I quickly made friends. How could you not love a school where you have that kind of experience?" — Doreen Conrad '56 by two to Michigan Avenue and north a few blocks to an empty lot where we played field hockey. "I served on the Student Council. Our biggest problem was girls returning from the lunch break wearing lipstick. The standard punishment was an hour in the library shelving books back in their proper place. There were countless ways girls could be out of uniform - earrings, hair ribbons, heels. Friday was assembly day when we collected in the room where we played basketball and listened to announcements by our principal, Miss Singleton. We were at times entertained by a classmate playing the xylophone, reciting poetry, singing or reading a composition. We ended assembly by standing and singing our school song." 1937 Middle School Council. The girls school also differed somewhat from the boys school when it came to the expectations for manners and dress. For an article in the Summer 1990 Latin School Bulletin, Bonnie-Jean Fetridge '33 remembered bygone days of dignified propriety. "We put on our best manners when we spoke to Miss Vickery, for example. We did a curtsy and said, 'Good afternoon, Miss Vickery.' When teachers came into the classroom we always stood. When they left the classroom we always stood." (Bonnie-Jean's son Clark Fetridge '65, who began at Latin in 1959, experienced a much more relaxed atmosphere after the schools merged.) Latin School belonged to the American Posture League until the late '60s, and the girls were given points for posture in gym class. "When you received a certain number of points you could earn a bronze pin, and we wore it on our tie," said Fetridge. "It was a picture of an Indian standing straight and tall. Then if you continued to get more points you got the silver posture pin." At the end of the year, all silver pin winners competed in the Posture Walk. The girl with the best posture won a gold pin. "I won it in the eighth grade and my freshman year," Fetridge recalled. While Fetridge was proud of her achievements in posture, others were not as enthused about having their posture monitored on a daily basis. "The physical education teacher, Miss Price, would walk around the school, clipboard in hand, and peak in the classrooms to inspect the girls' posture," said Sallie Eichengreen Gratch '53. "All of a sudden the girls would shift upright in their seats, and you knew Miss Price was at the door, and we'd been found out!" Dance card from 1913. Girls spent an hour in the library shelving books if they returned from lunch wearing lipstick. LATI N SCHOOL OF CHI CA GO 45

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