Mrs. Mary Buyer, Parochial School Teacher

 

Mary E. McGoldric (sometimes spelled McGoldrick) was born in Sandusky in 1843, to Irish immigrants, John and Ann McGoldric. Mary’s father and several siblings died in the Cholera epidemic of 1849. 

In 1866, Mary McGoldric married Anthony Buyer. Sadly he died in 1868. They had a daughter, Mary Buyer, who was the second wife of Charles J. Krupp, a local undertaker. In her later years, she lived at 404 Wayne Street with her daughter and son in law, Mrs. and Mrs. Charles J. Krupp. (this house was once the home of the Oran Follett family, and now is open to the public as a museum.)

An article in the August 10, 1929 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that Mary McGoldric Buyer had been a pioneer teacher in the parochial schools. She taught at St. Vincent’s School in Akron, Saints Peter and Paul boys’ school in Sandusky, and at St. Anthony’s School in Milan, Ohio. In 1898, Mrs. Buyer retired from teaching.

Mary Buyer died at home in 1929 and was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery.

 

C.S. Coler, Educator

Cyphrian Seymour Coler, often known as “Professor,” was the Principal of Sandusky High School from 1892 to 1897. He was born in Morgan County, Ohio in 1858. He put himself through college by working as a coach and tutor, earning degrees from Ohio University and Ohio State University, and later studied at Johns Hopkins University. After working for a time as an investment agent, he returned to the field of education. While in Sandusky, C.S. Coler and his family lived on Fulton Street. Professor Coler was a popular speaker at Teachers’ and Farmers’ Institutes. 

This is a portion of an address he gave at Sandusky High school in January of 1894:

In 1897, he wrote a book entitled Character Building: A Book for Teachers and Parents.

His book was based on several speeches he had given during his career as an educator. The full text of the book is available  at the Hathi Trust. The first chapter began with a discussion of discipline.

In 1897, Professor Coler moved to Upper Sandusky to be the principal of the public high school in that community. Eventually he moved to Coshocton County, Ohio, where he died in 1944 at the age of 85. He was buried in the Deerfield Cemetery in Morgan County, Ohio.

James Ross, Educator and Author

From 1916 to 1933, James Ross was a history teacher at Sandusky High School. For several of those years, he also served as the faculty treasurer of the athletic department. Prior to moving to Sandusky, Ohio, Mr. Ross had been an educational administrator at West Chester Schools, Adams Township Schools in Champaign County, and Fort Recovery Schools in Mercer County, Ohio. An excerpt from History of Mercer County, Ohio (Biographical Publishing Co., 1907) had the following description:

Mr. Ross is not only a superintendent of marked executive ability and good judgment, but a teacher of force and power. He makes no radical change but lays a firm foundation and then progresses. Unassuming in his ways he has the ability, by his devoted, unselfish interest in his pupils, to inspire them with noble ideals and to keep them firmly as friends of the school, and through the pupils he seldom fails to reach the parent. He is an educator in the highest sense of the word.

An article in the December 21, 1940 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal stated that it was largely through the efforts of Mr. Ross that when Sandusky High played Findlay High School’s football team on Thanksgiving Day in 1925, it was the largest crowd that ever attended an SHS football game up to that point in the school’s history. 

In 1930, Mr. Ross wrote a book, The Heart of Democracy: The American Public Schools. An autographed copy of this title is now in the collections of the Follett House Museum.

The Sandusky Register of February 15, 1931 published excerpts of several positive reviews of the book, which had gained national attention. E.J. Jensen, field secretary of Adelbert College, said “It’s the first ‘meaty’ book on education that I have read with a feeling of intense enjoyment instead of from a sense of duty. Its style is so lucid and entertaining that it should have a very widespread appeal.” 

After his retirement in 1933, Mr. Ross and his wife Winnie moved to Brooklyn, New York, living with a son. Mr. Ross died on December 14, 1940. Funeral services were held at a Brooklyn crematory, and his ashes were taken to Fort Recovery, Ohio for burial.

A Teacher's Notebook

Lora A. Bing, who resided at 804 Mills Street in the early twentieth century, was a teacher in the Perkins and Margaretta Schools in 1901 and 1902. (Her brother was George J. Bing, a carriage maker in Sandusky in the early 1900s, the subject of a previous blog post.) In the Schools Collection of the Follett House Museum, is a notebook that Miss Bing used at that time. Most likely she taught a variety of subjects to her students. 

Here is a page from Miss Bing’s notebook which covers highlights of the various Presidents of the United States. Her notes end with the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the current President at the time of her writing.

This description of a “Peculiar Sunset” was dated September 15, 1902:

This page has prompts for students, which provided the youngsters with suggestions for their writing assignment.

In this “tense tree,” the teacher describes various examples of past, present and future tense.

After Lora Bing married Paul Retzke in 1907, the couple moved to Toledo, Ohio, where she became a teacher in the Toledo Public Schools. 

Our Wild Animals by Edwin Lincoln Moseley

Edwin Lincoln Moseley, a former teacher at Sandusky High School, was a prolific scholar and writer on science and nature. One of his books, Our Wild Animals, was published in 1927. A copy of this title is in the Local Authors collection of the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

The text was aimed at upper elementary students, and was promoted by the Boys’ Life magazine. A theme of the book was that Professor Moseley felt that all people show an interest in animals simply because they too are living beings.  

Many other photographs and drawings were used to illustrate the book, which was over three hundred pages long. Professor Moseley pointed out in chapter two that squirrels were good at hiding, yet were strong enough to make long leaps. He wrote about the tail of a squirrel serving as parachute, to prevent a fall, but also as a rudder, to guide its course. 

Sandusky photographer Ernst Niebergall took the photograph of the squirrel found in the introduction. 

He detailed the anatomy, habitat, diet, and habits of many different wild animals common in the United States, including several types of rats and mice. He stated that “Wherever man has settled these animals have followed.”  Moseley wrote that house mice are less intelligent than rats, but that “they often match their wits successfully against the devices of the housewife who would get rid of them.”  

In chapter fourteen, he wrote about the rabbit, whose life depends on its coat blending in with its surroundings, and the ability to run fast when necessary.  He commented that rabbits were even seen on the courthouse lawn and high school grounds in Sandusky, Ohio. 

Professor Moseley’s book has a total of thirty chapters, each focusing on a different animal or group of animals that people were likely to run into on a walk through the woods. He relied on his own experiences as an observer of nature and his knowledge of books already written on animals and nature. In the chapter on skunks, Moseley told about an orphaned skunk found in a haymow near Toledo which was adopted and raised by a cat. 

A biographical sketch about Edwin Lincoln Moseley in, The Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists, (Greenwood Press, 1997), read in part, “A truly devoted teacher who received overwhelming loyalty from his students, he pioneered in the teaching of natural science by the experimental method in the field.” Our Wild Animals is still found in libraries and colleges all across the United States. Visit the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center if you would like to view this classic text by a former Sandusky educator. You can see photographs of Professor Moseley and his museum at Sandusky High School at a previous blog post on this site.

Miss Lelia Bittikofer, Sandusky High School Teacher

Miss Lelia Bittikofer was born in Crawford County, Ohio in 1899, to J.W. and Sarah Bittikofer. She was a 1916 graduate of Bucyrus High School, and a 1920 graduate of Heidelberg College. After teaching school in Valley City and Shelby, Ohio, she moved to Sandusky, Ohio about 1923. For over thirty years Miss Bittikofer taught general science and biology at Sandusky High School. She served as head of the Science Department for several years, and was chairman of the Scholarship Fund Committee from 1950 until her retirement in 1960. 

Besides being a well respected teacher at Sandusky High School, Lelia Bittikofer was active in her community as well. She was a member of the Garden Club, the College Women’s Club, and she led the choir at the First Reformed Church in Sandusky. Miss Bittikofer is on the right in the front row of the picture of the Sandusky High School faculty, taken about 1940.

The faculty section of the 1960 Fram was dedicated to Miss Bittikofer.

 

After her retirement from Sandusky High School, Miss Lelia Bittikofer moved to Crawford County, Ohio. She passed away on March 4, 1992, at the Heartland of Bucyrus. She was buried at Union Cemetery in Sulphur Springs, Crawford County, Ohio

Victor S. Malinovsky, Coach and Educator

Victor S. Malinovsky was born in 1917 to Mr. and Mrs. Simon Malinovsky, who were both natives of Czechoslovakia. He grew up in Lorain County, Ohio. Victor, known often as “Vic,” was a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, where he played on the football team. He earned his Master’s Degree from Western Reserve University. During World War II, he earned the Purple Heart as a result of his service with the U.S. Marines in the Solomon Islands. 

During the academic year of 1945-1946, Vic Malinovsky was the head basketball coach of Sandusky High School. In his first year of coaching the basketball team, their record was 17 wins and 5 losses. Below is a picture of Coach Malinovsky and the varsity basketball team from the 1945-46 school year.

An article in the Toledo Blade of April 14, 1947 reported that Victor Malinovsky became the head coach of both Sandusky High School’s football and basketball teams, but in March of 1948, he resigned as head football coach to devote his time to coaching the basketball team. He coached basketball through the 1951-1952 school year. In 1952, Mr. Malinovsky taught Social Studies and was Sandusky High’s Athletic Director. By his last year with Sandusky, he was Assistant Principal and Athletic Director. 

At the age of 42, Vic Malinovsky died on July 1, 1959, following a lengthy battle with cancer. Sandusky High School’s Victor Malinovsky Award is presented annually to a senior boy who has demonstrated academic excellence, athletic prowess, citizenship sensitivity, leadership, and character. The 1960 Sandusky High School, the Fram, was dedicated to the memory of Victor S. Malinovsky.

Poems of Eternal Value by Elizabeth Browning Kelham

 

Elizabeth Browning Kelham was born in 1893 to William and Sarah (Durkee) Kelham of Sandusky, Ohio. She graduated from Sandusky High School in 1913. Miss Kelham was a teacher with the Sandusky City Schools for thirty-seven years. In the 1930s, Miss Kelham taught classes for visually impaired students at Barker School. She made soup or cocoa for the students to have with their lunches during the cold weather months, according to an article in the Sandusky Star Journal.

In 1939 she wrote a book entitled Poems of Eternal Value. It was dedicated to her mother Sarah D. Kelham, and in memory of her father, William R. Kelham. The small book was printed by the Stutz Printing Co. of Sandusky, Ohio. The poems were inspirational, with topics such as faith, peace, friendship, and prayer.

Miss Elizabeth B. Kelham lived until the age of 90. She died in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and was buried at Sandusky’s Oakland Cemetery. Below is a picture of the Sandusky High School Bible Class from 1911-1912, of which Elizabeth Kelham was a member.

Miss Jessie Wilcox, Cultural Leader

Jessie Martha Wilcox was born in Sandusky, Ohio in April of 1861, the same week that the Civil War broke out in the United States. Her parents were Rollin M. Wilcox and the former Martha Ellen Newton. For many years, Jessie’s father was a partner in the R.M. and C.B. Wilcox Company, a popular department store in downtown Sandusky. 

When Jessie was just a toddler, her mother Martha passed away at age 28. 

Jessie graduated from Sandusky High School on June 27, 1879; her niece, Esther Sloane Curtis, donated her aunt's high school diploma to the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center. 

In 1884, she graduated from Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After graduation, she taught school in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, before moving back to her hometown of Sandusky, where she also taught school. 

From 1904 to 1937, Miss Wilcox was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Sandusky Library, serving for a time as President of the Board. She was also a member of the Nineteenth Century Club, the Martha Pitkin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and Trinity United Methodist Church. 

On August 12, 1937, Jessie Wilcox died suddenly at her home on Franklin Street in Sandusky. Funeral services were held at the home of Jessie’s niece, Mrs. Worth Curtis, with the Rev. Roy Smith of Trinity Methodist Church officiating. Burial was at Oakland Cemetery. An obituary in the August 12, 1937 issue of the Sandusky Star Journal reported that Jessie had been one of the area’s most prominent women, and she had been a leader in the cultural life of Sandusky. The Sandusky Library closed from 2:30 to 3:30 on Saturday, August 14, 1937, during the funeral service, in honor of her many years of service to the Library.

Miss Jennie Lewis, Latin Teacher

A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, Jennie Lewis taught Latin classes at Sandusky High School from 1907 to 1923. In 1911, Miss Lewis was also an adviser to a girls’ Bible study group in Sandusky.

In the 1930s and 40s, Miss Lewis taught Latin at Toledo Scott High School. By 1958, she had retired from teaching and was residing at Lakeside, Ohio. According to an article in the October 6, 1959 issue of the Sandusky Register, she was the speaker at a monthly meeting of the Women’s Fellowship of the First Congregational Church. She spoke about her recent trip to Africa, where she participated in two safaris. 

Miss Jennie Lewis never lost her passion for learning. While in Africa, she met and talked with Dr. Albert Schweitzer. She died on January 10, 1961, at the age of eighty, and she was buried in the family lot at the Cheshire Cemetery in Delaware County, Ohio.

Miss Ellen Lehman, Teacher

Ellen M. Lehman was born in 1907, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Franklin Lehman. Miss Lehman graduated from Sandusky High School in 1924. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College, and her Master of Arts degree from Columbia University. Miss Lehman also studied at Western Reserve University, the University of Paris, the University of Lausanne, the National University of Mexico and Middlebury College.

At Sandusky High School, Miss Lehman taught French classes, and she also was head of the foreign language department. In 1938, she was the faculty sponsor for the Girls Photography Club, and later served as a guidance counselor. In a 1926 Sandusky Register column, “Teen Talk,” Miss Lehman gave advice to students who intended to go to college. She stated that younger students should research their prospective fields of study, while older students should concentrate on the reality of financing their education.

On July 19, 1985, Miss Ellen Lehman passed away after a lengthy illness. She had no known survivors. An obituary appeared in the July 21, 1985 issue of the Sandusky Register, and listed many of Miss Lehman’s accomplishments. She had been a Jennings Scholar in 1967-1968, and won a Register Community Service Award in 1970. She was a member of Christ Episcopal Church, member and past president of the College Women’s Club, a member of the American Association of University Women, Zonta International, the Art Study Club, the Erie County Board of Mental Health, and the Huron Library Board. She was also a charter member of the Sandusky Cultural Center board and life member of the Ohio Association of College Admission Advisers.

Here is Ellen Lehman (third from right) with a group of people at a French Club picnic:

Job Fish Taught School in Erie County for 53 Years

Job Fish was born in Niagara County, New York, in 1828, to Elias Fish and the former Betsy Van Wagner. He traced his Quaker ancestors back to Thomas Fish, who resided in Rhode Island in the 1640s. Elias Fish and his family moved to Geauga County, Ohio in 1843, where Job attended the local schools. Two of his teachers were Joseph W. Gray, the founder of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and his older brother Charles Fish, an attorney in Cleveland. 

The young Job Fish worked as a driver on the towpath of the Erie Canal in the summer of 1843. He attended the Western Reserve Seminary in 1845 and 1846, and Dr. Lord’s school in Kirtland in 1846 and 1847. Later he studied law at the law office of his brother Charles. When he was 17, he started his own debating school. In 1848 and 1849, Fish began giving lectures in various towns in northern Ohio. He settled in Erie County in 1854, and he taught in the county for over fifty years. 

Hewson Peeke provided a listing of the schools where Job Fish taught in his book A Standard History of Erie County (Lewis Publishing Co., 1916.)

Mr. Fish also conducted sessions for the training of teachers.

An article about Job Fish in the Firelands Pioneer began with the sentence, “No one has exercised in Erie County a larger influence as a teacher than the venerable Job Fish.” The author said of Mr. Fish, “All his life his greatest interest has been in human beings. His heart went out to each and every one of his pupils: and so manifestly genuine was his desire to help them make the utmost of themselves that all their natural timidity and reserve vanished, and they freely and unconsciously unfolded to him their better natures, which were thus in the most favorable condition for development.” Mr. Fish never had to resort to punishment, threat, or exhortation. Dozens of students made Mr. Fish their confidante and counselor. Job Fish could speak in nine different languages, and he learned how to read French, German, Spanish and Dutch after he was fifty years old. 

On February 27, 1923, Job Fish died in Illinois at the age of 95. His wife had passed away in 1904. He was survived by three sons and three daughters. He was buried at the Shadyside Cemetery in Auburn Corners, Geauga County, Ohio.

William A. Richardson, Educator

William A. Richardson was born in Port Clinton, Ohio, on February 17, 1869 to David and Paulina Richardson. William’s father was born in Scotland, and his mother was born in Bavaria. After working as an educator in Port Clinton, Mr. Richardson went to Sandusky High School, serving from 1901 until 1935. From 1914 to 1921, he served as principal of the school. For several years, Mr. Richardson taught algebra and geometry at Sandusky High. 

A newspaper article that highlighted his long career stated that “Richardson is a teacher heart and soul. He feels that an instructor has a real job, whose ability comes mostly through experience and a born liking and aptitude for imparting knowledge. He has spent his entire life, in and out of school, perfecting himself in his job.” 

On January 12, 1941, William A. Richardson passed away, after a lengthy illness. Karl A. Whinnery, then the superintendent of Sandusky City Schools, stated: “With the death of W. A. Richardson, Sandusky loses one of its finest citizens. He served the Sandusky High School for thirty five years, one of the longest terms in the history of the school. The quality of his work was entirely in keeping with the length of his service. He was held in the highest regard by both the teachers and students.”

Miss Taylor’s Reflections on Sandusky High School in 1905

In the Sandusky Register Star News of May 28, 1955, retired teacher Bessie Taylor gave an account of her remembrances of Sandusky High School from 1905. At that time all pupils had a seat in the large assembly room in the second floor. There was a grand piano in the assembly room, and there  were enough seats for 200 pupils. An electric push button on the front wall was rung at the close of each study period by the teacher in charge. There were also four classrooms on the second floor of the high school. On the third floor were four more classrooms, a laboratory, and a biology museum. On the first floor was a large office for the principal.

Freshmen were called “first year students.”  They were required to take geography, physiology, mathematics, and a language. The language choices were: German, Latin, or a special study of fundamental English. Second year students were required to take Biology, taught by Professor E.L. Moseley. His scientific museum featured stuffed birds, animals and snakes - and sometimes live animals.

On more than one occasion, a live snake or turtle escaped and wandered about the school, most likely with some assistance from a prankster. 

A highlight of spring and fall were the series of biology excursions. Led by Professor Moseley, the excursions took place on Saturdays when the weather permitted. The students roamed around fields in Milan, the Huron River, Berlin Heights, and Castalia, viewing the natural plants and animals of these areas. The final biology outing led to Kelleys Island and Put in Bay. Professor Moseley insisted that the students had the realization that they were there to learn.

The principal, George Dietrich, taught geography and physiology to the first year students, and he taught English literature to the seniors. Miss Taylor stated in her article about the principal, “Just how one man could do all the studies that fell to him is rather difficult to recall.”  Miss Taylor recalled that the orchestra in 1905 was considered an extra-curricular activity. Members met after school and were led by E.B. Ackley. Football and baseball games in 1905 were played at the old fairgrounds on Columbus Avenue, close to Perkins Avenue. Basketball games were played at a building on Lawrence Street, just north of Market Street.

If you would like to read the entire article by  Miss Bessie Taylor, you can find it on microfilm at the Sandusky Library Archives Research Center.

Miss Gertrude Hartung, Teacher and Principal

Gertrude Hartung was associated with the Sandusky City Schools for forty years. She began as a teacher in 1921, teaching at both Madison and Campbell Schools. When she was still in her 20s, Superintendent Frank J. Prout named her as principal of Madison School.

Later she served as principal of Barker School. In her final years of teaching, Miss Hartung taught Social Studies at the Sandusky High School. She retired from Sandusky City Schools in 1961. 

Sandusky native Glenn Everett, who worked as a news correspondent in Washington D.C., wrote a tribute to Miss Hartung in the June 25, 1989 issue of the Sandusky Register, not long after her death. He told about Miss Hartung taking a large group of elementary children on a flat-bed truck to the Hartung family farm on Campbell Street, so the students could see cows being milked, and corn being harvested.  On another field trip, the children watched milk being bottled at the old Esmond Dairy, and they all got an ice cream sandwich after the tour of the plant. A field trip that really made an impression on Glenn Everett was when all the members of the class were locked for a minute in a dark jail cell at the old Erie County Jail, as a deputy sheriff warned the students about the consequences of bad behavior.

Miss Hartung felt that by going on field trips, the children learned things in a practical way that could not be learned just from reading a book. Mr. Everett wrote, “She made education exciting so that her students wanted to come to school to learn as much as possible…She was the kind of teacher all teachers could wish to be.”  In 1974, Miss Hartung was honored by the Firelands Council of Camp Fire for her many years of service as a Camp Fire Girls leader. 

On June 9, 1989, Gertrude Hartung died at the age of 89. Funeral services were held at the Groff Funeral Home, and burial was at Oakland Cemetery. Miss Hartung touched many lives during her long career as an educator with the Sandusky City Schools

Charles E. Fleming, Sandusky High School Chemistry Teacher

Born on October 2, 1887 in Adams Mills, Ohio to J.D. and Alice Fleming, Charles E. Fleming was a graduate of Denison University and the University of Chicago. He moved to Sandusky in 1908, and was an instructor of chemistry at Sandusky High School from 1909 until the early 1940s. Mr. Fleming taught chemistry at Sandusky High School during the senior year of Norbert A. Lange, who would go on to become a chemistry professor at the Case Institute of Technology (now a part of Case Western Reserve University), and is still well known for writing the classic text Handbook of Chemistry. 

From 1909 to 1913, Mr. Fleming also coached the Sandusky High School football team. In an article in the May 28, 1955 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News, it was recalled that Mr. Fleming often told the story that one time SHS quarterback Leland Spore played almost an entire game with a broken arm.  

Charles E. Fleming is the person on the left in the back row.

 In the Sandusky High School faculty picture below, most likely taken in the 1930s, Charles E. Fleming can be seen on the far right in the back row.

He was active in the Masonic lodge and a member of the First Congregational Church.On May 5, 1942, Charles E. Fleming passed away at Good Samaritan Hospital, after having been ill for some time. Funeral services for Mr. Fleming were held at the Charles J. Andres’ Sons Funeral Home, and burial was in the Castalia Cemetery. He was survived by his wife, the former Catherine Winters (married in 1915), and a daughter, Mrs. R.E. Willison of Kentucky

Carl J. Ruff, Mathematics Educator

Carl J. Ruff was an educator for forty eight years. During most of his career, he served as the head of the Mathematics department at Sandusky High School. A graduate of Baldwin Wallace College, Mr. Ruff began teaching at Sandusky High School in 1914, first as a Commercial teacher.  (When the Commercial Department of the Ohio State Teachers Association convened at Cedar Point in June of 1917, Mr. Ruff chaired the event.) During the 1918-1919 academic year, Mr. Ruff served as acting principal of Sandusky High School.  

An article in the March 31, 1950 issue of The Sandusky Hi-Lites, a student newspaper from Sandusky High School, indicated that Carl J. Ruff had the longest service record of any Sandusky High School faculty member up to that time.

Carl J. Ruff retired from Sandusky High School in 1957. He passed away in Sandusky on December 29, 1968. He touched many students’ lives during his long career at Sandusky High School. 

In this undated photo, circa 1918, Carl Ruff is seated at the center of the image, with fellow teachers.