Ron Reiff
It was Sept. 5, 1956. Talk of the ’57 lineup of cars was a top subject. The only team the Pirates beat in the standings was the Cubs.
President Eisenhower suffered from another heart attack and that afternoon I walked into Lacy School for the very first time. It was one of those rare days that featured a cloudless sky and Miss Masters was at the door to welcome the rookies!
There was no Warren County School District back then. Warren borough was on its own. Elementary students like me had a school in the immediate neighborhood. I went to Lacy. Just a few miles east was Irvinedale. Less than a mile or so to the west was South Street. There was Home Street, McClintock, Jefferson, East Street, and St. Joseph’s. Basically, we grew up around the schools. Most had playgrounds that kept kids busy even when school was closed.
Lacy had two floors and was declared unsafe because of asbestos and its wooden floors. I have one of the yellow bricks the school was built with. Today Warren Shurfine occupies the property and the Lacy Park is where the playground used to be. Interestingly there was a sprinkler in dead center field! I don’t remember ever playing a game when the unit was on but more than once we had to fish the baseball out of the water!
My final trip to Lacy was the last year it was being used. I addressed a 2nd grade class about being on the radio. I was stunned to see how small the school was. When I was there, the halls were huge! Plus there were kids playing “Capture the Flag” in exactly the same place we did decades earlier! If you are about my age, you have to admit we had it great!
