We’ve all seen them, the yearbooks from the 1970s when Kurt Boker had a hand in preparing them. They were hardbound and full of photos from the school and its students, but they also contained loads of historic pictures, stories and information.
One of the projects that I undertook for the KI History Museum was scanning all these old yearbooks and posting them to the website. These yearbooks contained quite a few surprises. The earliest complete yearbook we found in our files was from 1954 and came from Iola Riedy’s house.
Iola Riedy lived in the stone building on Division St. that used to be the stone school house. After the death of her husband, Gilbert, Iola, who was a professional librarian, installed a branch of the Sandusky library in a small room she added to the SW side of her house. The library served islanders and summer visitors until 1985 when she retired. The library then moved into the basement of Estes School. Islanders recall putting their returned books on the washing machine inside the back door. The Stone School House was built around 1853 and was the first permanent school on the Island. It was known as School District No. 1.
Along with this yearbook, Iola also had quite a collection of newsletters from the school – called the Kelligian which was published by the Kelleys Island School between 1951-1952. Only a few issues exist. These were donated by Iola Riedy. You’ll note that many have the name Jay Norris written at the top. Jay lived next to Iola on ivision St.
So, here is a brief look back at some of these early yearbooks – have some fun. Each yearbook is on the History Museum’s website and has a list of the names, photos and/or activities appearing in the book as well as a link to the fully scanned book. These, along with copies of commencements notices and school photos dating back to the 1800s were also added to the visual display inside the lobby of the school.
1920-1930 – The Erie Echo, published between 1924 and 1931, often contained photos of graduating classes, including some from Kelleys Island.
1954 – The Class of ‘54 – WOW, this one was handmade, obviously a rare, limited edition. The pages are typed and the photos, and there are lots of them, are glued to the page. This is a glimpse into school activities from over 70 years ago.
But our favorite one was from 1974 which featured some well-known names, like Gary Finger.
