Lee High School - Huntsville Alabama Alumni

“Here Comes Peter Cottontail . . .”

By Barbara Wilkerson Donnelly

Class of ‘64

“ . . . Hoppin’ down the bunny trail . . .” Ah, yes! I recall the Easter Bunny with great fondness. Of course, there was that one teensy, weensy, little incident. I was about four years old, and Mother had taken me to Dunnavant’s Department Store downtown where the Easter Bunny would put in a personal appearance and hand out candy. Catherine Dunnavant came down the stairs in her colorful, silky bunny suit, and that’s the moment I chose to loudly announce, “That’s not the Easter Bunny. It’s Catherine Dunnavant.” I don’t remember how I knew. I DO remember that we made a fast exit out the side door by the shoe department! Many years later, Mother told me that she was the recipient of many irritated sideways glances from other mothers as we retreated.

“He’s got jelly beans for Tommy,

Colored eggs for Sister Sue.

There’s an orchid for your mommy,

And an Easter bonnet, too.”

I always associated Easter with purple when I was young. I loved the smell of purple jelly beans. Sometimes I even ate a couple. Yes, I was the weird kid who didn’t like most of the Easter candy. The chocolate rabbit was the ultimate exception, and my cousins and I always hoped for a solid, rather than hollow, rabbit. I could gag even today thinking about the marshmallow chickens. I think it was because they really looked like little chickens. I remember the year my aunt brought home the colorful baby chicks for us just before Easter. They had been dyed pastel colors, and mine was purple. I don’t remember how long they lasted. It wasn’t very long. Everyone loved them, but I think they were just plain “played out.” It might have been that the process of coloring was too stressful on their little systems. Looking back, I cannot believe that that treatment was ever allowed. It was tragic not only for the poor little chicks, but also for the children who were too young to comprehend the loss of a pet. I loved that little purple chicken.

One event I looked forward to every year was picking out the Easter dress and shoes. Every year, without exception, the dress was made of that scratchy fabric that was so stiff the dress could stand in a corner by itself and you’d never even be missed. I suppose wearing it was comparable to the torture the boys endured with their tightly-buttoned shirt collars and neckties. But I couldn’t wait to put it on Easter morning before church. The mandatory shoes for little girls were patent-leather Mary Janes. I remember asking Mother year after year if I could have “big girl” shoes. This meant minus the buckles and, of course, the cutesy little socks with frilly lace-trimmed cuffs. We attended Fifth Street Baptist Church, which became Second Baptist Church, which became Jackson Way Baptist Church. Daddy didn’t go to church with us often, but on Easter morning we usually worshipped together as a family. My favorite hymn was always “Amazing Grace.” I couldn’t sing it then without crying, and I still can’t. One of my favorite memories was going up on Monte Sano with my parents and my brother after church and lunch to take pictures and hide eggs. I still have those pictures, and they’re starting to fade badly, but the memory is still as vivid as their colors once were.

One year, the day before Easter, while I was crawling around under the dresser, I found a purple Easter bunny. Strangely, this made me believe even more strongly in the existence of the Easter Bunny. I think I believed that he had made the trip to our house early that year just to be sure I got that purple bunny. He also brought the Easter basket each year, and the anticipation of the basket and what it would look like was a high point for me for days preceding Easter. It always came wrapped in beautiful pastel cellophane paper (sometimes purple!), it was tied with a beautiful bow, and it seemed almost magical. When we were young, the “grass” was always green.

Coloring eggs each year was a major event for me. I remember coloring them with my mother, my grandmother, and two of my aunts. We would drop the dye tablet into a cup containing vinegar. Then we would carefully insert the hard-boiled egg into the wire holder and lower it into the dye solution. After testing a few times, each egg was finally pronounced perfect and placed into the divided cardboard holder to set and dry. The Easter egg hunt at my grandmother’s house was always a lot of fun. The hunt was always extended to include various neighborhood children and a myriad of distant cousins, as well as my two first cousins. The quest was for the golden egg, and there was always a special prize awarded to the child who found it. Other prizes were awarded for the silver egg, most eggs found, most decorated egg, most purple eggs found, etc.

After our children were born, I learned the importance of buying marshmallow chickens, jelly beans, chocolate rabbits, and Easter baskets. We discovered the grass was sometimes greener, and sometimes it was even pink or purple! I discovered that purple jelly beans still evoked the same emotions as when I was young. I still maintain today that Cadbury eggs were a stroke of pure genius and second to only that solid, chocolate rabbit which I can no longer eat due to migraines. It was more fun hiding the eggs and giving out prizes to our children and their friends than it was to seek them and win when I was young. I never expected that. Life often hands you beautiful unexpected gifts that way.

Easter is a time of reflection and a time for forgiveness . . . a time to nurture friendships and to let old grievances die. It is a time of rejuvenation of both the spirit and the external world in which we are truly blessed to live. Above all, it is a time to remember the great love and sacrifice which allows us to live our lives today.

Easter is also a time when little girls dream of scratchy dresses and Mary Janes without buckles and dream that maybe . . . just maybe . . . there will be a purple Easter bunny next to the cellophane-wrapped basket.

“ . . . Hippity, hoppity, happy Easter day.”

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Tommy and Don Towery - an early Easter on Clinton Street.

The Golden Egg Reality

by Tommy Towery

Class of '64

We’re coming up on Easter and Barbara and I decided to try to reflect on some of our past Easter memories. Most of my early Easter memories are of things that are direct results of the brash commercialism of the Easter holiday rather than the religious importance to the Christian world, of which I am a part. I was probably an average kid in that sense.

I can think back about several things that occupy a place in my memory that are Easter related. I remember that one year there was a big Easter egg hunt down at Big Springs Park. I don’t know who sponsored it, maybe Central Presbyterian Church, maybe the city, maybe the Easter Bunny. Whoever it was must have had a good PR person, because it certainly drew a lot of hunters. All the kids were held back behind a line and at a preset time the signal sounded and the park became a re-creation of the Oklahoma land rush. What seemed like thousands of kids with baskets in their hands crossed the starting line and headed across the open field to find the eggs. This was the era of real eggs, boiled and dyed pretty colors and not the plastic eggs or cellophane wrapped ones. As the hunt progressed, I quickly realized that I was falling behind in the finding and collecting of the little round objects compared to my companion on the trek, Buddy Crabtree. I don’t know who had how many, but my basket was not filling up as I had hoped and as the time ticked away, less and less of the once hidden eggs were still unaccounted for. If I had to guess, Buddy had ten or so eggs compared to my two at the most. I was beginning to panic as I continued my quest.

Then it appeared. I don’t know where it was hidden or how I happened to find it, but I lifted up and placed into my basket “The Golden Egg.” It was painted gold and had gold glitter specs glued to it, and a gold ribbon wrapped around the center. My mind tells me I must have looked like Indiana Jones when he retrieved the golden statue in Raiders of the Lost Ark when I picked it up and held it high. I must have let loose an audible scream of joy. I seem to remember a look from Buddy that attested to the fact that life was not fair. He had looked harder, found more, and was more deserving of coming out on top of this hunt, but that was not to be anymore. My one Golden Egg earned me a position in the winner’s circle and a prize of what I remember as being a big Easter basket full of goodies.

I was so proud of the Golden Egg that I kept it in my room – for weeks, after Easter. I didn’t want it to go away. I was uneducated about the knowledge that eggs do not have an indefinite shelf life like some other trophies. It probably started to decay, but I did not notice the smell that must have started coming from the egg. I did not notice anything unusual about it until one day when I was moving some things on the shelf on which it was sitting and the Golden Egg did a Humpty-Dumpty nose-dive to the floor. I looked down at it, in sadness for the loss of “my major award,” – borrowing a line from A Christmas Story. I stood looking at it, wondering if I could put it back together. I don’t know if I noticed the black color of the interior of the egg first, or the smell of the rotten egg filled my nostrils first. Whatever the case may be, the idea of putting it back together only lasted a split second in my mind before I ran throughout the house looking for something to use to scoop it up and throw it away. In those days before air conditioning, it did not matter that it was early spring; it took a long time for the “memory” of that egg to go away along with the smell of it.

Next on my list of Easter memories was the year that both Don and I went downtown to Woolworth’s or Kresses and somehow talked someone into buying us both little dyed live Easter chickens. I still remember the sounds of the little chicks in those stores as they peeped and scratched their way around inside the boxes in which they were kept. They were all dyed in Easter colors and when we got them home we kept them in a box in our screened in back porch. My grandmother got us some chicken feed from Brown’s store across the street from Rebel Inn and diagonal from the Center Theater. Don’s died within a week I think, but mine did not. He soon grew out of the dye color, out of the yellow chick color, and into a full grown white “Foghorn Leghorn” chicken.

I don’t know if he was a rooster or she was a hen, but I think it was a rooster, because it would crow in the mornings. Now this was while I was living on East Clinton Street, and a live full-grown chicken was out of place in that setting. I never knew if a cat got the chicken or if my mom or grandmother had someone take it off, but one day after school it was gone. That was the only Easter chick that I ever knew of that lived over a week or so. Years later when the Smothers Brothers came up with the routine about Dick having a dog and Tommy saying “all I ever had was a chicken,” it would remind me of that Easter.

The house on East Clinton was also the setting for many more Easter memories. I especially remember that Easter was always a time to have my picture made. The one at the top of this column is of me and my brother Don, when we were quite young. Dig the bow ties we both wore. It also was there that Buddy Crabtree and I would have our photos made every Easter in our new Easter suits. I think there were about four or more Easters in a row that we stood on the sidewalk in front of Buddy’s house with my house in the background. Buddy’s mother always said we looked like Mutt and Jeff because of the difference in our sizes. He was always at least a head taller than me, and twice my width.

I have some religious memories of Easters in Huntsville. I remember how cold it was to go up on the mountain for sunrise services…man was it cold. It was also early, and I hated getting up that early on a Sunday morning. I remember the year that Dunnavant’s Mall opened and they held sunrise service inside the mall, and the contrast that being inside the mall made to the dew laden open field up on the mountain.

There are a few other memories, such as the year we hid our old Easter baskets so that the Easter Bunny would have to bring us new ones. That rascally rabbit found the old baskets anyway and put our candy in them as usual. I remember the hollow chocolate Easter eggs that had little scenes built into them like ships in a bottle. And I remember my favorite Easter toys.

Those were some magical days…and full of good memories.

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Subject:Time Capsule

Andrea Gray Roberson

Class of '66

Shirley Jones Moore and I had a BALL looking at all the names at the Weeden House. Everyone that was in the first or second grade in Huntsville in 1955 should go and look, plus everyone that has lived in Huntsville should go also. It was GREAT fun plus to me it is such a good way to remember your past and the easy way of living in Huntsville in 1955.

The reunion sounds like it is coming along good. I told Judy I would go to the last meeting but I became sick and could not attend. I hope I will be able to attend the next one.

I bought your book and read it and it made me smile. Huntsville was small and I thought a great place to live and grow up in.

Keep up the good work on this website and always know that you are giving lots of people a good look into a fun past. We cannot go back to that time in our lives but you make us remember lots of good things.

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Subject:Barbara's Article

Linda Kinkle Cianci

Class of '66

Greetings everyone! Barbara's mention of Bunny Bradley brought back some fond memories. Besides her bubbly laugh and personality, one of the things I most remember is her claim that the way she stayed in shape was that she bent over from the waist to brush her hair everyday. Now why didn't I remember that before all those hours pounding the treadmill and lapping the water over the years? Did I ever really believe it? Would the trainers at the YMCA believe it? Would you? Well....I do remember being gullible enough to try it for a while - a short while.

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Subject:Hotel Phone Number

John Turrentine

Class of '65

Does anyone have the phone number and contact person info so we can go ahead and make reservations at the hotel?? Thanks.

Huntsville Marriott

5 Tranquility Base

Huntsville, Alabama 35805 USA

Phone: 1 256 830 2222

Ask for the LHS reunion rate.

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Subject:Toppie the Elephant Mascot

Toppie Davis-McKinnis

Visitor

Hello,

My name is TOPPIE (I was named after the mascot of Top Value Trading Stamps - 1957)

Through an Internet search I came across the LEE'S TRAVELLER Website and the "LEE-BAY" Item.

I was wondering if someone there actually had the matchbook and/or wanted to sell it. I've tried to collect some Toppie memorabilia but have been unsuccessful so far finding any.

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Subject:Golf at the reunion

Lehman Williams

Class of '64

Tommy - I know you would like to play golf on Saturday morning - Vern Lucas wants to play and I will play any day - that makes a threesome and with Jerry "1st Annual MiniReunion Golf Champion" Brewer, that makes a foursome. We just need to have Jerry find a course that has fast golf carts and beer coolers. Sounds perfect - if only Terry Preston and some Hooters girls could join us - it would be.

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Subject:Golf tournament

Sarajane Setigerwald Tarter

Class of '65

Hey Tommy,

My brother, Todd ('73 Lee High grad), has been putting together golf tournaments yearly in honor of one of their classmates who died and for his reunion buddies every year they have a reunion. He said he would be glad to organize one for us. He usually does it at Colonial Gulf Course but can do it at Hampton Cove if we get the info to him pretty soon. What time of day? How many are participating? Would the ladies like to have a separate tournament or together with the guys? Let me know what you think.

(Editor's Note: Please e-mail me if you are interested in playing golf at the reunion. I would think that Saturday morning would be the best time.)

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Subject:Website

Elsie Weber Peterson

Class of '65

I've been unable to make it to a reunion for a long time and only half of one 'way back in the '80's sometime. I'm looking forward to this one! Thanks to the comittee for all the hard work involved, and to Tommy for the web site.

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Subject:Website

Polly Gurley Redd

Denver, North Carolina

Class of '66

I had a phone call from Cathy Harris Jones this week about the reunion and was thrilled to learn about it and this site. It has been great fun to see all those names and faces from my past. You do a terrific job on this and, now that I have found it, I will stop in every week. Thanks for all the work that it takes to find those of us who are no longer in Huntsville and keep us connected.

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Subject:Missing Reunion List

Alice Gullion Preston

Class of '64

We have had returns on some folks that I know we should be able to find. For example:

Gary Metzger

Rainer Klauss -- he has written articles on the web page and I can't believe he hasn't filled out the registration form.

Phillip "Pete" Freeman

Stanley Hortin

Pat McSwain

Terry Davis

John Robert Nelson

Richard Simmons

Walter Thomas

Ronald Lee Phillips

Charles Lee Conner

Woody Beck

Please publish these names that are not on the missing persons list. We have had addresses in the past; however, the last known address is no longer good.

Also, can the missing persons lists be posted on the web-site. Hopefully, we will be able to find some people with help from readers. It would also be helpful to let everyone know that if they have not received their registration form, then we probably do not have the correct address. Please e-mail correct address to:

Alice Gullion Preston at alicepreston@lfsp.com for Class of '64;

Carol Jean Williams Carroll jdcaroljosh@comcast.net for Class of '65

Kathy Jones at khjones@vallnet.com for Class of '66.

A reminder to include their check payable to LHS Reunion would be appreciated.

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Jeff Fussell, Class of '66 -Tommy, you stumped the band on that one. I definitely had one of those USS Alabama cards, but I am completely blank on how we came by them. My mother (Former Lee High "Gray Lady" who usually forgets NOTHING)could only speculate. I know you will fill in the gap.

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Carolyn Burgess Featheringill, Class of '65 - This week's Lee-Bay item is the card that we were issued when we contributed to the restoration of the USS Alabama. I think that the contribution was measured in dimes, and I distinctly remember that we were promised that the names of all the contributors would be inscribed on the ship somewhere when all our dimes brought it back to Mobile Bay. About twenty years ago, Bill and I were in Mobile, and he wanted to tour the ship. That wasn't at the top of my list of fun things to do, but I thought it would give me the opportunity to see if that unrealistic promise had been kept. To the surprise of none of us now, I found no list including my name, Tommy's name or anyone else's!

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Mike Griffith, Class of '66 - I do not remember the year, but the card pictured in this week's Lee-Bay was given to students in return for a donation. The donation was used to help bring the retired battleship "USS Alabama" to Mobile and make it a tourist attraction. This card would entitle the holder to a "free admission' to tour the battleship at a later date. I never used mine, and I sill have it somewhere ... I have occasionally pondered whether or not they would still honor it for admission?!? Some day, on one of my trips to New Orleans, I may make it a point to take the card with me, take a slight detour and try to use it!

(Editor's Note: Mike I read that 40 of the cards were used for the first time last year.)

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