1923 Graduate to Revisit Alma Mater

When Laura Lenhardt Wright recently came across her high school diploma, she saw that it had been signed by her father, a member of the district’s board of education. That was a fact she had forgotten, but not surprisingly--it was more than 70 years ago.

Wright will be just a few days shy of her 91st birthday when she returns to her hometown next week as the last living member of the Class of 1923, Garden Grove High School’s first graduating class.

She plans to return to her alma mater for an alumni dinner next Friday that will cap a week of 75th anniversary activities, beginning with tours on Monday and including the annual homecoming football game.

During the week, alumni will be invited back to campus to teach class, attend luncheons and be entertained by today’s students. Organizers say they expect more than 400 graduates to attend the homecoming dinner.

Alumni dinner organizer Marge Stirrat, a 1932 graduate of Garden Grove High, said a member of each class from the 1920s will be represented. Wright’s graduating class had only six members, Stirrat said, but other classes of the decade had as many as 40 students.

“You hear about the wildness of the ‘20s,” Stirrat said. “But remember, we were country people, not city people. Wildness was when the boys would tip over somebody’s outhouse on Halloween.”

Wright said she doesn’t remember much about her high school days in the 1920s, when Warren G. Harding was president and women had just won the right to vote. “That was a long time ago,” she said, “and so much has happened since.”

Wright, who lives in Ventura now, said she plans to attend the alumni dinner with two of her sisters who also graduated from Garden Grove High: Margaret Hunt, 82, of Santa Ana and Ruth Pinneau, 76, of Northridge.

One of 11 children, Wright grew up on a ranch three miles south of Garden Grove Boulevard on what is now Euclid Street. She attended Santa Ana High School until the Garden Grove school opened in 1921. She and an older brother transferred and were among the first six to graduate.

“I think we did it for the novelty,” Wright said.

Homecoming information: (714) 663-6503.