Burbank Class of 1933 looks back on...

Burbank Class of 1933 looks back on 70 years

They didn’t have much money. Students didn’t have cars. But

classmates from Burbank High School’s Summer Class of 1933 still had

a lot of fun.

At least, that’s how six graduates remembered their high school

years when they met for a reunion at the Burbank home of classmate

Lois (Brockman) Wellington and her husband, Frederick “Ted”

Wellington, Class of 1930.

Graduates attending the 70th reunion were Johanna (Wallace)

Kimbal, Ralph Walroth, Martha (Blanchard) Jackson, senior class

president Bert Hand and Don Smith.

Walroth said there were 130 in their class and only 300 in the

whole school in those days.

“We had fun,” he said, “and occasionally we’d learn something.”

Growing up during the time of the Great Depression, youngsters

didn’t have the money to do things like kids do today. Friends would

attend parties at each other’s homes, but there would be no beer or

other stimulants, the graduates said.

The only place to hang out after school, Wellington said, was at

Morris’ ice cream store at San Fernando Road and Olive Avenue.

And past Walnut Avenue, to the north, there weren’t any homes,

just grape vineyards.

While today’s youngsters spend their free time on computers and

playing video games, the classmates of 1933 said their pastimes were

playing marbles or jacks.

“Life was a lot simpler,” Walroth said.

Someone asked if classmates remembered the year it snowed. Many

said it was the first time they had ever thrown a snowball.

Bert Hand remembered the time he and a friend got the best of some

tough guys on campus.

The tough guys took them for a ride in their car and dumped them

out along the roadside in Sylmar. By chance, a car came by, and the

driver asked the boys what they were doing out in the middle of

nowhere. When they explained, he told them to hop in and he drove

them back to the high school.

Back at school, Hand and his friend sat down on benches near the

gym, and who should walk by, but the guys who had dumped them off in

Sylmar.

“Their hair stood right up on end and they asked us, ‘How’d you

get back here?’ but we never did tell them,” Hand said with a smile.

Church sponsoring camp for children

Emmanuel Evangelical Free Church in Burbank is sponsoring “Kids

Camp -- Got Jesus?” for second- to sixth-graders from 9 a.m. to 3:30

p.m. July 14 to 18 at Stough Park.

Activities include songs, Bible lessons, worship, games, crafts,

skits, snacks, water fun, scripture quiz, obstacle course, awards,

ice cream pig trough, and others.

To register, call 843-0900 and ask for Children’s Ministries.

Compiled by Joyce Rudolph