5 - High School
Jonathan: All right, it is May 26, Memorial Day 2025. And we’re back at it, making a record here. Right, Mom?
Laura: Right. You wanted to record my experience at the hospital, my first memory of surgery. I was probably fifth grade. And I had had my tonsils out. And I remember driving there, scared, scared, scared. And my dad’s saying to me, honey, I wish I could do this for you. And then telling me that they’re going to put you to sleep and so you won’t remember much of it. So when I got there, there was a little wait. And in those days, they had many hospital beds in one room, like seven or eight of them in a row, sort of a little hall full of surely not urgent surgery kinds of cases, but cases like mine. So I am wheeled in there. you’ve got to know first of all that we never ever had soda at our house and I loved pop and um and to cheer me up my father slipped me a tall bottle of seven up that I hid under the pillow and they came to get me and they wheeled me up to the elevator and the elevator had room for two carts of patients so I wheeled in next to a middle-aged woman and she was nervous as heck and kind of not sobbing but but gasping and
Whoever was pushing me said, so what are you going to have done? And she said she was going to have her tonsils out and she’s scared out of her skin. And I’m laying there thinking, if you’re a scared lady, you have no idea how scared I am. And then I don’t remember the injection or they’re putting me to sleep, but I remember coming back to the room. And there were many beds in a row, but the girl that was next to me had serious kidney surgery. And so they were paying a lot more attention to her than to me. So I could pull the sheet up over my head a little bit and suck on my seven up.
And I was there. I was just overnight one night. And then dad took me home the next morning. Yeah.
Jonathan: What a sweet memory of your dad trying to make it a more tolerable thing.
Laura: Oh, yeah. But you know, my dad and I were partners in so many ways.
And I think there is one precious memory more than any other. I knew he enjoyed my playing the organ. He was always greeting congregation when I did the big postlude. And it happened at Plymouth Christian Reformed Church. I played for my cousin Richard’s wedding and my dad married them. And I played a very big postlude. I don’t remember what it was. When I finished and I got up from the organ and came down the steps, my dad was sitting about four rows up on the aisle and he was crying.
He was moved at my music and I never ever saw that in him. I never had occasion to because he never had a chance to sit and listen. He always had business greeting everybody. So that is a wedding that I’ll never forget because my dad did it and I played the organ there. And so when I ride by that church, it’s a nice memory.
Jonathan: That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. How old were you and what is, what was that church name again? Where, where is that church?
Laura: The church is on Plymouth near halfway between Burton and Hall. And it’s Plymouth Christian Reformed Church. It’s still there. And what’s interesting is now I play Words with Friends with Glenis, who was Richard’s bride that day. They live in Arizona. So over the years, I didn’t really get in touch with them at all until I’m retired and starting to play Words with Friends and found her in the list. So I am in touch with her about every other day. We play the game together.
Jonathan: That’s neat.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: What a special memory with your dad. That’s really neat. I don’t know. That soda slipping you a seven up. That’s just a kind of a deep little indication of him looking out for you.
Laura: Yep.
Jonathan: Yeah, that’s cool. Well, there were other questions that were in that area. Let me see if any of these ring a bell for you or trigger memories for you. And these are about money and allowance.
So did you get an allowance as a child? No. Or is it conditioned on?
Laura: OK. No. And so I looked for, for example, I told you about the janitor at six reformed when we had to work on the tulip gardens and he gave me an echo. I was rich. And, and then when we moved to grand Rapids I started playing the organ when I was 15 years old and they, I don’t remember what they paid per service, but it was, probably 20 or $30, which was a very large amount for me. And if I accompanied the choir and did those rehearsals that it probably amounted to $450 a week. And I was putting that away for college. So that was when I, and then in my high school years, just one year, I worked in a five and 10 cents store on Clyde park near 28th street. And I did that after school and Saturdays for one year, but it was kind of an inconvenient job because that was a long walk. And that’s how I got there.
Jonathan: Yeah. That would have been more than a mile.
Laura: Oh yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah. I never heard of that before, mom. That’s me. All right. Let’s see.
Well, I’ve got some questions for you about high school years. Last time we talked, it was more elementary and middle school. Now we’re talking about high school years. What was the name of your high school and what was it like?
Laura: Green Rapids Christian High School. The building is still on the corner of Franklin and Madison. And it was a two-story, very large building with an attached chapel. And I would play for chapel once in a while. And all the friends that I kept were the Seymour crowd. I hardly expanded that group at all in high school. And all of those girls were in Trina Hahn’s choir. So that was one part of every day that I would see them. But then our other classes, if it was just by chance, we’d be in the same class. We never studied together. However, in high school was when they started having these sleepovers. Now, my mother would never ever have hosted one. But Mary Vandenberg and
Thrones, come on, I can’t think of her first name.
Any rate, we had sleepovers, it would always be like a Friday night, maybe a basketball night. And every time I ride down Deming, down Eastern Avenue on the corner of Deming, I think about those sleepovers because we had our picture taken in our pajamas on this corner of Deming and Eastern. And we thought that that was absolutely horrendously daring.
And so that was one of the things. And when we had these sleepovers, we really didn’t sleep. We ate, we played games, and that was a high point in my life. fun in high school. I did not get too many sporting events because again it was a transportation issue. I didn’t know many of the players and so there was a writers club in my junior senior year that I was part of and
a wonderful teacher who headed it and I kept in touch with her and I’m drawing a blank right now. She just recently died and she lived in Chicago and I hadn’t made a attachment with her again years and years later, but she was an English teacher and she encouraged my writing. So I started writing essays and entering contests.
The joke is I didn’t start winning contests till I was married. And then I wrote a short paragraph about a soda that I liked. And it wasn’t Coke. It was an off brand, I think, that A&P sold. And I won. And my prize was Uh, a year of one week, every week I’d get a six pack free.
Jonathan: I remember that. Now that happened. That happened after I was born. That was the last 30 years or so that happened.
Laura: Yes. Okay. But I often would look for okay. Um, there was a children’s magazine that had a writing contest. And I tried a couple of those, but nothing ever happened from them.
Jonathan: Well, so you were in a writing club in high school and that would have been right after school or during the day.
Laura: Yes, it would be after school.
But I think more often it was noon hours. We got an assignment and In those days, you did everything on a typewriter. And we took turns sharing and our assignments were brief so that on a noon hour, probably two people would have a chance to share and would be critiqued by the teacher with comments by the rest of the kids. And this was a very small group, maybe six.
Jonathan: when you say share, you would write something from the prior week and you would read aloud in front of the class?
Laura: Yes. Yes, but it wasn’t a class. It was just a little group.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. Some of your close friends in that writing group, or do you remember some of the other people in that?
Laura: No, I do not remember. Wait a minute. I think Petey Bats was in one of those groups.
Jonathan: So what other clubs or extracurricular things did you do?
Laura: I was too busy at my church. I had a choir rehearsal and church service. And the church service was on the WLAV Sunday mornings at 10 o’clock. So I had to always be very well prepared. And add to that my organ lessons which were down at the grave. And that was once a week and they were very expensive. But I was by now earning money with my music. so I could pay for my lessons. And those lessons with Alice Lantinga on the old organ in the old building at Le Grave were precious. And that really formed my music career for the rest of my life.
I remember one of the things, and I may have said this to you already, this was happening to me in high school. When I go for a lesson, every lesson would start this way. She would say turn to page 342 or something, a hymn that I never had a chance to look at before, although she chose very popular hymns. And then I would play like I was playing three verses. So an introduction. then you have to start loud enough to lead. But her method was each verse you added some, and at each chorus you added some. So you were building. And she would walk around the auditorium listening as I was adding. And when we got to verse three, she’d say, Laura, make them sing. And that’s when I had to use full organ. So she was very serious about teaching me to accompany a congregational singing. That was part of every single lesson.
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah. So your lessons would be an hour in duration.
Laura: Oh, yes.
Jonathan: Uh-huh. And your, your, randomly picking a song out of the psalter hymnal and that’s your sight reading to play those three verses, is that correct?
Laura: Yes, but it was never a challenge for me to sight read hymns. That was never hard.
She liked me to do an interlude between verse two and three, which is something Larry Visser always does, which is incentive to get excited. It’s adding, adding, adding, so that when you’re up to third verse after doing that little interlude, and sometimes it was a change of key, then That’s when you used full organ.
Jonathan: Interesting. So your instruction with Alice Laniga was emphasis on church performance, church accompaniment. But did she also have you learning larger organ pieces?
Laura: Oh, the classics. I had to learn all the Bach prelates and fugues I have all that music right now and I’m looking for a place to donate it. There’s a huge amount of classical organ music. And then, in fact, that was what my lessons were. But I would bring her collections that I bought that would be nice preludes or I would always ask her opinion. Yeah.
Jonathan: You would incorporate that. I mean, that was that was complementary to Psalter hymnal pieces, but the offertory and those sort of pieces more Caesar Frank. And what are some of the other Bach? What are some of the other composers you played?
Laura: Oh, well, just about any classical composer Mendelssohn.
I can’t even just give you the list.
Jonathan: Sure, sure. So that was an hour long lesson. You would take the bus from your home to get down there or how would you get transported?
Laura: I don’t know. Sometimes my dad would drop me off and I’d take the bus back or the other way around. I don’t recall, but I just know that transportation wasn’t a concern.
Jonathan: I may have some more questions for you about music. I wonder if we should circle back to high school specific topics though.
What kind of school supplies do you remember using?
Laura: Well, everything was handwritten. And if I had to do a term paper, then I used my mother’s typewriter.
but otherwise everything was handwritten and on a notebook kind of, you know, loosely pages.
Jonathan: Would you write with a pencil or a fountain pen?
Laura: It was a fountain pen and not ballpoint, but with ink in it.
Jonathan: Replaceable cartridges or cartridges you refilled or what do you recall?
Laura: All I remember is I had a bottle of ink So I must’ve had to pour something in there.
Jonathan: Yeah. I’m a big fan of these devices. You can see that, but yeah, that’s a nice experience writing with a fountain pen. Well, you were where, let’s see after school, you would, you would basically come home. Is that right?
Laura: Or yes, but it was practice time every single day. every single day.
Jonathan: And that was practice time at home or would you go to the church to practice?
Laura: The church. Yeah. So my study of piano really, my concentrating on organ cost me increased, increasing skill on the piano.
Organ is a totally, totally different thing. The fingering is different. The feet are, you know, and your continual changing registrations, the electricity part of it is something you have to be very aware and prompt. So it took me away from playing the piano.
Jonathan: What’s your thought about that? Are you glad that you took that path?
Laura: The interesting thing was many times the choir director asked me to accompany on the piano. So that’s when I would use the piano at the church. And we never had a grand piano, but we had a piano in the house that I could practice on.
Jonathan: Right. But I sense you’re OK. You’re proud of your skill in the organ. And it was a source of identity and a discipline and a source of joy for you. Is that all true?
Laura: Oh, yes. More than that, it was a substantial increase in my income. When I was teaching in Christian schools and eight kids in the house or seven or six, my expenses were huge. And that organ income made a huge difference. I made much more doing that than I would if I had worked someplace on Saturdays, you know?
Jonathan: Sure. The concentrated amount of time, you were reimbursed well for the number of hours involved, maybe.
Laura: Yes. I never thought of it. I just thought of the actual performance. But you’re right. There was a lot of prep time.
Jonathan: That’s interesting to hear about. So when you talk about that, You were playing from 15 or 16 years of age and getting paid for it, but all through high school, through college and throughout your 20s? Is that?
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan: And the same church or you would be filling in or how would that work?
Laura: I started having babies and so then it was sporadic at six reformed. I played at six reformed for a long time. Then I played a couple of services at the grave on their old sanctuary and the old organ. And I played occasionally at Fuller once we lived on Underwood. But my fondest memory of Fuller was when you and Bob played for a senior Bible study or some midweek meeting. And after you finished playing, I was sitting in the back and the woman got up and Mrs. Bartleson, can they play another one? Like I was the big boss.
Jonathan: That’s sweet. That’s sweet. All right. So I’m going to shift the subject a little bit. Now, academic topics in high school. What was your favorite class?
Laura: Well, I always liked writing, reading and writing, and I did not like science or math, and math was my weakest. And so I took algebra and geometry but just the first semester of each.
Jonathan: That was all that was expected for high school graduation.
Laura: Yes.
Yeah. And I was part of the debate club, the debate team in my senior year especially. And Norm Meyer was part of that group and he ended up being best man at our wedding, which I look back and it’s amazing because the truth was Bob didn’t have any other friends. He didn’t know who to ask. And so he asked me who, and Norm Meier hardly even knew Bob, but he was one of the debate team. That’s what I remember the most about my dealings with Norm.
Jonathan: Yeah. So you’re on the debate team, you would go to other schools and have competitions?
Laura: Yes.
I think more likely they came to us. They don’t remember doing much traveling.
Jonathan: But that you did that primarily you said in your senior year, but you also you started that in your junior year, maybe, or?
Laura: No, well, I don’t know. I guess we I must have had at least two years of it. Yeah.
Jonathan: So talk about what you did not enjoy math. Was there another class that you did enjoy writing? What was your most boring class?
Laura: Oh, gee. Well, I guess mass because I didn’t like it.
But science was not my field either.
So my science amounted to memorization, learning definitions and functions and yeah.
Jonathan: Okay, okay. Alice Laniga, your music teacher stands out in memory. Are there other high school teachers that really you feel connected to and had an impact on your high school years?
Laura: I wish I could remember names.
The one who lived in Chicago was in touch with her long after. But I can’t think of names.
Jonathan: What class did she teach?
Was that your writing teacher?
Laura: Yeah, yes. And the other thing that’s interesting is another English teacher. And I can’t think of her name either, but I can see her face. After I had one year of college, I dropped out. I had flunked French, and I was so ashamed. Nobody in the Jancemouth family ever bunk anything. So I was working at the telephone company, just kind of a, it was not a contact with public kind of job. And all of a sudden there was a vacancy at Walker Christian School. In those days, if a woman became pregnant, she had to stop teaching. So my high school English teacher wrote a recommendation for me to teach after only one year of college. And I don’t think she knew that I flunked French. And I started teaching at Walker after Christmas.
It turned out to be a very good job. I ended up being there two and a half years and one of those years I had to teach a split one, two, but most of the time I’ve always taught just first grade.
And I remember the first day that I was there at recess, the principal called me. He was teaching the junior high there. And he called me into his classroom and he said, Laura, would you please play the piano for my class? Do you know anything by heart? And I had a couple of things, not a whole lot. But I remember that that was the first week that I was a teacher there. His displaying me as though he was proud. It made me feel professional. It made me feel like a teacher. But how on earth did I teach one year of college?
So then I began taking French all over again. I took it at night because I had to erase that bad record. And after I got two years of French under my belt, then I seriously pursued Calvin and finished. I didn’t go with Calvin first. I did this all through JC downtown until I had two years in. I had one year in and then I had one year of night school at JC. And then John Vandenberg, who lived around the corner from us and went to Florida church, got me a scholarship to go to Calvin.
But again, I never went full time because by then I had a lot of children. We had a rule at our house. Everybody had to be in bed at nine o’clock.
And that was because I’d get up at one o’clock to study.
Jonathan: Intense. Well, I wanna hear about all the details of college and I’ve got some follow up questions for you, but let’s finish up high school. What was your proudest high school moment?
Laura: Oh dear.
I can’t think of what it would be.
When I graduated, my mom and dad were on a trip And I was living temporarily at Grandpa Gazan.
And he announced the morning of my graduation, I’m not gonna sit through their calling 300 names. So nobody from my family came to my graduation, but Bob took me.
Jonathan: Yeah. That’s nice. That’s nice.
Laura: Yeah.
Jonathan: Well, so high school, high school, go ahead.
Laura: I’m, I’ve had it, honey. I can’t see.
Jonathan: That’s good. Well that’s good. We covered, we covered a lot of ground. Thanks for taking time out today. Are you doing okay?
Laura: I’m going to lay down cause I’m hurting really bad.
Jonathan: Okay. All right. Well. Good, let me stop the recording here real quick and hold on.