Towslee Elementary School celebrated an anniversary last week. It was 25 years ago that the first classes opened in what was the most modern school in Northern Ohio.
But how many of the thousands of people who pass the school each day - and the thousands of students who have passed through its halls - know about the man for whom the school is named, C. R. Towslee?
Because there is a Towslee still associated with the schools - George, who is department head of property services - and because his six children are graduates of Brunswick schools, many people associate the name in that way. And that's not far off the mark.
Cecil R. Towslee was George's father and Brunswick's first full-time superintendent of schools. And this school year, his great-grandchild started kindergarten in Brunswick, making this the fourth generation of Towslees associated with the school district.
TOWSLEE WAS born in West Salem, but attended Ashland County schools, graduating in 1923 from Sullivan as valedictorian of his class.
With an ambition to go on to college and become a chemist, Towslee took a short course at Ohio State University and took a job as a milk tester in Northern Ohio, bringing him for the first time to Brunswick. He took degree work at Ashland College and graduated in 1930, by then interested in education.
He began teaching at Homerville that year, later becoming its superintendent. He taught with a young lady he had met at college, Ruth Shaner, who became Mrs. Towslee in 1934. She had to stop teaching, of course. Married women were not allowed to teach school. In that depression year, Ruth had earned a total of $880.
In 1936, he received his master's degree in education and in 1940, the family moved to Granger, which he headed until 1948, when he was assigned as superintendent of the Brunswick Schools, a part of the Medina County School District, along with the other districts in the county.
The couple's three boys, George, Donald and John entered school here and the superintendency became a family occupation.
"I learned to clean desks when I was in the second grade," George said.
When the family got here, there were 535 students from first through twelfth grades. The students attended school in what is now the front portion of the South House and in the old town hall. The North House, then called Center Elementary, was under construction, but just a shell, begun in wartime but not completed.
"It was built without an architect," George explained. "It has crooked stairs. The first thing dad did was to hire an architect to supervise the completion of the building. Students moved into that building and eliminated the need for using the town hall."
`BUT THEN came the 1950's and the onslaught of new residents to what had been a small farming community. Towslee saw the need for additional classrooms and began to make regular trips to Columbus, trying to convince people that the town was going to boom. It wasn't until Alva Stine came to Medina County as assistant superintendent to Harold White and saw for himself that some progress was made. In 1952 and 1953, the school population grew by 100 children a year, but from 1954-1979 the schools were growing by one child per day - a classroom a month.
By this time, Towslee had convinced his superiors that the high school needed its own principal and they hired Maude Edwards, a teacher the Towslees had known from their own teaching days. Towslee also convinced them to hire a secretary by pleading the case that he couldn't type. Both positions were filled for the first time during his tenure, as was the post of assistant superintendent in the 1960's, after Brunswick had already reached over 4,000 students.
The superintendent didn't have much more help, however. He handled bus routing and maintenance. His office was on the thrid floor of the South House - someplace no one else wanted to climb to reach. (In Granger, he had an office in the boys' rest room. Not much glamour in those days.)
During construction of all the schools, C. R. and George would spend every Sunday afternoon checking the construction and working out problems even before George was employed by the district.
There was no football field. The first home games were played in Strongsville and later on the front lawn of the North House. There was no drive then. That was also the site of the Brunswick Chamger of Commerce homecoming carnivals and those events raised enough money for lights for a football field, which was then located behind the North and South Houses.
"I would have to go up during the carnival and cook hot dogs," Mrs. Towslee recalled. "I haven't eaten a hot dog since."
DURING THE winter, there weren't the radio and television sets in use to tell about school closings, either.
"As soon as the first snowflake began to fall, the phone would start ringing. People called us 24 hours a day," said Mrs. Towslee. "And as soon as they knew about that day, they'd start to call about the next."
Once Towslee School was built and had its own phone, people would inevitable call the Towslee home. "They they'd get mad because I answered," she said.
After C. R. suffered a heart attack, Mrs. Towslee had the phone unlisted, a habit she has continued because she really learned to hate talking on the phone.
"We never rode a school bus unless it was snowing," George said. "And then we took our snow shovels with us to clean the sidewalks and driveways."
He found banking to be a problem - no Towslee individual could have an account in the same bank with the schools because it would always get mixed up.
George recalls making the school deposits. It was in the days before and banks existed here. The deposit was made once a week following the football game and Sheriff Steve Helli would wait for one of the family members to drive into Medina to make the deposit safely.
Towslee was honored many times in his life. In 1953, he was awarded a G. E. Fellowship in physics. In 1962 the school board decided to name the town's newest school in his honor.
Ironically, the school was too small from the day it went under construction, just as Grafton Road (now Kidder School) had been. Students were in half-day sessions. The building, designed by architect Junior Everhard, contained new concepts as the result of study and research done by Towslee, board members, the architect and staff. The school was shaped as a V with a central corridor featuring 12 classrooms with northern light, a library, music room, multi-purpose and art work room, along with teacher's room and offices. Play areas were located in two areas outside the school.
The new addition added 12 more classrooms and was part of a bond issue which also added eight rooms to Crestview School, which had opened the previous school year. The board of education offices moved into the west end of Towslee School, as well.
Meanwhile, the Towslee boys were graduating. George went on to own his own plumbing business in Granger and married Barbara in 1954. Donald went to college and then into the air Force, where he retired after 21 years as a lieutenant colonel. John went to school in Cleveland and is now assistant supervisor of the blood bank at St. Luke's Hospital.
There are 13 Towslee grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
After George graduated, Mrs. Towslee began substitute teaching. Later, she got a master's degree and was a Latin teacher until her retirement.
FORTY YEARS ago August 1, George was hired as the maintenance supervisor for the Brunswick Schools. And the family caught some flack over it. But then, no on really knew the workings of the schools better than he, from helping his dad.
"I started at $4,700 and after five years, I had more in my retirement than my dad did in all the years he had worked," George said. And one year when the Towslees were on vacation, the school board raised his pay to $13,000, drawing letters of criticism to the local paper about how outrageously high that was.
George's children: Ray, Norma, Wayne,, Pam, Darlene and Bob, all attended Brunswick schools - Crestview and later Hickory Ridge. Now Darlene's daughter, Stephanie DeLarec is attending Kidder School.
"I never thought much about Stephanie being the fourth generation," said Darlene. "But it's kind of nice." Darlene is also a part-time school bus driver.
