Elgin school's 75th birthday inspires a party

One of the state's oldest middle schools will celebrate its 75th birthday Sunday.

Former teachers, alumni, parents, teachers and community members are invited to join in the festivities at Abbott Middle School in Elgin.

About 70 former and current Abbott teachers are expected to attend a potluck brunch, said Mary Olsen, an Abbott math teacher who is coordinating the event.

The school will be open to the whole community from 1 to 3 p.m.

The rambling brick building on Van Street has distinctive features -- such as terra cotta tiles with scenes from nursery rhymes, and cavernous closets -- that newer schools lack, Olsen said.

Abbott artifacts, including old yearbooks, photos and even the dress worn by the school's first "May Queen" will be grouped by decade throughout the school, Olsen said.

The school will unveil a mural painted by students to commemorate the anniversary. Student music and drama groups also will perform.

Sunday will be a celebration, but Elgin residents weren't doing much celebrating when the building first opened to students in 1932, amid the Great Depression.

The school board sold Abbott to the community as a kindergarten through ninth-grade school that would relieve crowding at the high school, according to Elgin historian Mike Alft's "Elgin: An American History."

The public was reluctant to embrace the relatively new concept of a middle school for sixth- through eighth-graders, according to Alft.

At the time, elementary schools were almost all kindergarten through eighth grade.

Voters approved the building, which subsequently opened to eighth-, ninth- and 10th-graders, according to Alft.

The building was named for Edward Abbott, an Elgin doctor and veteran of the Spanish-American War.

The cost of building Abbott, coupled with plummeting property values, combined to strain the district's finances. For the 1932-1933 school year, teachers who made more than $1,400 saw their salaries cut by 10 percent, according to Alft.

Abbott now serves just seventh- and eighth-graders, and is one of eight junior highs within Elgin Area School District U-46.

Olsen said she hopes to draw a crowd from all of the Abbott's eras.

"We'll have teachers who taught there years and years and years ago," Olsen said. "We just want people to wander through and say hello."