Images: Batavia's Mooseheart Child City & School Retro Gallery
In this week's Retro Gallery, we revisit Mooseheart Child City and School in Batavia. Founded in 1913, Mooseheart is supported completely through private donations — the great majority of which come from the 1 million men and women of the Moose fraternal organization throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Bermuda. Moose International headquarters is located on the Mooseheart campus.
Mooseheart is currently home to approximately 200 students, from preschool to high school seniors. Applications for admission to Mooseheart are considered from any family whose children are, for whatever reason, lacking a stable home environment.
So take a walk down memory lane with us. Reminisce about that special time, place or person in your life from back in the day. Share your memories. Share your photos with #RetroGallery. Tell us what you'd like to see in future galleries.
Look for a new Retro Gallery every Thursday at www.dailyherald.com/oldpics.
• Special thanks to Darryl Mellema, Associate Editor/Department of Communications at Mooseheart International, for providing historical images and information for this gallery.
PHOTO GALLERY: Resort life in Fox Lake region in #RetroGallery #TBT
‘Buy More War Bonds' bus, 1940-42: In 1943, these Mooseheart boys piled onto buses behind the campus' Loyalty Building and traveled to an appearance to help promote sales of War Bonds.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Lincoln Highway work June 1914: Thanks to lobbying from Mooseheart Superintendent Rodney Brandon, the stretch of the Lincoln Highway north and south of the Mooseheart campus became one of Illinois' first stretches of rural roadway to be concrete-paved, in 1914. More than 1,000 Moose members volunteered with shovels and other equipment to help prepare the roadbed in June.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
First football with Coach Ben Oswalt, 1917: Underneath the watchful eye of Coach Ben Oswalt, in suit, the offense of Mooseheart's first interscholastically-competing football team goes through its drills (or perhaps just poses for the photographer.) Centering the ball is Wayne Wallace, who was one of the five members of Mooseheart's first graduating class of 1919. A grateful Wallace, who became a professional engineer and president of the Illinois Moose Association, was instrumental in raising the funds and supervising the construction of the current football stadium in 1939-40. Wallace also served on the Mooseheart Board of Governors and, later in life, lived at Moosehaven until his death in 1997, at age 96.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Football team, 1923: Mooseheart continued its dominance in football through the 1920s. Shown here is the 1923 undefeated football team with the first football coach at Mooseheart, Ben Oswalt, back row, left.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Mooseheart football team, 1940: Right after World War II, with travel restrictions lifted, Mooseheart head coach Johnny Williams began taking his team on the road. The late 1940s teams were perhaps the finest in the history of the school, and Williams sought better competition for his teams. Given their “rambling” nature from coast to coast during this period, the team was nicknamed the “Red Ramblers,” and the name stuck. In the 21st Century, the Ramblers still frequently travel for up to 100 miles for a game.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Band in Roosevelt Auditorium, 1949: Only the girls were playing the strings in Dr. Jesse O. Ballinger's Mooseheart Orchestra in this group portrait. The boys were relegated to the woodwinds, brass and percussion — and to the back! Ballinger had come to Mooseheart in 1929; from then through the 1960s, he cultivated and led the Orchestra.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Mooseheart band, 1969: Roosevelt Auditorium.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Pennsylvania Hall: Built in 1957 and patterned after historic Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Hall was one of the three residential buildings constructed at Mooseheart between 1953 and 1963.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
House of God, 1950: The first mention of the idea of a House of God at Mooseheart was uttered by James J. Davis in 1918. But two World Wars and a Great Depression got in the way of fundraising. Finally in 1946, at the consistent urging of both Rev. Payne and Father Laffey, the Moose fraternity began its final push to raise the necessary resources. Davis placed the cornerstone for the religious edifice in late 1946, roughly a year before he died. Actual groundbreaking didn't occur until fall, 1948, and construction continued steadily through 1949 and into the summer of 1950. Dedication ceremonies, with roughly 10,000 present, were held on Aug. 20, 1950, during that year's International Convention.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Baby village: Dedicated in 1922, Mooseheart's Baby Village was funded by the Pennsylvania Moose Association. It consists of four residences named after rivers in Pennsylvania (Juniata, Allegheny, Schuylkill and Susquehanna) and a nursery school.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Chorus, 1966: Mooseheart has always had a strong tradition of music education, including its choir, shown in 1966 in the campus' House of God.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Stadium, 1940: Mooseheart's 3,100-seat stadium is shown under construction in the summer of 1940. It was designed by W. Wayne Wallace, Mooseheart Class of 1919, and renovated extensively in 2010.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Grammar School Building, 1918: Constructed in time for Mooseheart's fifth anniversary in 1918, the “Grammar School” housed grades one through eight until Mooseheart's current school building was completed in 1954. After that, it housed “Plant and Construction” offices.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Giles gym, 1948: Moose International Director General Malcolm Giles, center, smiling in dark suit, joined Protestant Chaplain Don Payne, at Giles' right, and Mooseheart Superintendent W.J. Leinweber, seated in front, at an interscholastic basketball game in the tiny Illinois Gym, around 1948.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Graduates then and now: The five members of Mooseheart's first high school graduating class (1919), gathered with their class picture at the 1949 International Moose Convention in San Francisco. From left, in both photographs, are Wayne Wallace, Lawrence Hower, Albert Patterson, Harold Taylor and William Grant.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Mooseheart Homecoming, 1950s and 60s: Homecoming is more than just a game. The weekend includes activities for former graduates to come “home” and visit with their Mooseheart family, past and present, as in these photos from the 1950s and 1960s show. Activities include a Friday night pep rally and bonfire, a Saturday football game and traditional crowning of the homecoming court, and a Mooseheart Alumni Dinner.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Mooseheart Homecoming, 1950s and 60s: More than just a game, this weekend includes activities for former graduates to come “home” and visit with their Mooseheart family, past and present. Activities include a Friday night pep rally and bonfire, a Saturday football game and traditional crowning of the homecoming court, and a Mooseheart Alumni Dinner.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Mooseheart Homecoming, 1950s and 60s: More than just a game. The weekend includes activities for former graduates to come “home” and visit with their Mooseheart family, past and present. Activities include a Friday night pep rally and bonfire, a Saturday football game and traditional crowning of the homecoming court, and a Mooseheart Alumni Dinner.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Cooking class, late 1930s: Following the gender roles of the era, this late 1930s cooking class at Mooseheart had only girls enrolled.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
Mooseheart baby pool, 1930: By the 1940s the fountain at Baby Village at Mooseheart was replaced by the much more usable and kid-friendly wading pool. Later, that pool was rebuilt in the shape of a heart.
Photo courtesy of Moose International
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