Saturday has rolled around once again, so it is time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver on Genea-Musings.

This week’s challenge involves explaining how we traveled to school from K through grade 12.

1)  How did you get to your school(s) through high school?

I attended five schools growing up.

Kindergarten through half of sixth grade was spent at Roosevelt School #10 in Passaic, New Jersey.

Source: Google Maps

To go to school, I turned right from our house and walked down Summer Street to Lexington Avenue. I then turned right two blocks to the intersection with Harrison Street. Turning left, I walked the final two blocks to Roosevelt School #10 at the corner of Harrison Street and Parker Avenue.

It wasn’t a long walk, but I did it twice every day, as no lunch was served at school. We were all dismissed about 11:30, walked home for lunch, and walked back for the afternoon session, which began around 1:00.

In the middle of sixth grade, we moved to Wayne, where I attended James Fallon School:

Source: Google Maps

The walk was a little shorter distance-wise, but took about the same amount of time because the streets in Wayne were hilly.

When I graduated and went off to Anthony Wayne Junior High School, my feet were again quite busy and this was the school that was the furthest from my house:

Source: Google Maps

It took about a half hour of walking, assuming it wasn’t sweaty hot or raining or snowing, to walk from home to Anthony Wayne Junior High School. I actually walked the same path as to James Fallon School. There was a footpath that went from the back of the elementary school into the field of Wayne Valley High School. We cut through there, went out the front area of the high school and crossed Valley Road to the junior high school. Anthony Wayne closed years ago and Nestle bought the building.

In 8th grade, Wayne was in a state of growth and a second high school was built. New Jersey had some strange law, so we were told, that seniors could only graduate from a school that had been opened for a full year. Personally, I think school officials wanted to have the senior class of 1966 graduate intact and not split in half.

Therefore, in order to fit all the students in Wayne Valley and the new Wayne Hills High School, all freshmen attended Hills for the 1966-1967 school year, the sophomores and juniors were split into their respective attendance areas and the seniors all attended Valley.

That meant after spending all those hours walking to junior high school, I got to ride a school bus for my freshman year of high school. However, that involved walking up Birchwood Terrace (up quite a good hill) to the corner of Alps Road.

Source: Google Maps

When freshman year was over, half of the class was transferred back to Wayne Valley High School, where I attended and graduates. It was back to foot power, from home down past James Fallon, down the footpath to the high school field and into the building.

Source: Google Maps

As Google is pointing out, driving to Wayne Valley High School from my house was a fair amount longer distance than using the foot path behind the elementary school. I never, ever walked home along Valley Road. It was a much longer trek up Birchwood Terrace, all uphill, and probably would have taken me 2.5 times as long to get home!

It was very rare when I was given a ride to school, nor was driving my own car part of my daily school life either! However, kids were certainly in a lot better physical shape than they are today as they are chauffeured door-to-door for ridiculously short distances!

Thanks, Randy, for this week’s challenge.