Fairfield's "Often Overlooked & Mostly Forgotten" Elementary School: Nathan Hale

The following was written by AWHS Class of 1976 graduate Russ Nagy. "I've really enjoyed reading your blog once I found the AWHS site and have been conversing with Tony Procaccini occasionally. I wanted to comment specifically on the four-part series of articles on 'Warde Neighborhoods' and how much I enjoyed reading them."

I grew up where Jennings Road dead-ends into Kings Highway East. Where my parents' house used to stand is now a rather large office building and parking lot which is situated between Shepard Street and Nathan Hale Street, backed up to the Rooster River. If you look at Mapquest (or the like), you will also see Rainbow Street, which actually never existed. This area may be designated Villa Park (actually to the east) or Tunxis Hill or even Holland Hill.

The point of my communication is to point out an often overlooked and mostly forgotten elementary school - Nathan Hale - which was also demolished when the office building was planned. The last graduating sixth grade class was in 1971, one year after I graduated in 1970. My father also graduated from this school in the early 1930s! For nearly 30 years after 1971 the school building was used for various purposes by the town until being razed around the year 2000.

The geographical area that Nathan Hale served is somewhat like a triangle. The first leg would be to draw a fairly straight line from the Bridgeport city line at the intersection of Kings Highway East and Tunxis Hill Road, near Mountain Grove Cemetery and the bridge over the Rooster River to approximately the intersection of Jennings Road and Black Rock Turnpike. The next leg is from that intersection to approximately the intersection of Grasmere Avenue and Kings Highway (McKesson was there, now Home Depot) and back to make the Rooster River (Bridgeport line) the last leg.

Nathan Hale was a fairly small school and its attendees would go on to split almost 50/50 to Tomlinson/Ludlowe and Fairfield Woods/Warde. This was probably one of, if not the, most blue collar, racially diverse neighborhoods in Fairfield. There was a very large Hungarian population here.

I have attached a photo of my 1970 sixth-grade class, and I can recall nearly all but two full names of the students, a couple of which I've seen on the Warde Web site. I hope that I don't embarrass anyone, but I'll tell you who is in the photo and where they went to high school (or should have) to the best of my knowledge. I know that several attended Warde but didn't graduate.

Front Row (left to right): Nancy Leonard - W, Susan Toth, Deborah Bodnar - W, Cheryl, Leslie Allen - W, Sharon Sears, Susan Dougherty - W; Second Row: Calvin Hunter, Pat Bennet - L, Sean Dwyer - L, Brett Peters, Lisa Slingo - W, Pam Bakonyi - W, Elizabeth Luna, Paul Roma - W, Russ Nagy - W, Joe Takacs - W; Third Row: Teacher James Connely, Mark Steedly - W, Steven Lasky - L, Bill Elliot - W, Hector Luna, Jerry Deaso - W, Bob Novak, Hubert Staley, James Wach - W.

I haven't spoken to very many of these people in a long time. I would love to hear from any one of them. These were great memories and good times.

Russ Nagy

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