Green Space Challenge Stories Day 4
“I have lived in Romeo most of my life. My parents moved here from rural northwestern Minnesota before I was born in 1957. My dad convinced my mother to move by telling her it did not snow much here.🥶 We lived in the second-floor apartment of a beautiful house on Pleasant Street. We eventually moved within walking distance to the North Grade School. I made many friends at school and in the neighborhood. 60 years later, I am still in contact with many. We were also within walking distance of the Romeo Jr High School and later the Romeo High School. I remember passing the beautiful older homes and the colorful foliage in the fall. I see kids walking the same routes and wonder if they appreciate this quaint village.
I appreciated the older part of the Jr. High School on Prospect Street. I loved the fireplace with its brickwork, the gym with the balcony, and the classrooms’ beautiful woodwork. The Maples building was still on the property, but I do not recall if it was taken down while I was still there or after junior high school. History is easily forgotten.
I was not fully aware of the Prospect Street property’s significant history until recently. This space matters and its historical background should be remembered, honored, and supported by the Romeo Community Schools’ Board of Education (BOE). Those before us starting with Nathan Dickinson’s & others’ generosity in the mid-1800s, sacrificed to meet the community’s educational needs with his $2075 in donations, and the sale of the Prospect Street property with the Dickinson School building was sold for $5,000 (an estimated $100,253.650 today’s dollars).
The Green Space on Prospect Street group is working to meet the community’s educational and recreational needs and preserve the past for future generations. I have been a Romeo Community Schools taxpayer most of my adult life and many others have always voted in support of the school district’s needs. This is a reasonable request; please do the right thing and save this place by honoring its history. I implore the BOE to pay it forward as earlier generations have.”
Photo credit: Sue Beaudry Wiers