Picture This: A Glimpse Into Catonsville’s Storied Past

With the school year just around the corner for students, it seemed apropos to look back at a piece of Catonsville High School history that offered dramatic changes of a different sort. The graduating class in 1924 numbered just 69 students and the school was housed in what is today Catonsville Elementary School.

By fall 1925, Catonsville High School moved to 106 Bloomsbury where it remained until 1954 when its current home opened at 421 Bloomsbury Avenue. Its former home then became Catonsville Junior High (grades 7, 8, 9) and, in 1981, Catonsville Middle School (grades 6, 7, 8). It closed in 1987 when the middle school relocated to a new facility on Edmondson Avenue. (Even that was the site of a former school, Westchester Elementary.)

In a booklet that marked its closing, then-superintendent Robert Dubel—who walked those halls as a student himself, Class of  ’42—offered a remembrance. In part, he said: “Schools as institutions are comprised primarily of people rather than bricks and mortar, yet Catonsville High School and Catonsville Middle School will forever trace their roots to the grand old lady of Bloomsbury.”

Catonsville High School’s long-standing tradition of theatrical productions can be traced to 1921 when Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera, “The Mikado,” was performed. This past school year, students staged both a fall production, “Arsenic & Old Lace.” and a spring musical, “The Wedding Singer.”

Back in 1924, the dramatics committee chose the French satirist Molière’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” translated as “The Middle-Class Gentleman.” Certainly has far more dramatic flair in French, as do these costumed cast members. Molière penned 12 of the most durable and penetratingly satirical full-length comedies of all time, as well as six shorter farces and comedies. This play was written in 1670 and performed for the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King himself.

The 1924 yearbook, June Bug, lists the members of the cast, including Charles McComas, Virginia Jobson, Mildred Reich, Elizabeth Hammel, William Blandford, Monroe Mitchell, Nelsa Lee Wade, Edward Phillips, Philip Kahmer, Raymond Hobson, John Byers, Clarence Wrightson, Thomas Rodenhi, John Schueler, John Diehlman, Fred Maisel, Robert Myers, Clara Maisel, Maurice Weidemeyer, Dudley Weidemeyer, Nathaniel Sexton, Jesse Rossman, Jack Miller, J. Robert Myers, Winslow Parker, James Barnes, Ernest Maisel, Catherine Hildebrandt, Lillian Proppe, Edna Kraft, Elma Appler, Jack Miller, G.R. Myers, Virginia Sneed, Alma Ireland, Margaret Buxton, Irmgard Stude, Audrey Spoerer and Harry Ashman; with stage manager, Marguerite Kilbourn.

This photograph shows 37 cast members and a gentleman in a suit —most likely the drama teacher or director. It would be wonderful to learn if any of these names sound familiar to current Catonsville residents and whether a relative was a member of the Class of ’24 and appeared in this school play.

The Catonsville Room’s collection includes the earliest real “annual,” the 1914 June Bug, whose foreword stated: “This book, our first Year Book has taken the place of the book published quarterly called the Blue and Gold …” The Blue and Gold, the earliest dating to 1907, did not include photos of graduating seniors. Visitors are welcome to peruse for a flavor of ways these student publications have changed over the decades, both in substance and style.

In the ’24 yearbook, each senior’s photo was accompanied by a four-line ditty intended to capture the student’s personality. For Charles McComas, the play’s male lead, his proclaimed:

            His jaws, they work from morn ’til night,

            He argues black until its white.

            To prove he’s right is Charles’ aim,

            For this he’s gained renown and fame.

 How times have changed.

REQUEST TO READERS: Missing from the library’s collection are yearbooks from 1965, 1966, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1993 and 1994.

Thanks go to Bryce Rumbles, librarian at the Catonsville Branch, and Lisa Vicari, Catonsville Room volunteer and board member, Friends of the Catonsville Library, for their research assistance.