The reunion was held on Saturday, 3 August 2002, at the Auburndale Playground, ("The Cove"), Auburndale, on the banks of the Charles River (where the "yellow submarine" jungle gym is).

BACK ROW: Rebecca Wilson, Alan Weiner & daughter, Mark Vassalotti*, Bill Kelley, Beth Ryan.
SECOND ROW: Michelle Porter, Kathryn Kaufman, Kathleen Rourke, Lila Feingold, Matthew Antonellis, Brad Robbins, Brian McQuillan.
FRONT ROW: Joanne Ekizian, Trish Anderson, Anne Kern & daughter, Kim Galton, Arleigh Movitz, Howard Bratton.
* (No, your memory isn't gone: Mark V. came late and had to be PhotoShopped into this image by Rebecca.)

Catering was provided by Woodman's in the Rough of Essex (inventors of the fried clam back in 1916. No kidding.)

We had 16 alumni, 2 former faculty, about 10 children and about 7 parents attending. Three generation reunions are pretty unusual, but then so was the whole event. The Daily News Tribune did an article about the event; the electronic version (without the photos) was available here, but has since expired; you can start at this link to track the article and pay for it now.

I have updated alumni "now" photos with shots that I took at the event.

I have posted shots of Williams School as it looks today. You can see them here. CD-ROMs with all of the photos, at high resolution, have been distributed, including reunion photos by Rebecca Dru and me, and photos of Williams by Michelle Porter and me. It also contains a scanned-in version of the Daily News Tribune article, too large to post here. If you are a late arrival to this website, and want a copy of the CD-ROM, contact me.

Yes, we pulled off the reunion, but there is still much that can be done. If you feel like contributing to this project, here are some of the things we can use:

• ANY information on ANY alumni or faculty to fill gaps. Ideally, we want address, phone, email, then and now photos for each person. Also, if they have a web presence, the url.
• Married names. One of the major difficulties in tracking female alumni is that often their name changes when they get married, making them hard to locate.
• If you know the whereabouts of anyone we haven't been able to find, let us know. Don't worry if the info isn't complete; even partial leads have resulted in finds.
• Please correct any name misspellings. One reason we may not be able to locate some people is that we're searching by the wrong name spelling.
• Old photos. Any snapshots of school activities would also be welcome. Bug your parents.
• Check the info about yourself. Help fill those gaps, too! Married? Have kids?
• If your contact information changes, if you move or get a new email address, please keep us updated. Email addresses are notoriously transient, and we've already lost half a dozen email contacts since the reunion.

Rebecca Wilson has set up a reunion page for us on classmates.com. It can be viewed here. If you plan to sign up on classmates.com, please note that Williams Elementary is listed in three separate locations: Newton, Newtonville, and Auburndale. The Auburndale list is the most comprehensive and is the one that we are using.

There are several Williams artifacts that are displayed here and/or were displayed at the reunion.

One item is a large illustrated 'map', about 3'x4', done for a "City Planning" module in Miss Burles' 4^th grade class. This project was done by me, Danny Schindler, Doug Ferguson, and Mark Vassalotti. I remember that I used up an entire box of my father's color artist's pencils on this project. I hadn't seen it for years (it's was in a closet at my parent's house back east), but at the reunion I was able to determine that this city we planned had, simultaneously, a parade, a riot, a major fire, and a satellite in fiery reentry into a special water-filled truck.

Another item, displayed here, is a book that we wrote, illustrated and printed in Mr. McLean's and Miss Rourke's classes. The material was copied onto silkscreen, printed, and bound with thread. The book has been scanned in, and the images enhanced as best as possible for legibility. You can see the book by clicking here, or click on the icon to the left.

The Williams School Song has been reconstructed here.

We've tracked down copies of the Williams School Cookbook which was put together (by the PTA, we think) for fund raising. Copies were available at the reunion. If you absolutely must have a copy, let us know.

Also on display at the reunion was sales literature for educational toys, that featured photos of Joanne Ekizian in, I believe, 3^rd grade.

The official Newton school system web pages for Williams can be visited by clicking here. The school's email address is williams@nxp.com. A couple of changes have occurred since 'our' time (boy, saying that makes me feel old): the address is still 141 Grove Street, but the zip code has changed from 02166 to 02466, and demographics have apparently shifted enough that the school is now K-5, not K-6. At some point, half the auditiorium was converted into a larger interim library.

According to a recent email from the co-president of the PTO, the auditorium was completely restored, with new seating, and a new library was constructed, where the old basketball court was. A new playground has been built off in the field six or so years ago, and several classrooms were added in the new wing. In addition, students from Williams now go to the Brown Middle School and Newton South HS, not to Warren (long closed) and Newton North HS.

And, of course, they have a web presence now, with projects posted for everyone to see. Computers have come a ways since the Wang Calculators we used in 5^th and 6^th! One sad change: although Haskell's pond still exists, it is much smaller than it used to be, and is hemmed in by a rather large housing project in what used to be the field around it. So, if you were planning a nostalgic biology field trip, forget it.

Please note: Information which has not been confirmed as current is indicated by italics. People are listed by the names they had while in school: married or changed names are listed when known.

The most recent "then" photos possible were used. Please remember that we're running on 30+ year old memories here, so I apologize in advance for forgetting some names (especially the girls, since I didn't spend much time with them, since they had cooties), or misspelling names, or not putting the correct name with the correct face. Help me fix these.

All contact information, including photos, was either obtained from individuals or from public domain sources via the web. If you don't want certain information posted, let me know, and it will be removed. If you don't like the photos used, let me know as well, and preferably send me the one you want shown.

Please send ANY updates, additions, or corrections to Arleigh Movitz. Especially photos. Do you want people to think that you grew up with a big question mark on your face?