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Fitch class of 1944 celebrates 70th reunion
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Nine of the 12 surviving members of the Austintown Fitch graduating class of 1944 were able to attend the 70th class reunion. The group met at the Eat'n Park on Mahoning Ave.
By TIM CLEVELAND
As they have since 1949, the 1944 graduating class of Austintown Fitch High School came together for its reunion. This year’s class reunion was on Aug. 20 at the Eat’n Park restaurant, located at 5451 Mahoning Ave in Austintown.
There were 47 members of the graduating class, with the boys called away to fight in World War II. There are 12 surviving members, with nine able to attend the reunion.
“I was working at an office and the mailman [Bud DeCamp] had graduated with me, so him and I decided to start the reunions,” Marjorie Gessner said. “We used to have about 100 with the husbands and families.”
The first reunion was in 1949 and every five years after that until 1994. Since then, the reunion has been an annual event, where the class members gather to talk and show pictures.
The first class at Fitch was in 1916. Gessner and her classmates began going to school in 1932 and graduated 12 years later.
“We started school the year [Franklin] Roosevelt was elected president and he was still there when we graduated,” she said. “When we moved to Austintown, I think there were 12 houses on Carnegie Ave. Now there’s probably 50.”
Gessner said all of her three children attended Austintown schools.
“I wanted my kids to go to Fitch schools,” she said. “My son’s a dentist, Larry Gessner, and my other son’s a chief prosecutor in Akron, Brad Gessner. He won’t leave Austintown. He drives to Akron every day. I think it’s the best school there ever was.”