DATE: Monday, May 19, 1997                  TAG: 9705190045

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   93 lines

SIMONSDALE ALUMNI TAKE A TRIP BACK TO CHILDHOOD THE 50-YEAR-OLD PORTSMOUTH SCHOOL BUILT FRIENDSHIPS, BINDING MEMORIES.

It was hardly their first trip down that school hallway, but it was a lot shorter - and in some ways, easier - this time around.

As kids, getting from one end to the other meant passing from that terrifying first step away from Mom all the way to adolescence.

Sunday, they were the grownups. Some of them were balding. Many were silver-streaked. Most hadn't set foot in Simonsdale Elementary School for more years than they cared to count.

For the school, it was a 50-year birthday. For about 300 people, it was a chance to revisit the place where they grew up.

They peered into the faces of other adults, searching for traces of childhood friends, and strolled down the hallways, letting the memories wash over them.

Robert Monacelli and his sister, Glenda M. Lamb, remembered the halls seemed to be greener when they were there in the 1950s.

But they were the same cinder block walls they had been taught to sit close to, tucking their heads under their arms during post-war Civil Defense drills.

They laughed about how naive they had been.

``The Navy Yard is going to be bombed, and we're going to be safe here in this hallway?'' Monacelli said.

Lamb had traveled from Mechanicsburg, Pa., for the reunion. Her family still has the silver baby spoon that was a gift from the shipyard commander when she became the first child born in the neighborhood in 1941.

Rear Adm. Manley H. Simons had pushed to have the neighborhood built to house shipyard workers during World War II.

More than 50 lots sold the first day, according to today's commander, Capt. William R. Klemm, who gave the school a portrait of Simons on Sunday.

Eventually, about 400 houses were built. Simonsdale flourished, growing into a close-knit community that had its own soda fountain stores, a Boy Scout clubhouse and a civic league hall.

``There were no haves or have-nots in Simonsdale,'' said Robert Smith. ``We were all the same.''

Smith spoke during the program, stirring up memories for former classmates; for instance, how Woodie Walker was the coolest guy in the fifth grade.

He wore a pink shirt with the collar up, charcoal pants and black shoes with taps, Smith recalled.

Walker himself, now 52, said his father worked with the railroad, but that was the exception in Simonsdale. ``Everyone I went to school with, their dads were shipyard people,'' he said.

Many of those who settled in Simonsdale came from the mountains or rural communities west and south of Virginia. Many were used to hometowns where the nearest neighbor was a mile or more away. But they took well to the closer quarters.

Their children trick-or-treated together, played ball together and went to Simonsdale together.

Irene Anderson Evans, who attended the school from 1950 to 1954, was there Sunday with her husband, Robert, another Simonsdale alumnus. ``I probably remember more about Simonsdale than I do my high school,'' she said.

``I think it has to do with the age. I think it has to do with the way the teachers cared and saw you as an individual,'' she said.

Evans still has the report on the Congo she did for her favorite teacher. She thinks her mother still has the Pocahontas costume she made her for the same class.

Woodie Walker showed up an hour early Sunday to make sure he missed nothing. The minute he walked in, he said, he took a sharp left and headed for the principal's office.

Walker made pretty good grades, but his report card usually came with the same reminder: ``Needs to exercise self-control.''

He knew he wouldn't find the principal he had gotten to know during his years at Simonsdale. Mary Frances Wright retired in 1971 after 25 years at the school and has passed away.

But he did find one of his teachers, Lucille Summers, now 91.

Walker remembers how honored he was when Summers gave him a speech to deliver as one of the wise men in the Christmas play.

``I was so proud to be in the play, I asked the teacher how could I be so lucky to get such a great part.''

He remembers she told him: ``You've got a big mouth, and you talk louder than anybody else. And we don't have a microphone.''

Summers had wondered before the reunion whom she might recognize among the many children she taught over 25 years.

Maybe there would be some of the students who helped her patch together a quilt in 1966. Maybe she would put the names and faces to the children she taught in 1962.

The thing she remembers about that class was how the children helped her that year when her husband died. They always seemed to know whether things were good or not, she said.

``Some of them were so understanding,'' she said. ``They simply helped me through it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Former Simonsdale Elementary teachers Lucille Summers,

right, and Lillian Bunting met their grown-up students Sunday for

the school's 50th birthday. Bunting is greeting Bill Harmon, who

attended from 1951 to 1957.

GARY C. KNAPP

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