LAWRENCE: Country fair at Eldridge Park School Saturday

Wrapping up the celebration of its 100th birthday, the Eldridge Park School is planning an old-fashioned country fair Saturday at Meadowbrook Field.

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   Wrapping up the celebration of its 100th birthday, the Eldridge Park School is planning an old-fashioned country fair Saturday at Meadowbrook Field.
   The event, which is free, will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The rain date is Sunday, June 9, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
   ”We are planning an old country fair. It’s to celebrate the end of our 100th year,” Michele Immordino, the school librarian, said of the Lawn Park Avenue school, which opened its doors on April 11, 1913.
   The fair will feature old-time activities that the first students at the school might have done — beginning with a cakewalk, Ms. Immordino said.
   A cakewalk is similar to musical chairs. Numbers are placed on the ground and the person who is standing on the number that is selected wins a cake. All participants will receive a cookie for entering the cakewalk.
   There will be a fortune teller and someone who will guess your weight, Ms. Immordino said. A bean bag toss also is part of the fun, along with a game of knock-over-the-can and a sponge relay. Children can also guess the amount of candy in a jar.
   A DJ will play music. Children — young and old — can get a temporary tattoo, and they can also have their face painted and decorate their hair with colored hair spray.
   If all of that activity makes fair-goers hungry, there will be food to purchase, Ms. Immordino said. Students, however, get a voucher for one free food item.
   The fair is not just for students, though, Ms. Immordino said. A tent will be set up for Eldridge Park School alumni, who can catch up with old friends and former teachers, she said. Tours of the school will be offered, so the alumni can see how “their” school has changed over the years.
   The Eldridge Park School was built in 1913 in response to overcrowding at the Slackwood Elementary School. Until the school on Lawn Park Avenue was built, children in the Eldridge Park neighborhood attended the Slackwood Elementary School, Ms. Immordino said.
   There were two teachers at the Eldridge Park School — Irene Pycraft Rich, who doubled as the school principal, and Mary O’Brien Cleary, Ms. Immordino said. The two women taught students in grades 1-8. There were 18 graduates in the first graduating class.
   But the burgeoning residential development in the Eldridge Park neighborhood meant more classrooms were needed, so the roof was raised and two more classrooms were added on a second floor in 1916. To accommodate increased enrollment, a one-room school — the Grove School — was moved and attached to the Eldridge Park School.
   Still, the children kept coming. In1923, an eight-room addition was built that resulted in 13 classrooms. School officials decided in 1947 to split up the grades, and sent the older students to Slackwood Elementary School for lack of classroom space.
   Another addition was built in front of the school in 1955, providing more classrooms. Portable classrooms were placed on the grounds in 1967. But by the mid-1970s, enrollment began to drop and the Eldridge Park School was closed in 1978.
   School district officials rented the surplus school to the Mercer County Special Services School District to provide classrooms for handicapped and developmentally disabled students.
   The pendulum began to swing again, and the Eldridge Park School was reopened as 4th-grade-only school in 1990 to handle a growth spurt in the number of students, Ms. Immordino said. The grade-configuration changed after a few years, and now it is a grades pre-K to 3 school.