1953 at Deerfield Elementary School

While my father, Marlin Eller, was busy serving on the Deerfield Beach City Commission, I was enjoying myself in the sixth grade at Deerfield Beach Elementary School. At first we didn’t have a teacher for our grade so Mrs. Henry, the principal of the school,did the teaching until Mrs. Sawitzke arrived to take over the job. She was a very good teacher and even introduced us to acting in a play about gypsies. I was King of the Gypsies and Lynda Dame was Queen. It was a little embarrassing because over the previous summer Lynda had grown to be about 6 inches taller than I was. I don’t think she grew an inch after that summer, so I eventually caught up and passed her in height.

 The “lead” actors in the play (left to right) were Tommy Gannon, yours truly David Eller, Lynda Dame, Richard Rieth, Jimmy Phillips, Peggy Hahn (seated) and Beatrice Manning.

Richard Rieth was the shortest member of our class, but very smart in math and science. He wrote the following:

“With the help of my scientific mind and my chemical analysis, I am going to try to look into the future and tell what I see my classmates doing 10 years from now. I see, yes, I see Dewey Bennett playing big league baseball with the New York Grankees, I mean, er...the New York Yankees. I also see Tommy Gannon leading a big band in New York, and his name in neon lights. As for Mildred Gordon I see her as a nurse working in the largest hospital in the world. Yes, and David Eller playing baseball with the Boston Beans, oh, I mean the Boston Red Socks. As for Beatrice Manning I see her working as a clerk in a bakery. I also see Diane Ash as a schoolteacher teaching sixth grade, and doing just as wonderful a job as our teacher Mrs. R.S. has done. The night of our operetta, there was a big movie producer from Hollywood, California in the audience, who promised great careers for Peggy Hahn and Lynda Dame. Now they can be seen in the great musical hit South Atlantic. I also see Jimmy Phillips working in a circus as a trapeze artist. Yes, and Donald Williams and James Stills becoming great farmers and growing new kind of fruit trees by use of chemicals and grafting. With Deerfield growing as it is, I see a newspaper all its own, published and edited by Janice Brown and Jessie Beard, with the gossip column headed by Susan Whitney. As for myself, with my interest in electricity and my experimenting with chemistry, I’ll be lucky if I’m still here 10 years from now.”   Richard Rieth.

Note: One of his predictions came true: Tommy Gannon, a tremendous trumpet player even in sixth grade, went on to have his own big band in California. Richard Rieth graduated from our high school a few years later and received a full scholarship to Rensselaer Polytech  University in New York to study engineering. He went on to help develop our modern telephone systems. Yours truly, David Eller, ended up as publisher of the newspaper in Deerfield instead of Janice Brown and Jesse Beard.

And finally, Mildred Gordon wrote the following poem dedicated to the graduating sixth grade class at Deerfield Elementary School in 1953:

Six more years have we to go

down the path of life abroad,

Down the sunny lane to school

Where we always obey the rule.

We’re half way through the school life now,

Six more years upon our brow.

When it’s hot when it’s cool

We’ll still be in school;

Even though we’re half way through

We’ve still got six years to do

Now we sing farewell to you

And to wondrous teachers too     

David Eller, Publisher    

 11-20-08