WIBS was not Ford’s first school of this kind. In 1916, he started a trade school for boys in conjunction with his automobile plant in Michigan. What distinguished the WIBS from prior ventures was that the school was neither exclusively a trade school for auto mechanics nor for future farmers. It provided a broad range of practical training, for which the boys were paid a salary, to supplement their education. Students “learned not only metallurgy and how to repair cars in the shop, but dairy and poultry farming, the care of orchards, raising vegetables and fruit, animal husbandry, restaurant management, running a produce shop and other jobs.” Salaries ranged from $435 to $504 annually, which was quite a sum during the Depression years. Students paid for room and board, medical care, clothing, entertainment and laundry and were required to open a savings account. If desired, after four years at WIBS, students had the option to continue their training after graduation at Ford’s trade school in Michigan.

WIBS opened on March 6, 1928, with six instructors and 31 students, all wards of the State coming from many different backgrounds. Students might have been Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, German, or Dutch. Former student Michael Bolesky recalled that it was a strange feeling being put together with students unknown, “[b]ut we made friends quickly. Louis Seligman and I hit it off right away.” Earl J. Boyer, manager of the Wayside Inn, and Frank Campsall, Ford’s private secretary in Detroit, were responsible for lining up furnishings for the dormitory and classroom, advertising for positions, and reviewing applications from boys and instructors. 

The students’ schedule included a mix of formal academics and practical training. A school day could include Mathematics, English, Geography, Civics, and Spelling, but also Domestic Science (assisting in the Inn’s kitchen), Electrical Engineering, Practical Mechanics, and Carpentry classes. Agricultural training consisted of working the Inn’s estate in the orchard, dairy, and greenhouse, or tending gardens, clearing brush, and chopping wood. Students took turns waking up at 4:30 am to milk cows. They also joined clubs such as the Glee Club, Drama, Debate, and Radio clubs, or the school newspaper.

Weekends offered a mix of rest and work. While house cleaning was mandatory on Saturdays and church service on Sunday mornings, the students had plenty of time to relax with friends. They took buses to Marlborough and Framingham to shop or go to the movies. Recreation included swimming, baseball, football, and in the winter, there was skating, skiing and sledding. During the summer, students went on two-week camping trips, as well as day trips to Lynn Beach.

Ford enforced a strict diet for the students. Breakfast consisted of fruit and milk only. Lunch, a starchy meal, consisted of salad, potatoes and other cooked vegetables, bread, and milk. Dinner, the protein meal, included soup, salad, meat, and vegetables. Candy and desserts were not served. Nor were students allowed to have these in the dorms. Of course, the teenagers found a way to satisfy their sweet tooths. Former student Michael Bolesky said that students, “used to buy candy cars in Marlboro or Framingham and hide them on the way back. Once I had a new suit and kept a candy bar hidden in the pocket. Then a mouse went in my pocket after the candy bar and ripped it. I had to take it back for invisible mending. Nobody saw the mouse or knew why the new suit had to be mended.”

“It was quite simply, the best time of my life,” one WIBS graduate said. “It gave me the opportunity I would otherwise have lacked, being, as I was, a ward of the State. I learned regular school subjects, how to do farm work, how to mend electrical appliances, repair cars, make a cabinet, play baseball and tennis. I learned how to get along with others [...] [b]ecause of WIBS I had a better idea how to bring up my own kids - we should have more schools like it today.”

William "Bill" Quinn '37 also had fond memories of the school. “I almost left the first day when I was assigned to pick potato bugs off the potato plants," he recalled. "I walked all the way back down the Post Road on the way to Boston. Then I thought of my foster home and walked right back to the school. I’m glad I did. [...] I couldn’t plane a board until my senior year. I was the clumsiest dolt you ever did see. Then, all of a sudden, everything fell into place and I shot ahead of everybody and when I graduated, they hired me to run the Salvage Yard. I would assist the instructor in the manual training class.” Quinn used the skills he learned from WIBS carpentry instructor Daniel “Danny” Blue to build a successful career as a cabinetmaker. By the 1990s, Quinn ran the WIBS Alumni Association.

Ford insisted that students write diary entries to keep him informed of their studies and training. Instructors would review their entries before they were sent to Detroit. These notes comprise one of the most important collections held in The Wayside Inn’s archives today. With them others can have a glimpse of what life was like here almost 100 years ago.