Lakewood Lore

Once upon a time, secret handshakes reigned at LHS

There was a time when secret societies were the rage among many students at Lakewood High School.

Teenage boys pledged fraternities with such·unlikely names as Nomad, Ching Tang, Ongar, BAT and SPIF. Sorority girls belonged to Chequer, Flips, Aelau, Clio, Lambda Rho Tau, Beta Sigma Tau and others.

School Superintendent Julius E. Warren, during his 1927-34 tenure, estimated such membership running “as high as 25 or 30 percent of the total school enrollment.”

“They were a kind of status symbol that the school never sanctioned and finally banned,” Anthony J. (Tony) DiBiasio, today’s alumni director, recalls.

Fraternity members were influential, often having enough political clout to get their candidates elected to class offices, according fo Robert Havens, Class of ’45 and now teaching at the school.

“The boys weren’t scruffy. They dressed well--white shirts, drape-shape peg- leg trousers, pork-pie hats, and sweaters of club colors” he said.

For instance, the Ching Tangs wore black sweaters; the Nomads, Kelly green, and each had a special club symbol sewn on.”

The organizations held dances featuring nationally known big bands even during the Great Depression, remembers Lakewood journalist Alfred K. Murway Jr., Class of ’38, who once pledged Ongar.

He recollected attending a fraternity bash at the Hotel Cleveland ballroom, “escorting a lovely redhead, complete with corsage, and gliding to the music of Chick Webb, with Ella Fitzgerald as the thrush.

“Some of us, of course, danced the ‘Lakewood Hop’, which was sort of a cross between jitterbugging and the Charleston,” he mused.

Modeled after college counterparts, the local sororities held first-class rushing teas, with expensive hors d’oeuvres and canapes.

“I saw my first caviar at one of these,” said former Lakewood Councilwoman Trudy Ryan Wendling, Class of ’45 and a vice president of both Chequer and her graduating class.

Meetings held at members’ homes were very supportive, with “big sisters” and round-table sessions to assist and improve those who belonged, Trudy explained. Many parents helped and guided.

There was mild hazing in the sororities, Wendling also reported.

“You might be made to put on different colored socks, wear your clothes backward, or eat onions. However, fraternity hazing, which was often held at Clifton Beach, was rougher,” she noted.

Wendling pinpointed 1945 as the year the school system banned the groups. They were objectionable to school administration for various reasons, she explained. Besides the hazing and some beer-drinking and cigarette-smoking, there was problematic clique-forming, including a tendency for non-members to be socially ostracized. Furthermore, those who didn't get accepted often would feel crushed.

Virginia (Ginny) Elias Plotz, Class of 1937 and one-time secretary of Lambda Rho Tau stressed how well organized the groups were.

"Each had its own table at the school cafeteria,” she said. “There even was an Intersorority Council where representatives of the different organizations would meet to plan cooperative programs.”

“As much as $1,500—a big sum then—was paid to bring in a live band for dances at the downtown hotels and such places as Wade Park Manor, Columbia Ballroom and Springvale Country Club.”

Also, they printed creative flyers to promote the events, according to Ginny, who still treasures a filled two-inch-high miniature Coke bottle that once was distributed as an advertising reminder for one of the hops.

She keeps a half-century-old newspaper clipping, too, which explains that the school had tried to make its own extracurricular activities so attractive they would rival the societies, but generally had found it couldn’t be done.

Rowena Zackman Hooper, Class of ’38, described the fraternities and sororities as “providing a social way of life for many.”

Among the dances,she remembered a late ’30s appearance of Benny Goodman, who by that time had scaled Mount Olympus and reached god status.

Not all the secret society activity was confined to the high school. Jean Havens Nichols, sister of teacher Robert Havens, joined, in the early ’40s, a sorority at Horace Mann Junior High School.

“It was called ZKP (Zeta Kappa Phi) and we had pins, a secret handshake, pledging and hazing,” she said.

This article by Dan Chabek appeared in the Lakewood Sun Post December 12, 1991. Reprinted with permission.

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