Two Generations Meet at John Jay Middle School

Bob Williams had a group of boys enthralled on Friday at John Jay Middle School. The Army veteran was telling them of his experiences in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy during World War II and they peppered him with questions.

What was it like? Why kind of a gun did he use? What did it mean that his baseball cap said "Purple Heart?" He answered their questions in the hallway and then proceeded to regale them further at a cafeteria table where they barely allowed him a chance to eat.

Williams told them how he quit school at age 13 because of the Great Depression and that his first job was as a delivery boy for a butcher, at $3.50 a week for a 78-hour work week. He told them how he got his high school equivalency degree after he worked his way up to being a butcher and told them they should stay in school.

The senior citizens were at the middle school to take part in the annual Intergenerational Exchange Day, an event that is in its fifth year. Senior citizens from several senior groups in Katonah, Bedford Hills, South Salem, Lewisboro, and other towns were invited to the school to meet with kids and discuss their life experiences.

They were greeted in the lobby by welcoming posters and sixth graders who took them to lunch in the cafeteria. It was back to school for the elders as attended a class with seventh graders. Small group discussions allowed the middle schoolers to receive a first-hand account of what it was like to be a child during the Depression or during the war.

In the school library, Cecile Metel told of how she had to hide from the Germans as a French Jew and had to wear a yellow felt Star of David that said "Juif." She lived for a year in a basement and was able to sneak out during the day because she had blonde hair and didn't look Jewish.

Next to her sat Harry Maroncelli, who served as a ball turret gunner in a B17. He had never met Metel before, but noted that while she was living in Paris, his plane was assigned to bomb that city.

"I got lucky and it rained for two weeks and in that time, the ground troops freed Paris," he said. "And I never bombed Cecile." 

Maroncelli also discussed growing up in the Depression in the Bronx. "I think you kids missed a lot," he said, explaining that the Depression made kids play games that didn't cost anything. "All the games were team games and we played in the street."

Ingrid Mihailovic showed a picture of herself as a child. She was born in Germany during the war, near the city of Cologne. "Everything was lost," she said. "In wars, everybody suffers." She remembers seeing the bombers overhead, she added, a sight that Metel said she still remembered as well.

The senior citizens discussed their different experiences with JJMS students in the cafeteria and during the talks. Harry Maroncelli noted that as a member of what was the Army Air Corps, he lived in clean barracks, unlike veterans who served in the Pacific or areas of the conflict.

When someone asked Maroncelli about post-traumatic stress disorder, he said that he hadn't had a problem, but that many World War II veterans did. "There were soldiers after World War II who never got squared away," he said.

"Each grade is able to participate in some capacity," said Pam Veith, director of Lewisboro Seniors. Veith had been at the first Intergenerational Exchange Day, because she had a child at JJMS then and had volunteered to help.

The day ended with a music performance by seventh and eighth grade band members.

John F. Hurley, assistant principal at JJMS, said that Bob Williams came up with the idea for the intergenerational event. "It developed into a good thing," he said.