When Your Closest Friends Are From Elementary School

Beck: It seems pretty common for people to stay close with friends from high school or from college. But it’s less common to hear about people who are still in touch with friends from elementary school. What kind of unique value do you think it brings to your life, to have these friends who knew you when you were so young?

Bailey: Because we related on such a more intimate level, we developed socially and interpersonally at a high level. Not surprisingly, so many of us are in the fields of therapy, of teaching, of helping.

Ron: Very few of us went into STEM subjects. I think more of us were drawn to social sciences. That may be a generalization, but I do think that there was a humanism that we developed early and grew to love.

Beck: Did the group stay tight-knit after elementary school, or did you go your separate ways for a while?

Reesa: We went in different directions depending [on] what we were going to study in college and what part of town we lived in. We branched off into different groups. But throughout that time, people seemed to come back together [in different configurations].

Bailey: Some of us maintained friendships separate and apart.

Ron: I certainly felt that going to high school was a kind of banishment. In the smaller classes [of our elementary school], there was a real appreciation for the subjectivity of each person—what was special about them. Though of course, there were some kids who didn’t fit in, who got scapegoated, and they certainly don’t come to the reunions.

Beck: When was the first elementary-school reunion?

Ethel: The 50th [anniversary].

Reesa: Just before I moved to Vancouver, my mother told me that one of my Peretz-school friends had also moved to the area. She gave me her contact info, and [when I called], she said, “Altogether there are 14 of us living in Vancouver.” So we made a plan to get together.

Beck: So it was an informal thing, not organized by the school?

Reesa: It wasn’t through the school, just through our group. We put it out there for whoever was interested in joining. But it was so successful, we made it into an official thing [and organized more reunions]. The first one was small; we met at a park. The kids played, and we talked. Most of our kids were about the same age that we were when some of us last saw each other. Here we were that many years later, and our kids were playing together.

Beck: What happens at the reunions? How are they structured? Do you have activities?

Reesa: It’s pretty structured. One person will volunteer and do a potluck Friday-night dinner. Saturday, if it’s in Vancouver, we’ll arrange an activity to go someplace where people from other towns haven’t been. Then we might have a dinner at somebody else’s house, where we all tell stories. On Sunday, there’s usually a goodbye brunch.