Fans of Wethersfield High School’s Flying Geese probably think their school song, “Wethersfield Forever!,” has been around, well…forever.

This summer it was learned, however, that there was a school song before the one sung and played today. Larry Andris, a 1957 graduate of WHS, said while attending the annual Frank H.Craig Wethersfield Alumni Reunion held in August that his mother, the late Mabel (Craig) Andris, a 1937 graduate, had a copy of the Wethersfield school song and it wasn’t “Wethersfield Forever.”

In the first 30 years of the 20th century, most high schools in small towns, like Kewanee, didn’t have a band. School songs were sung acappella at football games and other athletic events with words intended to spur the team on to victory.

Kewanee High’s school song was composed in 1923 by seniors Dorothy McGrath, who wrote the music, and Forrest Keller, who wrote the words. Initially, it was written for piano accompaniment and later transposed for band. In 1968, newly-hired band director

Terry Dillard created a firestorm when he announced that KHS needed a new school song for the “now generation, stating in an article in the K-Chronicle that is was “outdated…and hard for the band to play.” Dillard changed his mind and the song, “On, ever on Kewanee High School,” is still around 100 years later.

Did the southsiders have a school song before “Wethersfield Forever”? A search for Wethersfield’s “lost” school song discovered one printed in “Sketches of Wethersfield Township,” written in 1925 by then-retired Wethersfield superintendent Frank H. Craig. The song included words only, no music for the melody which is probably long forgotten now. The credit under the title read “By Florence Neville.”

So, who is she? Her name was not found in the lists of WHS graduates prior to and including 1925 found in the book so she apparently was not a student. Scrolling through the Star Courier microfilms for any mention of Florence Neville provided some answers. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. P. H. Neville who lived on a farm northwest of Kewanee. She attended the Taylor School and the Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church, both located north of German’s Corner in Burns Township and graduated from Kewanee High School with the Class of 1911.

Miss Neville enrolled in the University of Illinois where she graduated in 1915 with a degree in General Science. That summer she was hired to teach history and geography at Wethersfield, which had just opened the doors to a new high school building. Although her degree was not in music, she had performed piano and vocal solos in grade school and was well known in the community for her musical talents which may be why her new superintendent, Mr.Craig, may have passed over the music teacher on the faculty and asked Miss Neville to write Wethersfield’s first school song.

Wethersfield, love you, good old Goose Island,
Wethersfield, your honored standards always high will stand.
Wethersfield, your true sons back you, every man.
Wethersfield, We love you, first in state and first in the land.

Chorus:
Here’s to the school that we love, boys,
Here’s to her sons so true,
Here’s to the team and victory,
Here’s to Craig, too.
Here’s to Philomathian fame, boys,
Here’s to each thing you do,
Hand to hand, man to man,
Staunch Wethersfield we stand,
Here’s to good old Wethersfield.

Wethersfield, we love you, love your Windmont Park,
Spoon River, your banks are verdant,
On green and white we stake,
Wethersfield, we love you, first in state and first in the land.

It seems like it would be a difficult song to sing at a football game and references to men and boys points the song towards athletics which, back then, only involved males. A Philomathian is a scholar or “lover of learning,” there’s a cheer for Mr. Craig (Never hurts to butter up the boss), and the Spoon River refers to Mill Creek, where the west branch of the river begins and which passes through Wethersfield.

Miss Neville appears to have been a popular teacher, serving as freshman class advisor and chaperoning the senior class on their customary trip to Chicago, a tradition started by Mr. Craig. She continued to teach in the 1916-17 school year and was hired to return for 1917-18, but resigned before school began. She was married on Christmas Day 1917 to Anton Anderson who lived on a farm south of town and apparently did not return to teaching. After that, her name appears hosting the Wethersfield Social Circle at her home on Payson Street.

In the fall of 1937, 200 people attended the first meeting of the year of the Wethersfield PTA where “promotion of an all-grade school band” was outlined as one of their projects for the coming year. Kewanee High School band director, W. G. Brown as invited and answered “numerous questions from the audience about organizing and equipping a school band.”

Brown was credited with organizing the laying the ground work for the band program at KHS where he had taught for the past 2-1/2 years. By early January of 1938 a plan was in place. George Byerly, of the Byerly Brothers Music Co., in Peoria, was hired to conduct tests and registration of students interested in being members of the band.

The Byerly company was placed in charge of tryouts and assignment of instruments to students, many with no previous musical training. After eight weeks of instruction, the ambitious goal was to present a concert by Easter. At the same time, Brown resigned his position at KHS effective in February in order to accept a new position in instruction and sales with Byerly and was immediately placed in charge of organizing an all-school band at Wethersfield with a roster of 48 students between 4th and 12th grades, 31 grade school pupils and 17 high school students.

Some 500 persons packed the high school gym on March 15 to hear the band’s first performance which featured four songs, two instrumental solos and two ensembles. The Star Courier reported that the concert, which also included selections by the Glee Club directed my Miss Myrtle Nelson, “was greeted with much enthusiasm” and revealed that the new band had benefited from training under Mr. Brown.

Wethersfield’s first band director was James C. Hodge, who was hired in June of 1938. Hodge, a native of Springfield, a recent graduate of Illinois State Normal University and said to be qualified to teach all musical instruments. He began working with the band in mid-August and directed the band for the first time in public in October, performing at a minstrel show sponsored by the PTA to raise funds for the band. The musicians appeared in “snappy, new green and white uniforms” for a first anniversary concert March 1, 1939, and just before the 1939-40 school year, the band performed at a concert and ice cream social at Windmont Park to benefit the organization which featured a whopping 18-number program with an intermission.

In August of 1940, the band performed a concert again at Windmont Park highlighted by a lighted parade around the lagoon featuring over 100 children who had made lanterns in a Kewanee Park District summer program. The band’s repertoire was “selected by the students themselves,” and included a march by F. E. Bigelow called “Our Director.” There is no mention of it being used for a new school song, but the trio from that march was apparently chosen by Hodge as the musical accompaniment for his words to “Wethersfield Forever.” Unlike his unfortunate future counterpart at Kewanee High School, Terry Dillard, it appears that James C. Hodge had no problem convincing the Wethersfield school community it was time for a new school song.

Lyrics by James C. Hodge, WHS’ first band director (1938-1941)
Melody, from “Our Director” March by Bigelow

Wethersfield Forever
Long live her name.
Fight on to glory
Victory and fame.

Wave the brilliant banner
For all to see,
Fight green and white
For a vistory/

Wethersfield Forever
Honor we bring.
Raise high your voices,
Loud her praises sing/

Long may we adore thee,
Wethersfield High.
Proud of our school
As the years go by.

In her book,”History of Wethersfield Schools — 1941-1996,” retired teacher Kathryn Mursener wrote “The song is simple, but inspiring, as a school song should be.”

During the summer of 1941, Hodge attended summer school at Northwestern University where he received his Master of Arts degree in Education. In September, George Haver, a 1929 WHS graduate who had been teaching music in schools in the Rockford area, was hired to replace Hodge “who resigned recently to accept another position in Michigan.”

In 1988 Hodge, then living back in his hometown of Springfield, stopped by the Wethersfield school and brought with him a photo of the first band, which had appeared in the Star Courier. Hodge is standing behind the seated band in what may be the only photo taken of him during his three years at Wethersfield. Hodge told them during his visit that he wrote the words to their school song, played to the music of “Our Director” and known to them as “Wethersfield Forever.”

Today, Wethersfield music teacher Stephanie Hagaman teaches the words and music to the school song to her students. “Every senior who graduates from Wethersfield High School knows how to sing the words and music to the school song,” she said. Last month, when a folk duo from Malawi performed for a school assembly, over 300 appreciative elementary students regaled their guests with a booming rendition of “Wethersfield Forever!”