Vienna Dependent School (originally Vienna Community School) History
Opened: 1946
Closed: 1955
The Vienna Dependent School was originally called the Vienna Community School. It opened in 1946. The principal for the 1948-49 school year was Lawrence Read. The first yearbook, Auf Wiedersehen, was published in 1949. That year the school had a principal, Lawrence F. Read, and a vice principal, Katherine K. Stewart.
There were six teachers for the high school that included thirty-five students including eight seniors, four juniors, twelve sophomores, and eleven freshmen. The school newspaper, Devil’s Tales, was published for the first-time during the 1948-49 school year. The seventh and eighth grade were combined in one class and there were nine elementary teachers as well as two nursery teachers.
High school extracurricular activities included student council, the yearbook and newspaper staffs, and sports. There was football and basketball for boys and cheerleading for girls. Both boys and girls had tennis teams.
The chief janitor, Johann Wilk, described the school building in the 1952-53 yearbook:
It seems ages ago since I first entered this house. At that time, it was the property of a wealthy family and I was its butler. There were not so many janitors taking care of the building as there are today when so many people are rushing through the building. However, there were still quite a few rooms to be taken care of.
The rooms upstairs — today classrooms — were mostly bedrooms and guest rooms. The office of the NCO was the servants’ quarter, girls’ washroom a so-called tea-kitchen, just for making breakfast which was usually served in room thirteen (fourth grade). Room twelve (third grade) was the library and room nine, now school library, was a shower room. The kitchen was always a kitchen, but the teachers’ lounge was the cook’s private room. The big assembly hall was always used for receptions and big dinner parties. Room four was the dining room (first grade), while room five and room six were used as dining and sitting rooms (now the nursery and music rooms).
Room seven (Kindergarten) was the music room. The principal’s office, however, was a store room for winter things in summertime and for summer things in wintertime.
In 1938, when the Germans came, the family had to flee. When war started, the Germans made a hospital out of the building — beds, beds, everywhere and all over the building. Only the big hall was used as a dining room. In 1945, the Russians used the grounds for their horses and afterwards the American army took over. In 1946, the grounds, still in a bad shape from the bombing (there were big holes everywhere and one balcony missing) were smoothed out and the building was prepared for the arrival of the school children. I really seem to have grown old with this house, and I almost feel I belong to it like an old piece of furniture.
During the 1952-53 school year, there were eight teachers at the school and the principal was Jane J. Clifton. There was a seven-eight combo class with seventeen students. The fifth-sixth class had twenty-six students. The class sizes for the first through fourth grades were thirty, twenty-five, thirty and twenty-six students respectively. There were two sections of kindergarten, one of twenty students and one with sixteen students. There were also twenty-eight students in the nursery class.
In 1953-54 the elementary and high school separated, the elementary principal was Jane J. Clifton and there were ten faculty members. The twenty-one seventh and eighth graders were in one class. There was one class for grades two through six, with twenty-two students in the sixth grade and thirty students in the second grade. There were three kindergarten sections and two groups of nursery school students.
For the 1954-55 school year, the high school students went to the new school in Salzburg, and the Vienna School had grades kindergarten through eight. Jane Clifton continued as the principal and there were twelve faculty and staff. The school had one eighth grader, thirteen seventh graders, twenty-two sixth graders, eight fifth graders, fourteen fourth graders, twenty-five third graders, thirty-one second graders, thirty-five first graders, and thirty-one kindergarteners. The school also housed a nursery school. The school newspaper was now called the “Vienna Notes” and school activities included a safety patrol.
Both the elementary and high school were closed in 1955.
Information from yearbooks in the AOSHS archives and yearbooks