Lindsey ES (a.k.a. Hoyt S. Vandenberg ES) History
Opened: 1948
Closed: 1976
Lindsey Elementary School was one of four elementary schools serving the Wiesbaden Military Communities. The schools were located at Hainerberg, Crestview, Camp Lindsey, Aukamm, and Wiesbaden Air Base. It and the other schools opened in 1948.
In the early sixties, the elementary principal was Sanford Bale, and the assistant principal was Rosemary Nevels. Later, Joe Kane was the principal.
Lindsey was a very large school, housed in two 3-story buildings, lower grades in one building, and upper elementary in the other building. The buildings were repurposed German buildings. In the upper grade building, the fourth grade was on the first floor, the fifth on the second floor, and the sixth on the third floor.
According to Cal Devitt, a fifth-grade teacher in the early sixties, his classroom was fairly small and there were five sections of fifth grade. Each teacher had approximately twenty-five students. Two German ladies, Frau Phleger and Fraulein Brunkhorst, taught German to the students.
Lindsey Elementary was situated in a residential area. Many kids were bused in from the subdivisions.
By the mid-seventies, Lindsey Elementary School served newly arrived families before they moved into Base Housing in Wiesbaden. At that time, children in grades 1–6 attended classes in the A quadrangle, where there were old German Army buildings built during the Franco-Prussian Wars in the 1880s. The buildings the school occupied were: A07, A08, A09, A10, and A12. The fifth grade was in A07, the third and fourth in A08, first and second in A09, and the sixth grade in A10. Building A12 housed the library and cafeteria. Building A11 was occupied by the US military. There were underground walkways connecting the buildings.
The supervising principal, Nelson Lutey, and his secretary enjoyed offices upstairs in Building A08, as did a facilities person, Chuck DiMassio, while the Lindsey Elementary principal and assistant principal had offices on the first floor of A08. In the 1973-74 school year, the principal was Joel Bahner, and the assistant principal was Kay Galloway.
The school was closed in 1978, and students were relocated to other schools in the community.
Information from AOSHS archives, Kay Galloway, and Cal Devitt