Sixty-five years ago, Nawatha Hutson (now Reed) graduated from Ceres High School as one of 159 seniors. Bobby socks and car hops were still American fare, Elvis and Bobby Darin were the music craze and the space race between the U.S. and Russia was heating up.
Ceres was a sleep burg of about 4,300 residents in the waning days of the Eisenhower presidency. Because the entire student body numbered around 500 to 600 in an era before computers, cell phones and social media, relationships were tighter 1959 and “everybody at the school knew everybody else – even in the other classes.”
As the contact person for CHS Class of 1959 reunions, Reed is attempting to pull together surviving graduates for a 65th anniversary class reunion this summer. At best, she’s hoping to draw around 30 or so of the octogenarians, with spouses, adding, “you never know who’s able to get around.”
It’s been somewhat of a frustrating exercise, she said.
“I have a lot (of classmates) that haven’t really responded. I’ve been sending out a couple of emails, you know, ‘are you interested?’ and all this kind of stuff. I’m hoping that now that the date is set that I’ll get more response.”
Because the numbers have dwindled due to health issues, distance and death the banquet room of the Olive Garden in Turlock will more than accommodate the 20-30 she expects from the Ceres High class of 1959. The event is set to begin at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, August 13. The last time the class met was five years ago.
“We’ve probably lost about a third of our class,” said Reed, who does her best to track classmates’ passings and at last count recorded 54. “A lot of them have moved away. There’s like seven or eight of us who live local that gather for lunch at Alfonso’s every three months for lunch.”
Those classmates include Etta St. John Fisher, Theresa Kennedy, Joe Sterling, Lou Wheeler, Eletha Davidson Cole and Frank Chong.
Typically the job of organizing reunions falls to the senior class president during the graduation year. But in Reed’s case that’s not what happened.
“Everybody else just kind of dropped it so I picked it up,” said Reed who laughs that she took the job because “I was bored.”
Reed and her classmates have a lot of fond memories of their high school days where Fleming Haas was principal.
“Ceres was a whole lot different. I mean we would get off the school bus and run down to Fourth Street to get a hot donut at the bakery. The Cottage Cakery was on Fourth Street then. It was across from where the drug store is now, right next to where the old post office used to be.”
She recalls that the primary teen hangout was at Hendy’s Drive-In, a 50’s style diner near 99 and Fourth Street which was complete with car hops on roller skates. It was ultimately razed to make way for the freeway widening in the 1960s.
“We’d go up and drag Tenth Street (Modesto) but most of us would end up back at Hendy’s instead of Burgee’s.”
Burgee’s Drive-In, for the young folks, was the equivalent of Mel’s in the classic film “American Graffiti,” whose setting was in Modesto.
When she was old enough to work in summers, Nawatha would sweat in the summer heat picking and sorting peaches, which were the biggest crop around Ceres back then.
“They’ve pulled them all out and put almonds in.”
Nawatha began life in Oklahoma but as a baby her family moved them to farm labor camps in Sanger and Dos Palos before moving to Ceres in August 1951. Nawatha was in the fifth grade. She feels Ceres “was much better when I was growing up here, I’ll tell you that.”
Nawatha was married to Frank Reed for 60 years until his passing in 2020.
She remains active at 82 and in 2021 to mark her 80th birthday she walked across the Golden Gate Bridge with family members joining her. Nawatha is active in the Persephone Guild which raises money for charitable causes. She also attends church and pays regular visits to longtime Ceres resident Betty Baker who at age 102 was moved to Bethel Retirement Community in Modesto.
“I was in and saw her a couple of weeks ago and she’s still sharp. I stay in contact with her because she was my Bible study teacher for about 30 years until she went into Bethel.”
Classmates of 1959 who want to get in touch with Mrs. Reed may contact her through the “Class of 1959 Ceres California” Facebook page.
