First Alumni Banquet
This find from the early days of Sturgis is a fun tie-in with Mike Mort’s 2025 movie, “A+ The Story of Education in Sturgis.”
It’s a program from the First Annual Alumni Banquet, held June 8, 1896 at the Elliott House Hotel. It lists alumni speakers and the menu. Superintendent L.W. Leisenring was the toastmaster.
Union School graduates speaking at the banquet were:
- Wallace Weatherly (1873) the first Black lawyer to practice in Sturgis.
- Stella Sturges (1875) the only graduate in her class and a philanthropist providing for the construction of many buildings including the Sturges-Young Auditorium.
- Charles V. Barrows (1876) owner of the largest photography studio in town.
- Jay J. Stanton (1878) a lawyer.
- Burritt Hamilton (1889) a lawyer.
- Nellie Craig (1893) a teacher. Her daughter, Eunice Kraft, became a successful professor at Western Michigan University.
- Hannah Kelly (1894). We don’t have much information on her post-graduation.
- Aloysia MacLoughlin “Allie Mac” (1895) a teacher and local historian.
Rachel Boland is a dedicated volunteer archivist and researcher at the museum
