Retired art teacher recalls high school’s beginnings

by Alice E. Gerard
Grand Island Dispatch, June 16, 2006

Retired art teacher Lee Tetkowski works at her loom in her Grand Island home.
(photo by Alice Gerard)

Lee Tetkowski’s loom sits near the window of her living room in the house that her late husband Clement designed in the late 1940s. When she is weaving, she gets a view of the sculptures and the colors of the flowers and the vivid green lawn in her back yard. It is a peaceful view for the artist, who creates colorful designs with silk threads.

Frequently, however, Tetkowski is not at her loom. She has been a community activist for many years. With the League of Women Voters, she has worked on such issues as Kids Voting, putting bicycle paths on Grand Island, the pure waters bond issue and a study of charter schools.

“My passion,” Tetkowski said, “is UNICEF. Kids have been collecting donations on Halloween here in Grand Island every year since it started without a break, one of the few communities to do so.”

Tetkowski has devoted much of her life to education, both as an activist and as a teacher. In 1959, shortly after voters rejected a bond issue to build a high school on the island, a group of Island residents approached Tetkowski, then the president of the Huth Road PTA. They wanted her to educate the community about the need for a high school. At the time, students were being educated through ninth grade at three elementary schools: Sidway, Kaegebein and Huth Road. When they entered 10th grade, Grand Island paid tuition for them to go to a variety of public schools in Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Tonawanda, and Kenmore.

Tetkowski described an intense and successful campaign that included visiting community groups, such as garden clubs, and giving speeches and presenting slide shows. Residents voted in favor of building a school, and the architect in charge of the project was island resident Roswell E. Pfohl of the architectural firm R.E. Pfohl Architects. The school’s cornerstone was laid in 1961.

Harold Roberts, an Island resident for 30 years before moving to Buffalo 15 years ago, was responsible for the structural engineering in the school. He said that the school was built as a response to a rapid increase in the population of Grand Island in the years after World War II. He also talked about the influence of the late Veronica Connor, “a wonderful superintendent, who was highly valued, trusted, and respected by the school board.” Connor retired in 1973.

Tetkowski continued to be involved with the new school, first by serving on the committee that hired Dr. Clyde Eidens, the school’s first principal, and then by being part of the committee that designed the school ring.

In June 1966, Tetkowski had just graduated from SUNY College at Buffalo with a master’s degree in art education. She went to visit Eidens to talk about her career prospects. Eidens said that the school had an art teacher but that he would be interested in hiring a second teacher to work half time. Tetkowski, who had three children at home, took the job. One of the students at the high school was Tetkowski’s daughter, Diane, who graduated in June 1967.

Tetkowski began a crafts program in the school. Among the crafts that she introduced to the school were batik, silk screening, jewelry making, and ceramics.

By September 1967, Tetkowski was offered a full-time teaching position at the high school. She retired in 1985.

Tetkowski’s daughter, Mira, graduated in 1970 and later earned a doctorate in early childhood education. Her son, Neil, graduated in 1973. He is now a ceramic artist who teaches at Keane University in Union, N.J. The university was formerly called the New Jersey State Teachers College at Newark. It is the school where Lee and Clement Tetkowski first met and then married in the late 1940s. When Clement Tetkowski was offered a position at Buffalo State College’s Design Department in 1949, the couple moved to Grand Island.

Diane, who graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, had a successful career as a dressmaker until she suffered a debilitating brain aneurysm in 2001. Tetkowski reported that her daughter was not expected to survive. After several surgeries and much physical, occupational, and physical therapy, Diane has “gained strength on her left side, her remaining good side,” Tetkowski reported.

“Diane cannot speak but she understands everything.” Lee and Diane have been working on quilting projects. Before Diane’s aneurysm, she made many quilts and also designed wedding dresses. Diane lives in Lancaster with her husband, Ron Pokorski, an engineer who has adapted the house with “ramps, elevators and magic buttons” to accommodate Diane’s wheelchair, Tetkowski said. Diane and Ron have three grown children and two grandchildren.

Both Lee Tetkowski and Diane Pokorski will be at the July 1 reunion to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Grand Island High School’s first graduating class.