As Lebo residents know, there are lots of communities within the community of Mt. Lebanon: places like Sunset Hills, Hoodridge, Cedarhurst, Virginia Manor, to name a few. But that enclave at the municipality’s northern tip, with its million-dollar homes and crowded apartment buildings, with Beverly Road shops and the well-kept secret of Twin Hills Park? That’s just known as “the Lincoln neighborhood.”
Arguably, it’s the most “Pittsburgh” of the neighborhoods, offering a straight shot into the city from Banksville Road. (“My record, from Heinz Field to home, is 12 minutes,” said Lincoln parent Mary Ullman.) For some families, the neighborhood is a starting point, their first taste of the suburbs, or of America. For others, it’s where they, their parents and their children have lived and gone to school.
“We have more of a city feel,” noted Dr. Ron Kitsko, Lincoln’s principal since 2014. In addition, “we have a school community that embraces the differences in people. Families with refugee status have found acceptance and understanding here.
“It’s also a good place to get a strong education,” he added.
On Saturday, April 11, from 1 to 4 p.m., the Lincoln neighborhood, former and current students, teachers and families will convene to mark the 100th anniversary of the school that brought them together. Kitsko, district superintendent Dr. Melissa Friez and other dignitaries will speak. An open house will feature a Lincoln classroom as it might have looked in the 1930s, as well as other historical memorabilia.
“We want people to participate and get involved,” said Jenny Wood, a Lincoln parent and board member of the Historical Society of Mount Lebanon, who is helping to plan the celebration. That includes neighbors as well as Lincoln families: “There’s so much that runs here because of community members.”
Ullman, who came to Pittsburgh from Montana and Alaska in 2010, said she loves the “big city but small town” feel of Pittsburgh. She discovered Mt. Lebanon when she met a friend for lunch at Bado’s soon after she and her husband arrived in town. They bought a house on Parker Drive soon after.
“I love it. I know my neighbors, we stop and talk,” she said.
All three of Ullman’s sons attended Lincoln. Paxson and Sawyer Murral are now enrolled at the high school and Jefferson Middle School. Youngest son Wyatt Murral graduates from Lincoln this year.
“They’re three different children with different interests,” Ullman noted. “The school put equal importance on all of their interests. Each kid had a teacher who saw them.”
Among the dignitaries, current and former teachers and students, and parents invited to attend Lincoln Elementary’s 100th, one guest stands out.
She’s Roberta Campbell, age 91, and her story is a great Mt. Lebanon saga.
Campbell’s mother, Roberta McConnell Douds, was Lincoln’s first principal, chosen by district supervising principal Tressa Yeager to welcome students to the brand-new school in 1925. A graduate of Slippery Rock State Teachers College (now Slippery Rock University), Douds, then known as Miss McConnell, was in her late 20s when she became principal. (Campbell added that Douds was the only female principal to serve in Mt. Lebanon until Shirley Davidson was chosen to lead Hoover Elementary in 1966.)
“She was a natural,” Campbell said of her mother. Douds wasn’t necessarily ambitious, her daughter added. “People just knew she’d do a better job.”
Douds, a native of Independence, Beaver County, rented a room from a Mrs. Morgan on McCully Street during the week, and returned to Independence on weekends, Campbell said. She added that while serving as principal, her mother earned a bachelor’s degree in teaching from the University of Pittsburgh.
As was the custom of the day, Douds resigned as principal when she became engaged to C. Edward Douds in 1932. Campbell proudly shared a letter Douds received from C. Herman Grose, who succeeded Yeager as supervising principal (later superintendent), accepting her resignation.
“Have you ever written a letter against your will?” Grose wrote on April 29, 1932. “It is, indeed, with much regret that I submit to your desires in granting your release from our system. I shall not forget the wonderful spirit always evidenced in the organization of the Lincoln School.”
Douds married later that year. Roberta, named after her mother, was born in 1934. The younger Roberta was an only child, and as she grew, her mother would often tell her about her time in Mt. Lebanon. Campbell said she never forgot Douds had been a teacher “because she corrected me all the time.”
It’s no surprise, then, that Campbell decided to pursue a teaching career. After graduating from Chatham College (now Chatham University), Campbell considered her teaching options, but her mother saw only one.
“My mother really wanted me to go to Mt. Lebanon,” Campbell said. She met with then-superintendent Ralph Horsman who made it official: “He said, ‘If you’re one-tenth as good as your mom was, I’ll hire you right now.’”
Campbell taught at Howe, Washington, and Jefferson elementary schools. One day after school, she joined other teachers at Isaly’s on Washington Road, where she met Sheldon Campbell, a high school German teacher. They married in 1961 and moved to Sunset Hills.
After their sons, David and Erich, were born, Campbell stayed home, so to speak. She was also president of the Allegheny General Hospital Auxiliary and the South Hills College Club, an elder in the Presbyterian Church and a member of several boards. Sheldon Campbell was appointed supervisor of Mt. Lebanon School District’s foreign language department. In the summer, they’d take student groups to Germany and Austria. Sheldon Campbell died in 2015.
Once her sons were in college, Campbell started substitute teaching at Mt. Lebanon High School. In her tenth decade, she’s still doing it, usually five days a week, over 30 years later.
“I’ve always liked Mt. Lebanon kids,” Campbell said. She rarely misses a lacrosse game; her granddaughter Chelsey, a Lebo sophomore, is “a remarkable player,” Campbell said. Grandsons Brodie and Liam are Lebo alumni. She’s also a regular at high school football games, too.
Campbell plans to speak at the Lincoln anniversary celebration on April 11. Her remarks will be brief, she stressed: “This is about my mother, not me.”
Kitsko has a personal reason for celebrating Lincoln’s longevity.
“On February 1, 1983, my mom woke me up to tell me my school was on fire,” he said. “I could see the black smoke from my house.”
Kitsko was 11 at the time, a fifth-grader at Hebron Elementary School in Penn Hills. The six-alarm fire, deliberately set, burned the school to the ground.
“The only things they could salvage were filing cabinets with student records,” Kitsko recalled. “I can’t visit my old school.
“So we’re celebrating that the building is still here,” Kitsko said of the Lincoln event. “I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.”
A timeline of Lincoln
