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Children from the Poplar family – including three sets of twins – who attended a Brantford public school in the 1960s will soon be making a return to their childhood stomping grounds.

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James Hillier School on Queensway Drive will mark its 75th anniversary with a celebration on May 10, and it’s an occasion the Poplars don’t plan to miss.

Helen and Ted Poplar had four children before three sets of fraternal twins came along, with eight of the 10 attending James Hillier School over the years.

The rarity of three sets of twins in one family resulted in an Expositor story that went nationwide, and on September 4, 1968, an Expositor photographer made a photograph of all the twins at the doors of James Hillier on the first day of school.

“The happiest person on that day would be my mother,” Steve Poplar shared. “That’s because she had children in the house for over 20 years during the day, and now she finally didn’t have a child at home.

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“I just remember the smile on her face being from ear to ear.”

Jeanne Armstrong, from the first set of twins, said the family lived on Lyons Avenue near Brantford General Hospital.

“We lived about one mile from the school,” she said. “We had to walk home at lunch, so we did that walk four times each day.”

At that time, school lunch hours were more than one hour long, school buses didn’t operate within the city, and children didn’t eat lunch at school. The school day ended at 4:30 p.m.

“Mom always had lunch ready,” said Jeanne’s twin sister Jayne Warren. “There would be a bowl of soup and a sandwich waiting for us. We never had babysitters, nor anyone else look after us. My mother was always home.”

Warren quipped that when one child got in trouble at school, “you would get it twice as bad when you got home. So, when you’re one of 10, nine of them are running home really fast to tell on you. We all became very good runners.”

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Steve said that, as the youngest, it was a comfort attending with his twin sister Sharon who was his best friend and guide.

“It was both of us going through there and the memories we have of that school, the sports we played, the activities we did still resonate,” he noted. “Growing up in Brantford and going to James Hillier was a wonderful experience.”

Steve said students were well aware of the accomplishments of the school’s namesake, primarily his invention of the electron microscope. While he doesn’t recall Dr. Hillier visiting the school, he knows that Hillier spoke at eldest sister Margaret’s graduation. She later graduated university to become a teacher and was invited to return as the guest speaker years later during Steve and Sharon’s graduation.

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All of the twins and a few older siblings plan to attend the May 10th celebration.

Armstrong is looking forward to walking the halls, seeing people she hasn’t seen in a very long time, and hearing people say, “you haven’t changed a bit.”

“I hope they have the classrooms set up in decades,” said Sharon Hyde, adding that anticipation of the event has led to conversations about their childhood. “I have all my report cards, and track and field ribbons. It was nice to go back through those report cards and get a snippet of what I was like.”

The 75th anniversary celebration runs from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 10 at James Hillier School, 62 Queensway Drive in Brantford. Photos and memorabilia will be on display, along with projects from a Family Science Fair, and a presentation by the James Hillier Foundation that includes a former student of the school who went on to become a recipient of a Hillier Scholarship.

bethompson@postmedia.com

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