Walter Dunham was Sachem’s original school chief when the district was centralized in 1955. He served the Lake Ronkonkoma School and Gatelot Elementary children as a sixth-grade teacher and principal for 15 years before the formation of Sachem.
Mr. Dunham died in 2007 at the age of 94, so I never had the opportunity to meet or speak with him. I have wondered so much about his leadership style and the foresight he had in recruiting talent that would build and transform the educational landscape of the community for decades. He also had an impeccable vision for real estate acquisition related to the expansive enrollment that hit Sachem in the 1970s.
Deanna Lytell is Dunham’s only child. She is 81 and lives on Long Island. Over the last few months, we have caught up multiple times to talk about her dad and relive his journey as the foremost educational leader in Sachem history.
Chris R. Vaccaro: Before your dad became the Superintendent of Sachem, he was a principal and teacher at the Lake Ronkonkoma School and Gatelot Elementary. What can you share from that period of his life?
Deanna Lytell: “When he was the principal at Gatelot, he had a very strong relationship with the town. The town was very small. Tuesday night was board meeting night; we would drive out and eat at a restaurant next to the fire department, which we always loved. I still have the bell he would ring when it was a wooden schoolhouse to bring the kids in. He was very proud. I’ve got tears in my eyes.
Near the end of his life, someone asked him to put stories in a time capsule. There were two stories that I wanted included that he didn’t. One was about Dick Hirshaft, the custodian at Gatelot. Once, he entered Dad’s office and plunked down an envelope. In that were a whole bunch of his paychecks. He said he wanted to give something to the children, so they got a playground in the yard, which was very touching.
Another story: when he was superintendent, he got a call from a man who lived across the street from the original high school – now Samoset – who was bothered by a banging noise. The noise was from the lines on a flag pole, which were loosely tied, and it was upsetting to this man because he was blind. He was very sensitive to noise. Dad had it fixed. He did things on a personal level, and he grew with the community.”
CRV: While on Gatelot, do you recall anything about the building? It has such a rich history as the first modern school building on Long Island in the post-World War era.
Deanna: “When they were going to open the Gatelot Ave School, the architect was Daniel Perry; he also designed the art institute in Williamstown, Mass. When it was time for the school to open, the board of education worked so hard. When you first walked into the school, you saw a cement ground, and deeper into the building was a wooden floor in the gymnasium. I recall a story about Frank Hugelmeyer from the school board getting gallons of paint and painting that cement floor. It really was a community effort.”
CRV: Do you know why he went into education as a profession?
Deanna: “I am going to speculate. He was born in a little town called Gardner, New York. When he was 10, they moved to New Paltz. That’s where the state normal school was right on his doorstep, almost across the street from his house. I assume that it was close and he could live at home. It was location more than anything. By then, his mother was a widow; my father was the second oldest of nine children. He couldn’t have afforded to go away to college. He is the only one in his family who did go to college. He worked all the time. His father was a butcher. Grandpa Dunham, whom I never met, died around 1923 in a car accident. My father worked in the butcher business with my grandfather delivering things. He always worked.”
CRV: Let’s go back to when he was first hired by the Lake Ronkonkoma School to be a teacher. I’d love to know how a guy from upstate was lured to the middle of Long Island.
Deanna: “ I assumed he just put out resumes, and maybe his college helped. My mother and father got married in 1938. They were married in Kingston, New York, and were going on honeymoon in Albany. Walt gets a call from his father-in-law, my grandfather, about a job in Lake Ronkonkoma. Well, the honeymoon was practically over before it started, and he started down to Long Island. What he never did say when he told people about his intro to Lake Ronkonkoma was that he didn’t get the job the first time around. He did teach for a year in West Islip, and he taught in Port Jefferson Station. Shortly after in 1940, he was the sixth-grade teacher and principal of the Lake Ronkonkoma School and held that position until he was called into the service in 1942. After the war was over, he went back to Lake Ronkonkoma and served again as principal [from 1946 until 1955 when Sachem was centralized].”
CRV: Most people are probably unfamiliar with Mr. Dunham’s military service. Tell me about that period of his life.
Deanna: “He was a master sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II when he was 30 years old. He was not a young person serving. In 1942, he did not start the school year in his teaching role. He was briefly serving by working for Grumman locally – though I’m not sure of the timeline – and then by 1943, he was in the service. He was a bit older than many of the soldiers around him. For a while, he was in training and working at Fort Drum near Watertown, New York. His function was to teach others in camp. He lived and served to teach and did not go overseas during the war. Francis Bianca served as the interim principal of the Lake Ronkonkoma School during his absence.”
CRV: The major turning point of this community was when the three local school communities centralized and turned into the Sachem Central School District in 1955. There were other principals in the community – Holtsville-Farmingville and Holbrook – but Mr. Dunham was chosen. Do we know how that transpired?
Deanna: “He never discussed that with me. One principal was George Martinson. Walter Olmsby was a district educator. He had some influence, but he was not a member of the Holbrook or Holtsville boards. I was 12 years old. I don’t know anything about that. I know he did a lot of studying and work when I was younger because you have to pass college courses to become certified for principalship or superintendentship.”
CRV: I’m forever enamored by choosing the name Sachem and eventually picking Flaming Arrows as a moniker. All of those choices were made to honor Native American history and culture. Can you share any insight about the tribute they hoped to pay to local history upon centralization?
Deanna: “What the people in power tried to do was recognize that this land belonged to Native Americans. It was a tie to an older original time. Sachem is chief, and they felt this was going to be a fine school district that they were very proud of. It wasn’t to disparage Native Americans. It was to connect, honor, and recognize the people here before. They continued that theme with the names of Sachem school buildings.”
CRV: One element of his stewardship and building of Sachem that has not gone unnoticed and has benefitted the school system, especially as it expanded exponentially in the 1970s and 1980s, was Mr. Dunham’s aptitude for acquiring land. It is a large school district with significant mileage from one end to the other. How did he build this acumen for real estate and land acquisition?
Deanna: “He was instrumental in acquiring land for the future. I don’t know how he had the vision. First, centralization seemed like a good idea, but when you look around and see all that virgin territory to be able to build and expand, you had the feeling you would end up with more buildings. There was farmland up for sale, and whoever the people were that were on the board, one of their responsibilities was to have a mission for the future. Certainly, land was a concern.”
CRV: I have long admired your dad’s ability to hire incredible, generational, and hard-working talent as his teachers, administrators, and staff members. The people he hired built Sachem from scratch, and their impact on that era from 1955 through 1975 is extraordinary. Thanks to the people, Sachem went from nothing to something. How did he have such a strong sense of people and who to hire?
Deanna: “He liked people. He trusted people. He believed in the goodness of people, and a handshake was good enough. My father was very loyal. He was loyal to the people he hired. He was loyal to Sachem graduates. I remember the personalities. I remember a lot of laughter and good feelings from his secretary. I think it had something to do with his personality. I know he was very honorable. He trusted people. He believed the best and expected the best from people unless they sorely disappointed him or did something disgraceful. He always thought of Sachem people as just the best. He didn’t care about his own feelings or his own impressions as much as others. You never really know your parents. He was trusting, honorable, very old-fashioned, did the right thing, and expected others to do the right thing.”
CRV: Any final thoughts about your dad, his legacy, and Sachem?
Deanna: “He was proud, and he was so astonished at how Long Island grew and how big Sachem got to be. It was inconceivable initially that the four-room schoolhouse would develop into a huge district. He was so proud and loved it so much.”
-As told to Chris R. Vaccaro