Ada and Alpha Steen Graduated from High School in Berlin Township

Recently I ran into an article that helped me understand why I never found the name of Ada Steen, my great grandmother, in the listing of alumni from Sandusky High School. It turns out that Ada Steen and her twin sister Alpha Steen (later Mrs. Fred Martin) graduated from high school in Berlin Heights in May of 1897. A brief paragraph which appeared in the "Perkins" column of the Sandusky Register of May 18, 1897 read:

Perkins was well represented at the Berlin commencement on last Friday's evening by Miss Alpha Steen, president and prophet, and Miss Ada Steen, secretary of the class. Also at the exercises by Merrill House, Edith Storrs, Roy Parker,  Cora Akins, Elon House, Laura Deeley and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Steen.

Roy Parker would later become the husband of Ada Steen. Pictured above are Charles Steen family in the late 1890s or early 1900s. Ada and Alpha are standing, and their younger brother Rollin is standing between Sarah and Charles Steen. My grandfather, Steen Parker, the son of Ada (Steen) and Roy Parker was a graduate of Sandusky High School in 1927, so I thought that his mother Ada had also been a graduate of Sandusky High School. Charles Steen, the father of the twins, had lived in the Berlin Township area when he was young, and he still had relatives in that township in 1897. Evidently he and his wife must have thought that Berlin Township had an excellent school system! Today Berlin Township and Milan area students all attend school at the Edison Local School District.