Graduation is a special time for many parents and grandparents as they watch their children cross the stage to take their first steps into adulthood.
For one Marion family, the ceremony held special significance.
Alice Jane (Williams) McGlothlin walked across the Pleasant High School graduation stage in 1951. And 75 years later, almost to the day, she watched as her great-grandsons Evan Sickmiller and Noah Roettger took home Pleasant High School diplomas of their own.
At 93 years old, McGlothlin believes she’s the last graduate of her class still alive. McGlothlin was given special recognition at the 2026 Pleasant commencement ceremony.
“Pleasant is just like a really tight community and there’s just a lot of family feeling there of closeness and I just feel like that’s always been that way with Pleasant,” said Kelly Rush, McGlothlin’s granddaughter and Sickmiller’s mother. “We’ve loved our kids going to Pleasant. We’ve always had great experience.”
Changes from the last 75 years
In the last 75 years, there’s been plenty of changes to her alma mater. For one, her high school, which held all Pleasant’s students at the time, has been torn down and replaced. McGlothlin was able to secure a brick from the building as a keepsake.
While in school, McGlothlin remembers being a fairly good student: she was in the top third of her class of 21 people. She once came in third place for Marion County in a statewide contest featuring Ohio history.
Her great-grandsons had a completely different experience in high school their seniors years. Sickmiller only attends school in person for one period and takes the rest of his classes online using the College Credit Plus program. Roettger leaves school early to attend his afternoon engineering classes at Tri-Rivers Career Center.
During her time at Pleasant, McGlothlin was quiet and didn’t stay in touch with many of her peers after graduation. The one exception was Pauline Dall Hartle, who became a lifelong friend.
She remembers her home economics class fondly. The class gave assignments like making homemade jelly using apples students picked themselves.
“I learned to be a nurse in Home Ec,” McGlothlin said. “You wouldn’t believe it. We learned how to give baths. We learned how to take their temperature both ways.”
After graduation, McGlothlin would find love with Ernie McGlothlin after a chance encounter.
“He was sitting in a car with a friend that I knew from school,” McGlothlin said. “He started talking to me and I got in with him, and he asked me for a date. So I went out with him two weeks later, and two weeks after that, he proposed to me.”
The couple married a year after McGlothlin graduated from high school. Together, they raised five children. McGlothlin still lives in Marion in the same home she’s resided in since 1955.
Ernie McGlothlin died in 2015 at the age of 85. The couple was married for 63 years.
Her grandsons, Sickmiller and Roettger, plan to continue their education at Spring Arbor University and Ohio State University, respectfully. Sickmiller plans to play basketball, the same sport his great-grandmother played. Though, McGlothlin admits the rules were a little different for girls in her time.
“The ball never came to me when I was playing,” McGlothlin said. “I would just stand there watching everybody else play ball.”
As her great-grandchildren prepared to take the graduation stage, McGlothlin is excited to see them take the next step in growing up. When asked if she had any advice for her great-grandsons, McGlothlin kept it short:
“Get a job and settle down, and don’t switch partners,” McGlothlin said with a smile.
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Four generations apart, one school district in common
Reporting by Abby Bammerlin, Marion Star / Marion Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
