The large tree to the right, just behind the playground at East Side Elementary School in Edinburgh, has been known by generations of students as the “kissing tree.” Kids met their crushes there, used it in their games and had lessons underneath it. Damage and rot had made the tree unsafe, and school officials were forced to cut it down in late August.
RYAN TRARES | DAILY JOURNAL
For generations of school children, it was known simply as “the kissing tree.”
The stately tree dominated the field behind East Side Elementary School in Edinburgh, just a footrace away from the school’s playground. Kids used it as a boundary for football games, as a shady spot to sit underneath, and of course, to meet their crushes and “marry” them.
As large as the tree loomed above the school community, it loomed larger in the memories of those who passed through East Side.
“It was the first kiss spot for many youngsters, either by dare or sincere crushes! It was truly a tree of love as many kids got “married” at the tree as well,” said SaraBeth Drybread, a former East Side Elementary student and community development director for Edinburgh. “I recall holding my first crush’s hand at the tree in kindergarten. That was enough affection for my 6-year-old heart.”
Those same people are remembering the tree with melancholy, as school officials announced that the tree had to be cut down. Storm damage from over the summer has exasperated cracking throughout the tree, which had become rotted and mostly hollow over time, raising concerns that it might fall, according to an email from Edinburgh superintendent Ron Ross.
In late August, the tree was safely cut down. All that remains is an empty space where it once stood.
School officials understand how important the tree is to local residents, and will try to determine if enough wood is salvageable to make a commemorative marker, Ross said. Discussions have also included planting a tree to replace it.
But the attention on the kissing tree has offered the community an opportunity to relive what it meant to them.
“It will surely be missed,” said Joanne Hollenbeck, a longtime Edinburgh resident and former teacher at East Side Elementary.
In mid-August, after Edinburgh school officials examined the trees behind East Side Elementary and discovered the extent of the damage it had suffered, a wide area around the tree was roped off with caution tape.
During the Aug. 15 meeting of the school board, Ross presented the news of the tree, requesting permission to have a tree service take it down and discussed with the board options for it once it came down.
“The tree has some emotional attachments to the community, and there have been numerous suggestions what we should do with the tree,” Ross said during the meeting. “We wanted to hear from you guys about what you’d like to see happen with it. Structurally, I think it needs to come down, but then what happens after that.”
The school district posted on Facebook about the damage the trees sustained, asking the community to not cross the caution tape set up as a safety precaution.
Immediately, people started posting their memories in the comments section.
“So sad … so many kids got fake married at that tree back in the 80s and 90s,” one post said.
Another read, “Man a big part of my childhood was playing red-rover by that tree. Or chilling under its shade and reading a book.”
People talked about all of the faux “marriages” that occurred around its trunk, meeting there to settle disagreements on the playground, and playing “Little House on the Prairie” underneath its canopy.
Hollenbeck was a teacher at East Side Elementary for years. She recalled that at recess, it was a key landmark on the playground. Kids would race to the tree and back, Hollenbeck said. If they misbehaved, some of them had to walk or run to the tree and back several times for causing trouble.
In her early years of teaching in the 1970s, the large tree served as the perfect place for her class to spread out for story time and a lesson under its shade.
“We didn’t have air conditioning then and that was one of the few shady places to cool off outside,” she said.
Tanya Crider has been retired from teaching for many years, but still remembers the outsized role the tree played to the East Side Elementary community.
Kids would perform “weddings” at the tree with the boy or girl that they liked. Being set away from the main playground, it was also where students would meet to make “devious” plans, Crider said. When teachers learned about those plans, kids used it as a hiding place.
“I am sad to see the tree cut down,” she said.
