The Homestead Elementary Gym was packed today with students and visitors for their 75th Anniversary Celebration.  The school was built during the creation of the Cumberland Homesteads project in the mid 1930’s under the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal.  Several speakers recalled the early days of the school including Jack Chadwell who was a quarter back for the school when it was a high school.   Jack to the audience the first year he quarterbacked the football team..they won only one game.  The next year, “we had a perfect record….we lost all of them” Chadwell said.  But in the ensuing years the team worked hard and rose in status and by the fourth year was a winning team.  The Homestead School was built during a time when there were very few jobs available after the Great Depression.  It provided many jobs to the community who was also busy building houses to live in.  The students created several projects for today’s event and was on display for all to enjoy.  President Roosevelt’s wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, actually visited the Homesteads during its development and gave a speech on the back of a flatbed truck.  Today, Cumberland County Playhouse actress Patty Payne portrayed Mrs. Roosevelt and addressed the assembly in character.