Eleanor Doersam, Lansing Eastern's first female principal, remembered as firm, caring

Correction: Eleanor Doersam was the Lansing School District's first female high school principal. This story has been updated to reflect accurate information.

LANSING − Linda Hundt had terror in her eyes when she was summoned from her Lansing Eastern High School psychology class to the principal’s office.

Hundt was a senior at the time and went on to become a member of the graduating class of 1981. As she trudged down the hall, she thought about the day before. It was senior skip day and she, like many of her classmates, participated in the annual tradition.

She feared she would be facing punishment for skipping school. Being called down to the principal’s office to see then Assistant Principal Eleanor Doersam, who passed away Sunday at age 92, was not a call to be taken lightly.

“She was kind of the disciplinarian assistant principal,” Hundt said. “You definitely didn’t want to get called down to her office.”

To make matters worse, Hundt’s father, an Eastern High School educator, was waiting in the office with Doersam as she walked in. Her father was just as stern as Doersam.

Doersam told Hundt that she knew she wasn’t in school the day before. As they spoke, Hundt noticed the occasional smirk that broke up the stern looks of her father and Doersam. It was clear that while they were playing a joke on her, they also wanted to teach her a lesson on the importance of school and not making bad decisions, even if they were popular ones.

“I certainly didn’t want to disappoint either of them,” Hundt said.

Many people will remember Doersam as Hundt does − a serious, disciplinarian who cared deeply for her students and staff.

And as an icon at Eastern.

A deep love for Eastern High School

Doersam first joined Eastern’s faculty in 1953 after graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in history and a minor in physical education. At the time, the school’s history department wasn’t hiring, so she took a job teaching physical education.

Officials promoted Doersam to dean of girls, a position that made her responsible for the school’s health clinic and discipline of female students in 1965, before having her position changed to assistant principal in the same year.

Doersam became the school district’s first female high school principal in 1983. It wasn’t an easy job.

Soon after her promotion, Doersam led Eastern through various hurdles, like bringing ninth graders back into the school, which took the school’s enrollment up to about 2,800 students, according to Reniero Araoz. Araoz was Eastern’s assistant principal in 1992 until 1994. He later went on to work with the Michigan Department of Education.

Many who knew her, including Araoz, associated Doersam with the the word “family.” She made it known that all the students, faculty, staff and families were part of the Quaker family. Everyone, including any school stakeholder, was adopted into that family, Araoz said.

“Ellie, I consider her a mentor,” he said. “She was very helpful in my career with the Lansing School District not only as an educator, but as a principal as well. She deeply cared about the Eastern High School students, faculty, staff and the parent community.”

She taught him the importance of being an effective educator and leader, which was accomplished through knowing Eastern’s history and including all stakeholders in decision-making processes.

“And of course putting the students first and foremost,” he said.

She instilled that same guidance in her teaching staff.

“She liked to use the word 'family' a lot. We were a family and a family with all of what a family is,” said Letha Collins, a member of Eastern’s graduating class of 1953 and a teacher at Eastern from 1965 to 1993. “That was her goal, so that we would be able to teach and get the kids to learn and be together as a family.”

Many of her students still remember the love and care Doersam had for them.

Hundt was a high school cheerleader in 1980. At the time, boys sports dominated the high school, highlighted by a popular and talented boys basketball team. Their games drew huge crowds and like many athletics events, you could find Doersam there cheering the team on.

Meanwhile, the cheerleading team hosted bake sales to pay for uniforms. They practiced on hard marble floors in the high school hallways and participated in cheer competitions that rarely drew any fans beyond their parents.

“Sometimes even the parents wouldn’t come,” Hundt joked.

It made Doersam’s appearance at a big cheerleading competition featuring all of Lansing’s high school cheer teams a huge deal, Hundt said.

After the event, Doersam came over and congratulated all of the cheerleaders. It’s a memory that more than 40 years later still brings a tear to Hundt’s eye.

“It meant a lot to us that she came on her Saturday off,” she said. “None of us expected that.”

'A principal's principal'

Doersam retired from the Lansing School District in 1992, but her love and support of Eastern High School never stopped.

She remained involved in different school functions, like the senior awards programs.

And she watched as new leaders came and went from Eastern, often coming in to introduce herself and find ways that she might be able to help the new administrators.

“Ms. Doersam was a principal’s principal, she embodied what it is to be a Quaker,” Eastern High School Principal Marcelle Carruthers said in a press release. “Ms. Doersam was the heartbeat of the Quaker Alumni, as a founding member. She encouraged and inspired both with fire and a touch of a feather. Her legacy is long and deep among Quakers. Ms. Doersam checked on every new Quaker leader and offered words of encouragement and tips for success. Eleanor Doersam had expectations for every Quaker to know that greatness lives in all of them and to walk in that greatness. Her physical presence will be missed but her legacy will forever live in the generations of Quakers she has touched.”

Yvonne Caamal Canul, Lansing School District’s superintendent from 2012 to 2020, said she was blessed to receive Doersam’s full support when she was appointed superintendent.

“She was an icon," Caamal Canul said. "If you worked in the Lansing School District, you knew who Ellie was.”

That support proved especially important during years of struggle at Eastern High School and the eventual move of the school to the former home of Pattengill Academy on Marshall Street in 2019.

Doersam’s help was instrumental in the transition and she was on-hand to celebrate the opening, including at a ribbon cutting to officially open the new football field, Caamal Canul said.

“She was so loyal to the Lansing School District,” she said. “She was a great administrator and a great leader of Eastern High School. She loved those kids and she loved her staff and the community deeply. She’s a great loss.”

Doersam was also an active participant at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lansing, where she sang in the choir, served as a lay reader and became the first female senior warden.

Additionally, she was a member of the American Red Cross, past president of the University of Michigan Alumni association, founding member of the M-Club for women and a founding member of the Eastern High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

The many students whose lives she impacted will remember Doersam as the strict yet loving school leader that she was. And one that remembered and cared for her students even after they left the school, Hundt said.

After Hundt opened her Sweetie-licious bakery in DeWitt in 2005, Doersam became one of her many customers, often stopping by for a sweet confection, telling her former student how proud she is of her.

“Her words meant a great deal to me on so many levels,” Hundt said. “She knew me when I was younger and she encouraged me … to be a strong role model. She was a principal of a huge school, I graduated with hundreds, and here she was as the assistant principal, as a woman, to see where she was and what a noble and high position she was in. She was indeed a role model to all of us whether we knew at that time or not.”

Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Eleanor Doersam remembered as firm, caring Lansing Eastern principal