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Title: Barbara (Welsh) McCollum interview--February 16, 2006
Description: Barbara (Welsh) McCollum attended the Campus School, 1938-1947.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_McCollumBarbara_20060216
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Barbara Welsh McCollum ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair u
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Barbara Welsh McCollum ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Barbara Welsh McCollum on February 16 th, 2006, at her home in Bellingham, Washington. Her husband Richard McCollum is also present and makes some comments. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is February 16th, 2006 and I am here with Barbara Welsh McCollum. She was a Campus School student. We are going to go through the Campus School Questionnaire and add in some extra stories, too. Our first question is how did you happen to attend the Campus School? BM: I think it was because we lived in the area, period. My brothers… TB: Your brothers had already went there? BM: Yes. TB: That‟s actually our next question. Did anyone else in your family attend the school and what were their names? BM: My twin brother Bill Welsh, my brothers Bob Welsh and Barney Welsh and [sister] Joan Welsh. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? BM: I don‟t remember. TB: I think you must have come in the fall of 1938 [Kindergarten] and graduated in 1947 [ninth grade]. BM: Good. Yes, yes. TB: We‟ll double check that but I think for other people in your class that seemed to be when they were there. BM: I‟m only forty seven, how did it work out [laughter]? Go on. TB: That‟s true, that‟s true. Did your family pay any fees, do you know, to attend the Campus School? BM: I have no idea. TB: We don‟t think that they did. Where did you live when you attended the Campus School? BM: On 17th Street. TB: Okay. How did you get to and from school? 1 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BM: Well, when we first started going to school, we had a chauffeur and his name was Gunther and he would drive us to school. We would pick up Dan and Chuck Olsen at the corner and go to school that way. Mother would [also sometimes] drive us to school, or [we took] the bus, or we walked. TB: Okay. So you really did go to school in a limousine! I heard that. BM: Yes. TB: That‟s wonderful. And/or your mother took you. BM: Mother would take us to school but she wouldn‟t be dressed. She would have her bathrobe on and [once] she ran out of gas so she learned to get dressed because she had to get help to get home! TB: Oh no! Please share any favorite memories of this experience (walking to and from school). You also talked about walking across the hill. BM: I remember on the bus now getting off then you had to walk up those stairs. They were steep stairs all the way up then across, then you had a road guard gal, then you had Old Main, then you went to Campus School. It was those stairs that were so difficult to go up. TB: Were they then in front of the library? Or were they off of Garden? BM: Off of Garden; really straight up. I remember Gene Geske played the saxophone or some instrument and she could barely get up the stairs! But the road guards, it was either adults and then later on you could be in eighth or ninth grade out there, the people crossing the street. TB: Okay. What did you do for lunch? BM: I think in the beginning it was soup, (I was trying to remember this) soup, something, and ice cream. We used to bring our lunch, but Don Turcotte, he was always the one who ate their lunch there. I remember that because he used to get a funny face. When we were older then we were over at the cafeteria at Edens Hall. That‟s where that picture was. TB: Okay. I‟ve definitely heard of Edens Hall by the time you were in junior high. I think there was a lunch cart when you were in the new school. BM: Yes, they would bring it up; soup, milk and ice cream. That was what the teacher would say, “Soup, milk and ice cream.” And Don Turcotte always ordered that, but we had sandwiches so we didn‟t have to fool with that. TB: Nice. Do you remember any favorite classmates? Please name them for us and tell us some stories about them. BM: Well, since there were four Barbara‟s, we went by our last names. Susan lived up on 17 th Street. She was my favorite friend. Gene Geske lived on 17th Street and her sister Robin went to Campus School. I don‟t know if we‟re talking about where everybody lived. TB: Right now, first, just remembering your favorite classmates. BM: Oh, they all were, from time to time. TB: But you had some stories about each one of them. You actually went by „Welsh‟? BM: I was “Welshie.” TB: Welshie, okay. What was Barbara Albers called? 2 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BM: Albers; and Lindy and Dorsey. TB: That‟s great. BM: I don‟t know how to explain it. We had gangs. It was separate groups. I was fortunate enough to be able to be in both of them because Gene Geske and I and Bea Nelson, we used to walk the railroad tracks. In those days you could walk from 17th Street clear down. We would pack a lunch and walk the railroad tracks and eat lunch and whatever. The other girls wouldn‟t do that but Gene and [Bea and I] would do this all the time. We were camper-outers and we used to scare the Boy Scouts because there on 18th Street they would have all their things up there and Gene and I were troopers. We could hide and we watched them and scared them! We were outdoorsy. But I got to [be part of both groups] because [I also] went to dance school and all [that] sort of stuff so I was a part of both „crowds‟ I guess you would call them, not gangs. Rosemary Rykken, then, was the head of the crowd. If Rosemary walked backwards, so did Albers. It was gang things. TB: So was the dance school part of Campus School, or was that something you did after school? BM: It was after school. In fact, I made my debut at the American Theater which became Penney‟s. I didn‟t know that they showed a movie first and then we danced. We got on stage, curtsied and walked off, you know. Everyone took dancing lessons; or piano lessons, too. TB: Why don‟t you tell us a little bit about your brother? BM: Bill? TB: Yes. What was it like being twins in school, in that class? BM: Well, I think that was pretty good. We didn‟t have that many problems. It was in high school that Bill used to rat on me at dinner time. [The school] alphabetized everybody, so they switched it so Bill and I didn‟t have to be in the same classes. So he couldn‟t tell if I was a slow reader or I did this or whatever. Bill and I did very well in school because Bill had his friends. TB: Alright. So who were your favorite or most influential teachers? BM: I think all of them. Miss Nicol; I‟m trying to think. Lucille Barron, who died, taught. TB: Oh, really? You had her for [Home Economics]? BM: Yes. Susan Jones and I flunked sewing. We did not do sleeves well and aprons. I remember Susan and I weren‟t very good at that. Lucille was a very, very pleasant gal. TB: Wow. So that must have been in the junior high? BM: Yes. They taught us all about vitamins and what [they] meant. I thought we would be learning to cook. We did, it was the first time I ever cooked carrots. We didn‟t like…I can‟t think of her name. Cunningham? What Rosemary did when making custard, instead of using sugar, she put in salt! Miss Countryman, maybe it was Miss Countryman, [she] took it home. She lied when she came back and said everything tasted so lovely, but we knew what Rosemary and Albers did! That‟s what was so priceless about Campus School. You learned to write. You learned about food. Mrs. Button is the one that gets the „A,‟ teaching us music. We had desks (this is in the new school) where you put your head down and she would tell you about it and then play Peter and the Wolf. She gave us all, people who weren‟t aware of music, (my mother had been an opera singer, but the other kids) they heard about that and then appreciated music. She was excellent. Her mother was Mrs. Deerwester-Darling. TB: Oh! That‟s right! That has come up before. Oh, I know, because of Ned Button! 3 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BM: Yes. TB: Do you remember any of your student teachers? BM: The only one I can remember because of Sarah Rankin, in the ninth grade, Mr. [Ludwick]. We called him „Luddy.‟ These are guys that after World War II came home. That‟s the only one I can think of. I can visualize but I don‟t remember their names or anything except „Luddy,‟ [Ludwick]. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? BM: Well it was drawing, art. I loved music. I don‟t know, just about generally everything. TB: How about woodworking? BM: I did that in the sixth grade because I wanted to be with the boys again, so I got to make a menu thing. TB: And the girls did do that a lot, didn‟t they? And the boys did cooking too, didn‟t they? I mean, I shouldn‟t lead you, but I‟ve kind of heard it was kind of unusual because boys and girls both did what was not always [traditional for them]. BM: Yes. Miss Gragg taught us writing, the round of the „o‟ and all this sort of stuff. What I thought was so much fun, again, sitting in the third grade on the floor and – God rest his soul – Pete Onkels used to get up to the blackboard and make huge letters and be silly. TB: Tell me about that. If you guys didn‟t really have desks, how did you write? Or how did you do homework? BM: I‟m sure we must have had desks. I know in the first grade we did. Maybe it was just certain times that we sat on the floor. TB: Okay. BM: Yes, because art, we were at tables. TB: Any more thoughts about the handwriting? A lot of people have commented about distinctive Campus School handwriting. Did you learn to do cursive or was it just printing? BM: Cursive and printing. But then when you got older you weren‟t making your „e‟s this way, you were doing backward threes, being very sophisticated you know. Now my grandkids, their writing is terrible; you can barely read it, whereas Miss Gragg was right there with you. Either big lines on a page then there‟s lines and do it that way, or larger or whatever she did. So she made you think about what you were doing. She was very good. God rest her soul. TB: What kind of learning materials did you use mostly? Did you have regular school textbooks or materials created by your teachers? BM: I don‟t remember. I don‟t think we carried too much to school. I think it was supplied. I don‟t remember having homework. Maybe Margaret will tell you. Maybe we did later in the eighth or ninth. We did dissect. In the seventh grade or eighth, I don‟t remember his name, but we dissected animals. TB: Oh wow. What did you think about that? BM: It smelled. I remember that. I can see him, I can‟t recognize his name, but that was biology. So we learned that. 4 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What kind of grading system was in use during your attendance? Did you have letter grades or narrative reports? BM: Letter. TB: Do you especially remember any creative activities such as weaving or making things? BM: No. One thing that I‟m very proud of at Campus School was that they did honor Thanksgiving. Over in the Old Main auditorium there, all the classes would get there and they would have kind of a show. The ninth graders got to come in and hold bananas and we would all sing, Come Be Thankful, People Come. TB: Nice. BM: It was a celebration of Thanksgiving. When we were little, the May Day, the May Pole, the girls would dance around that. TB: Wow. Now where was the May Pole located? BM: In my mind I‟ve got it right in front of the Campus School building, the new one, right out front. Maybe they were still doing the rocks, I don‟t know. We celebrated all these things. TB: Let‟s talk a little bit about that. You mentioned it before we turned on the tape about the rocks when they were building the new school. BM: Yes. It was a long length of grass but then they needed help to get all the rocks and pebbles and put them in containers. Another thing that was so great is that we couldn‟t wait for bad weather because then the sawdust truck couldn‟t make it. The schools used sawdust. TB: Instead of salt, then? What was sawdust used for? BM: For the furnace, for heat. TB: Oh! BM: So when the weather was bad, then we could get out of school because the sawdust truck couldn‟t make it up. So we were always hoping that the saw dust truck couldn‟t make it because it wasn‟t coal, it was sawdust then. TB: So did you get fresh sawdust almost every day or just like once or twice a week? BM: I don‟t remember. TB: And that was probably still when you were in Old Main, is that right? BM: Yes. TB: Oh! That‟s cool. BM: I think we had sawdust at the house and Darrell Crait, who lived next door to us, they had sawdust and we were always anxious to see if they could make it up the hill when we were in snow. We used to have more snow than we do now. TB: Right. Wow. That could be important though at home, too. The sawdust truck might not get home and then it would be cold. 5 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BM: It‟s not a garage but you open up something by the house and then they dump the sawdust down there. It was bins or something. You‟re making my mind work here! TB: What was it like to be observed so often by student teachers? BM: I don‟t remember it being a problem. TB: Did you ever go to summer school at the Campus School? BM: Yes. I had to go because I was lousy in math. I had to go to summer school once and I wasn‟t happy because the weather was too nice. TB: Do you at all remember how they taught you math? Other people have had problems with math that were in the Campus School. BM: Well we had [multiplication tables] you could look at, „Seven times six is forty two,‟ so you would try and memorize those. I don‟t think I was very good at math. TB: What out of classroom activities did you enjoy the most or did you engage in? BM: Well, it was always a lot of PE things. I don‟t remember doing anything out of school. I had dance classes to go to. What was so fabulous was that we learned to play volleyball, we learned to play basketball and all that at the very beginning. They taught you teamwork. TB: What out of classroom activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime, what did you enjoy the most and what games did you play? BM: When we were in the seventh or eighth or ninth, after lunch we went into a room and danced. You learned to dance with girls so it helped you learn to dance and be good at it. We had field trips, I remember that. Identify trees and birds, and that was because we could go from Campus School right up on 18 th Street and it was all woods. We had cards that showed you the birds and we tried to look for them. So again, what Campus School did was open all these eyes so you could see more than paperwork; and clouds in ninth grade. Because Mr. Ludwick had been in the military, they told us about clouds. Every time when there‟s a pattern then I know it‟s a cirrus cloud but don‟t ask me anything else! We had to memorize the different cloud patterns. TB: Nice. Do you think on some of those walks, I‟m going to call it the „nature walk,‟ but whatever, was that often something that student teachers took you on do you remember or was it your regular teacher? BM: You got me. I would probably think it would be student teacher, not teacher, because they were a little older. How old were our teachers? In their thirties and we thought they were old! I don‟t know how old Miss Kinsman was. TB: Any other thoughts about what you usually did at recess? BM: The boys played basketball or something and we jabber-jawed or danced. That was [when we were] older. I don‟t remember [before that]. TB: Did you visit the college itself very much or attend assemblies or sporting events that were at the college part? BM: We went to concerts there or plays. I remember that. But I don‟t think we went to sporting things. TB: At what grade level did you enter public school and why did you transfer and what was the transition like for you? 6 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BM: When I left Campus School [I] went to Bellingham High School. What you did, you would go down to Adam‟s Style Shop and get a cashmere sweater so you would wear that to school the first day. What was so great was the other high schools getting together so those crowds, this crowd and then Campus School, we all got together and we would go to the Mt. Baker Theater to the movies and we would sit together. When we go to concerts I think, we were all down there! Fairhaven High School, a lot of the kids lived on 14th Street or whatever, so they got to be good friends because of location. TB: So you didn‟t find it difficult to transition to public school? BM: No, I didn‟t have a problem with that at all. I ended up going to Helen Bush in my senior year because I got tired of the same routine sort of stuff. I talked to my brother Barney. He said, “I’ll help you out. Think this through.” So I did. I went to Helen Bush for my senior year, so I don‟t have an annual. TB: Now where was that, down in Seattle? BM: Seattle. TB: It was a private school down there? BM: Yes, a girls‟ school. TB: Why did your brother Bill leave the Campus School a year before you? BM: I think he got tired of it. Actually I think at Whatcom High School he had more fun. Dick was there, and all the guys. I have no idea. TB: Please share any specific differences that you saw between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. BM: Homework, I think! You say that and the first thing that comes to my mind is Miss Martin‟s Latin class. We had Latin class just before lunch and then after so we would go and then bring food back for her so we could shorten the class and learning [Latin phrase]. I think it was just more routine. Was it forty five minutes a class? TB: Probably. BM: Something like that. My brother Bob and Barney and Tom, Dick‟s brother, they used to do funny things. They let a cow go through Bellingham High School. I can‟t remember what else they did. I didn‟t want Mr. Emery to know my name because he remembered Bob and Barney! It was during the war era. TB: What further education did you pursue (college, graduate or professional school)? BM: I went to Stephens College in Missouri for two years. TB: So you didn‟t attend Western and major in education. BM: No. It‟s so funny because at Stephens with two years there I could teach preschool children if I was in Columbia, Missouri area, in the south. Coming here, I remember talking to Dorothy Button, she said no way after two years. You couldn‟t even walk in a door. So I didn‟t, and then when I married Dick and we were in Springfield, Virginia and the kids were older and we needed more money, I taught nursery school; two- and three-year-olds. TB: How did you happen to decide to go to Stephens, or go to Missouri? BM: What‟s the other girls‟ school in Colorado? There was another one. I have no idea. Susan Jones. Susan and I went to Stephens. 7 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates? And if so, could you help us contact any of them? BM: Sure. Gene Geske. I talked to her just the other day. TB: Excellent! BM: She‟s in Sun City. Susan Jones is down south a little bit, Seattle. Have you talked to Barbara (Lindy) Holmes? TB: I think I have her address. But I know I don‟t know anything about Gene Geske. BM: She wasn‟t very, quote, “smart,” just about like me, but she ended up becoming very smart and she was an artist. She draws things. And she turned deeply religious. She married her husband and they were missionaries in Germany. She‟s the one that we scared the Boy Scouts! Don‟t forget that! TB: Wow! BM: Let‟s see, who else do I talk to? Sara I haven‟t talked to her in a long time. “Lindy” I saw the other day. It‟s so funny, you could live in Bellingham all your life and never run into anybody that you know! TB: I would think that some of you guys would. BM: The guy you said a few minutes ago, Larry Olsen, Dick sees him. Well, you‟ll be at Haggen and run into somebody. The thing is, at Dick‟s class reunion, God love them, they put the picture on the back so when you look at the front you know who are they are because people have changed their looks! TB: That‟s true. BM: My first boyfriend was Phil Clarkson. He lived in Happy Valley. Do you know where Happy Valley is? TB: Yes. I think he‟s another one we don‟t know where he is. BM: I don‟t know if he‟s alive. The other one I was madly in love with was Norman Bemis. He passed away. TB: What happened to Dick Wahl? BM: He died maybe ten years ago or something. You should call Gene Geske‟s sister because she is married to Terry Wahl. TB: Oh, okay, I know he was a news broadcaster or something, right? BM: Yes. TB: I heard about him in another context but I didn‟t realize he was in your class. BM: I see Brian every now and again. He was with the downtown business. TB: Do you know where Ken Wherry is? BM: Yes, he is down in the Seattle area. We saw him I think last summer. He came up and we went out at the Marina. He used to be one of Bill‟s best friends and he was a Sigma Nu with Dick at the University of Washington. 8 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: I don‟t know anything about Phil Clarkson, Darrell Crait, do you know where he is? BM: No. I don‟t even think he went to Bellingham High School. TB: And Barbara Dorsey? Do you know where she is at? BM: No, I don‟t know. She was also in a religious missionary thing. It‟s got to be ten years since I have heard from Dorsey. TB: But she did go onto Bellingham High? BM: Yes. TB: What about Joanne Holcomb? You don‟t have her on your list. She was in your class in sixth grade. BM: I have no idea. I will probably wake up in the middle of the night, “Joanne Holcomb!” TB: It must have been Jack, when I first saw „Jackie Longstreth‟ I was thinking of a girl, but it‟s probably a boy, right? Jack. BM: Yes. Longstreth. TB: I know his dad was a doctor because that was my Grandpa‟s doctor I bet. BM: All I can think of was we didn‟t like him or we did tricks on him, I remember that. Here‟s one about the war. We‟d go trick-or-treat, Susan and I, on 17th Street and we‟d do 15th and all that sort of stuff. A woman we went to trick-or-treat, she said, “Don’t you realize there’s a war going on?” TB: Oh! And just didn‟t think it was appropriate then to be doing that? BM: Yes. End of Side One. TB: We had a Richard Peters and you‟ve got him as Dick Peters. BM: Yes. TB: Do you know what happened to him? BM: No. The story about him was he was – on what day are you born that‟s [in] Leap Year? So he was never old, he was always younger! So we joked with him. He lived where old Saint Joe‟s is, he lived on that corner right there. TB: Oh, okay; Tom Slipper? BM: Oh, yes, you say that and I know where he lived, right on Garden Street. TB: We have a Carol Ann Stuart and Donald Turcotte. Do you know anything about what happened to him? Did they all go on to Bellingham High School? BM: Yes. TB: What class would that be then? What was your graduating class from Bellingham High School? 9 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BM: Remember, I didn‟t graduate. TB: Well, so it would have been 1950. RM: 1950. TB: Would you be willing to serve as a contact person for your class for the purpose of encouraging participation in the reunion that they are going to have in 2007? BM: Sure. I would love to because my cousins would love to come; Pat Templin and Judy Templin both went to Campus School. TB: Okay, I think I have heard that name before but I want to make sure I get that from you before I go. Do you have any Campus School memorabilia, including photographs, class publications, crafts, artwork, etc. that you would be willing to let us borrow for the exhibit? BM: Sure and I‟ll get you one right now because I found this and I don‟t know, I think this it was 1947 (referring to photograph). TB: Please share any favorite memories of your Campus School days and then areas not covered by the questions above that you might want to talk about. One thing might be World War II and what it was like to be in school during World War II. BM: Other than my telling you that we had to practice in case there was an air raid, I remember that. Not at school, but the windows all had to be covered at home. Mr. Wahl was the area warden. Mother worked at the Filter Center down there, all the soldiers were there, plotting airplanes and things. Our house, in case Saint Joe‟s burnt down, ours was [designated] a hospital, our basement. It was huge. All the supplies were downstairs, the beds and gauze and all that sort of stuff so that if there had been something there, our house would have been the hospital. TB: Wow. So your mother had a job during the War, then? BM: At the Filter Center and Red Cross. TB: Okay, wow. BM: Everybody was busy. My aunt Doris, my Mother‟s sister, worked at where the Bon Marché used to be. Boeing had a plant there. TB: Really? Boeing was in Bellingham? BM: Well a plant, yes. She worked there. We used to have all these ships come in; submarines and others. TB: A busy time. BM: Yes. That has nothing to do with Campus School. TB: Well no, but Bellingham. Anything else I haven‟t asked you that you would like to talk about? BM: I think we‟re fine. I‟ll get you those addresses. I‟ve got Ken Wherry‟s. TB: Excellent. I will say thank you very much. BM: On behalf of a grateful nation, yes. 10 Barbara McCollum Edited Transcript – February 16th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Henrietta (Daesener) Moseley interview--March 1, 2006
Description: Henrietta (Daesener) Moseley attended the Campus School (1954-1961) ; and later attended Western Washington University for her "fifth year."
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_MoseleyHenrietta_20060301
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Henrietta Moseley ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use&qu
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Henrietta Moseley ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Henrietta Moseley on March 1 st, 2006. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is March 1st, 2006 and I, Tamara Belts, am here with Henrietta Moseley. She attended Campus School. She did not sign the Informed Consent Agreement but she does know that she is being recorded. Is that correct? HM: Yes. TB: Good. Our first question is how did you happen to attend the Campus School? HM: I always heard from my parents that my mother registered me for Campus after I was born. I have located the application that my mother kept and she registered me on October 6 th, 1949. TB: And you were born when? HM: I was born March 15th, so six months after. TB: She didn’t waste any time! Did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School and what were their names? HM: No. I think I was the only one who went through Campus. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? HM: I started Kindergarten in 1954 and went all through sixth grade; I guess I left in 1961. TB: Did your family pay any fees for your attendance at the Campus School? HM: Not that I’m aware of. It all was registering early and having that opportunity; you were selected to go. I never heard anything about fees. TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School and how did you get to and from school? Please share any favorite memories of this experience. HM: My family home was down on Garden Street at 242 South Garden. That’s where I was born and raised and lived my whole life. I walked to school. I met Dick and Bill Hearsey along the way and Jackie Levin. The three of us kind of sauntered up and arrived at school, hopefully on time! There were a few times we were not on time, especially in the fall. As we came up Garden Terrace we filled our pockets with chestnuts, I remember that, and huge maple leaves. That was a lot of fun. The three of us were real good buddies for getting back and forth to school. TB: What did you do for lunch? 1 Henrietta Moseley Edited Transcript – March 1st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED HM: I had a lunch pail, a little red plaid lunch pail. I was a real chubby little kid, so my mother – bless her heart – she tried so hard to just send the right things for me to eat. But just like Mr. Fisher, I had special days that I got to go down to the kitchen and order their spaghetti or something. That was a treat but most of the time I took my lunch. TB: So then you ate in your classroom or did you go to the cafeteria? HM: I think we ate in the cafeteria down there. There was a cafeteria. TB: Do you remember any favorite classmates? Please name them for us. HM: Yes, I had many favorite classmates. In fact, my oldest friend, today is her birthday and we have been friends since Kindergarten. We’ve been friends for fifty two years now and we still stay in very close contact, Jackie Levin, she’s now Jackie Kotkins. So Jackie and I were very close and Mary Louise Young and Jennifer Yanko and Leslie Swanson and Jeff Peters and Randy Budd. There was a whole list of them. I remember more of my friends from grade school than I do in any other period of my education. That’s pretty interesting. I was able to name and remember eighteen I think. TB: Wow; that is excellent. Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? HM: Kindergarten was interesting. Miss Nicol was really a nice lady. She was much older. I remember I liked her but she didn’t always let me paint! She and I didn’t always see eye to eye because I didn’t get as much painting time in as I would have liked to have. I remember Mrs. Vike in third grade and I just loved her to pieces because she let me do lots of clay work. My mother saved a lot of my clay pieces that I brought today. Mrs. Lee was my fourth grade teacher; she was a family friend. I remember Annabelle Lee. She was a really nice lady. Mrs. Power, my fifth grade teacher, she took me bowling. Then when she moved back to California, she still kept in touch with us and sent cards occasionally. I had some wonderful, wonderful teachers. Miss Weythman, Ruth Weythman, was a family friend. She was a PE teacher. I liked her, too. She was a very nice lady. TB: Do you remember any of your student teachers and could you name them for us? HM: I don’t remember student teachers. There were a lot of them though, like three or four every quarter. We just had a lot of teaching staff on board. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? HM: I seemed to like to do things with my hands. I’m sure that’s where my love of doing things with my hands came from. I remember doing wood working, I remember weaving, and the clay work. I loved working with clay. Reading, I enjoyed the reading. We had Dick and Jane and I remember the stories of Sally, Dick and Jane and Muff, the cat I think, little Muffy the cat. I remember spelling. My first big spelling word I think in second grade I think was ‘constellation’. I remember that was just a huge achievement to learn how to spell that. I think some of the special things -- other than doing just math and English and reading -- I really enjoyed the industrial arts that we got to do, [plus] swimming, going to the library, some of those things. TB: What kind of learning materials did you use mostly (regular school textbooks, materials created by your teachers or other)? HM: I think the teachers provided a lot themselves. I do remember that I had Sally, Dick and Jane. That was the first Scott Foresman program that was out I think. We had math books. I don’t remember the name of the math book that I had, but I do remember Sally, Dick and Jane. TB: Excellent. What kind of grading system was in use during your attendance (letter grades or narrative reports)? 2 Henrietta Moseley Edited Transcript – March 1st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED HM: Narratives. My mother kept all of them. It’s kind of fun to go back and read over your little reports. They really were very generic in what they said, but they did focus more I think on each individual child. Since I grew up to be a teacher, looking back at these reports and what I did in my grading system, I spent a lot of time writing reports. Maybe that’s where that got started. TB: Nice. Do you especially remember any creative activities such as weaving, making things, etc? Obviously you liked artwork. HM: I liked the artwork. I also liked the music. I remember Evelyn Hines was one of the music teachers that I had. She did The Nutcracker with us one year and we got to perform that on stage in the auditorium. She also taught us a Hawaiian hula dance song, I remember that, of which I can still remember some of the words to it. It was like a line dance we were doing, that was wonderful. One of the neatest things that I remember is every Christmas as the month of December came, we got to go into the auditorium and there was a huge Christmas tree in there. It must have been ten or fifteen feet tall. The music teacher was in there. We got to gather around the tree every morning and had a good forty five minutes of singing together. We got to sing all sorts of Christmas carols from all over the world. That was wonderful. We had Jewish kids in our class and everybody sang. It was just a wonderful time. TB: What was it like for you to be observed so often by student teachers? HM: I think after a while you just didn’t even know they were there because we always had so many people coming into the Campus School to observe. They were just part of the group, part of the family. TB: What out-of-classroom activities did you engage in, what did you do at recess, lunchtime, what did you enjoy the most and what games did you play? HM: I remember the bars out in the back of the building. We went out there for part of our recesses. Some of our recesses were out in front of the building. I do remember that I played a lot of square ball and red rover and in the spring we played baseball. There were some dodge ball and soccer ball games. We got to use the field out in front of the building. We were pretty active out there. Then we did get to go swimming all the time so we got to go over to the big pool. That was wonderful, but I didn’t like the bathing suits! TB: I have heard that before. HM: Oh my gosh! They were like flour sacks! You only could hope to get a green one. I just remember that. If you got a blue one you were in real trouble! TB: Did you visit the college itself, the college library, attend assemblies or sporting events or anything else at the college while you were in the Campus School? HM: We went to the library probably every week because we got to go in and check our books out. That was part of our curriculum. I don’t remember going to games or anything; I think mainly the library. TB: At what grade level did you enter public school? Why did you transfer and what was the transition like for you? HM: My Campus School experience ended with sixth grade so then I moved onto Fairhaven. I do remember that I did not learn cursive writing at Campus School. As I look back, that was a real issue. Maybe you didn’t learn it until fifth grade. I think that was it. We didn’t learn it until late. It’s not that we didn’t learn it but we didn’t learn it until the end of fifth grade going into sixth. Otherwise we always printed. The transition to Fairhaven, I think I found it hard, especially in English. TB: Any reason why? 3 Henrietta Moseley Edited Transcript – March 1st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED HM: I don’t think I had all the English preparation that I could have had or should have had. I had a very well-rounded education. TB: Please share any differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. HM: As I mentioned, the singing at Christmas, we got to do that. I remember that every year through Campus School. That’s something that didn’t happen in the public school. It might have happened some but not as much. I think that we were exposed to a more well-rounded education. We had a lot more art and industrial arts. We had exposure to swimming and the main library. I think we had a lot more exposure at Campus School. TB: What further education did you pursue (college, graduate or professional school)? HM: I went on to get my degree in elementary education and then my fifth year I received at Western. I taught in Stanwood for fifteen years and moved into Mount Vernon and retired in 2002 with 32 years in the public school system. TB: By the time you would have went to Western, the Campus School had ended, anyway. HM: Yes, in 1967 I think. TB: Yes. How did your attendance at the Campus School influence your life and/or career? HM: I know as a teacher, when I was teaching, there were things that I did as a child at Campus School that I did with my students. For one example, I had the janitor in Stanwood make me fifteen weaving looms. We did a lot of weaving in my first grade classroom. I picked that up from Campus. TB: What is it that students were learning by the weaving? Someone has told me that they were also learning math. Is that part of what they were also learning? HM: I think, and design, repetition. TB: Are you still in touch with any of your Campus School classmates and if so can you help us contact them? HM: I think I mentioned that I am in contact with Jackie Levin. I have seen Mary Louise Young within the last couple years and Jennifer Yanko’s mother I just saw a month ago. Jennifer has her doctorate in linguistics and is at Boston University. She is back on the East coast but she does come out here occasionally. Basically those are the one that I have stayed in contact with. TB: Would you be willing to serve as a contact person for your class for the purpose of encouraging participation in the Campus School reunion planned for 2007? HM: Oh yes. I think everybody participate in this. This is a part of history here. TB: Alright. The question is do you have any campus memorabilia including photographs, class book pages, crafts or artwork and I can see that you brought some with you. HM: I did. TB: Excellent. Please share with us any favorite memories of your Campus School days and any comments about areas not covered by the questions above (for example, Short Tuesdays). HM: Oh, Short Tuesdays! That was a wonderful day. The kids got to go home at noon and the teachers stayed on. That’s when they had their meetings and preparation time. We had Short Tuesday once a month. 4 Henrietta Moseley Edited Transcript – March 1st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED That meant I got to go to my friend’s house and we had more time to play so that was a hot day! I really remember Short Tuesdays. TB: Anything else we haven’t talked about? HM: I remember when I was Santa Claus in sixth grade! TB: That would be fun. HM: I was probably the tallest and most appropriate for being Santa Claus. They dressed me up in a Santa outfit and I got to go up and down those ramps and go and give candy canes to all the little kids in Kindergarten and first grade. That was fun; many memories. TB: Anything else? HM: I think that’s it. TB: Excellent. Thank you very much Henrietta. 5 Henrietta Moseley Edited Transcript – March 1st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: James and Patricia O'Brien interview--July 27, 2005
Description: James and Patricia O'Brien were both faculty at Western; their children attended the Campus School (1955-1967) and Mrs. O'Brien also taught physical education in the Campus School.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_O'BrienPatJames_20050727
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Pat and James O’Brien ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair us
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Pat and James O’Brien ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Pat and James O’Brien on July 27, 2005. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: One portion of our Campus School questionnaire (you’re actually the first ones to be tested out on the parent question) -- is to get parents’ perceptions. I’m here with the O’Brien’s and we’re going to try doing a joint interview to gather their comments about their children’s experience and/or the parents’ view of the Campus School. So, our first question is: how or why did you decide to have your children go to the Campus School? JO: Well, it was convenient, for one thing. We lived very close. They could walk there in ten minutes. I was teaching at Western (I don’t know if I walked up with them all the time), and I think at that point most of the faculty had children who were using the Campus School unless they lived farther away. PO: I think we both had respect for the teachers at the Campus School and for what their projects were that they were doing and it was really a very enriched kind of program that would be possible for our children. And since I was also a teacher, I was trying to be sure I wasn’t harming them or harming the program by being involved. So, I think Jim’s comments as the parent are probably more apropos for that point. TB: OK, how many of your children attended Campus School? JO: All three. TB: All three. And what were the years/grades that your children attended? JO: Let’s see, Bill went… PO: Kindergarten through five. By the time of the fifth-grade, that was the last year for the Campus School. So, Maura went Kindergarten through four and Kathleen, Kindergarten through two. TB: Those were the Sixties, then? Correct? PO: Yes. JO: Yes. And also it was very close. It was the closest school. They could walk there in fifteen minutes. PO: For us it was geographically as close as Lowell -- closer. TB: And then you also, Mrs. O’Brien, taught at the Campus School. PO: Right. 1 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: You were teaching during that whole period that your children were also in school there? PO: Not the whole period. I taught for a few years, because I was doing some part time work there. TB: O.K. So, where did your family live when the children attended the Campus School? JO: Our residence during Campus School years was 154 South Garden Street from 1955 to 1965; 200 North Forest Street from 1965 to close of Campus School and to 2002. TB: So they were able to walk to and from school. JO: Yes. Even from Kindergarten. That was very handy; it was convenient from that standpoint. TB: Did they serve lunch at the school or did you have to prepare a sack lunch? PO: They no longer had the lunchroom so they had to take their own lunches. TB: So at some point in time there had been a lunchroom? PO: Yes, because at one time they included sixth-grade. One time they had eighth-grade and they were using part of the Old Main. TB: Who do you think were their favorite and most influential teachers and why? PO: I think Synva K. Nicol and Katherine Casanova. I asked my daughter, who was a fourth-grader at the time and she also mentioned, Mrs. Limbacker, who was only there for one year, but she thought she was one of the nicest ones she’d had. I think Ted Mork was one of the most influential with both Bill and Maura for reading. And there was Mike Murphy who was there. TB: So Ted Mork both taught at Western and taught in the Campus School? Or he taught at the Campus School and then later ended up teaching at Western? PO: I don’t know which way that went, but he was faculty and he was at Western. And those are full time positions, whereas my physical education or art or music was part time. And those specialists came in for just small portions. TB: So at Campus School he mainly taught reading to the students? PO: I think he was a fourth-grade teacher; which meant a core program and he did a fine job throughout the core. TB: As parents what did you like about the curriculum or think was most beneficial for your child? JO: I think the reading, they learned to read and keep books. PO: They had supplementary French. I was personally delighted that they had a good physical education program from Kindergarten through sixth and fifth-grades. I think that that was a big help. They had good field trips. They safely conducted a lot of varieties of programs with the different types of student teachers there, so you didn’t suffer problems with student teachers that you can sometimes have. Though they were a guinea pig group and did demonstrations, I think it was augmenting their programs. TB: Do you think your children were ever confused about who their teacher was or who the student teachers were? To a child I think everybody seems like the teacher. Do you think that they always knew for sure who their real teacher was? 2 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PO: I think that more or less they knew that each quarter there would be new group of student teachers, and they accepted them. The room teacher made sure that they felt comfortable with that status. JO: I think they became used to change from the beginning. That’s the way things come, different people come and you have them for a while then somebody else comes. PO: I think that an interesting is that when my son married, his wife-to-be asked, who’s this woman in California? And he said, “She’s my first-grade teacher.” She was startled that Bill would send his firstgrade teacher, Katherine Casanova, a wedding invitation. TB: Wow. So they definitely stayed close all that time. JO: Oh, yes. And we knew her well. PO: I had been a single teacher and I knew these other single teachers. So as we had family, often we’d come to a holiday and I’d think, “Those ladies won’t be having any special place for Easter dinner” or whatever and I’d say, “Would you like to come to a picnic?” or “Would you come to this or go on these trips, go to the Stommish?” It would be a nice outing for them and they got along very well, but kept their position nicely, and the kids liked them. TB: I’ve heard a lot of good things about her (Katherine Casanova). What types of special programs, if any, were the parents invited to attend? PO: Well, you (James O’Brien) were pretty good at coming to a lot of these, but I think they certainly enjoyed coming to the early morning Christmas sings with Evelyn Hinds, having the children sit on the floor and do Christmas songs from various countries. By the way, Evelyn Hinds (Wellman) the music specialist, was another one of their favorites. They had different field trips. There was a time when they were doing some construction on the campus and they put up big boards, so the people could walk safely past some of the construction. Gene Vike was the art coordinator at that time so he had them all decorating all these boards. It was a wonderful special program and I think the kids responded very well. TB: He’s another person then, if he was involved in Campus School ended up also being, on the Western faculty. PO: Well, he was on the Western faculty first. Gene Vike had a wife, Marglen, who taught second-grade; [she] was the one who did some teaching at the Campus School. TB: Do you remember what sort of corrective behavior they might have used with misbehaving students? Or what the discipline was like at all? PO: As far as I saw, it was time outs; that type of thing. TB: Sat in the corner or something? PO: Oh, I think they had a place to go away from the rest of the crowd. I think we tried (I’m thinking as faculty), to prevent those kinds of things. You were trying to be ahead of it. So that, if I knew in my little PE program that somebody was having major troubles in tumbling rather than make him feel foolish, I would take this Kindergartner or second grader in and have him work on that forward roll in the silence of the empty room, with no crowd. And he thanked me for it later. Some other people were called in for different behavioral problems, but I didn’t get too many of those or hear much about it. TB: Were there parent volunteers in the classroom or was there a PTA or any kind of other organization for the parents? JO: I don’t think so. 3 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PO: I think they would ask for the parent involvement when they thought it was appropriate. Then they’d come with cookies or whatever that was involved. But no, there was no special room program like that. Cupcakes for all were permitted for birthdays. TB: What were some of the differences that you perceived in the Campus School from the public schools? PO: I thought some more variety. Later on in the public schools I was glad when they moved into some foreign language options too before school. That was part of what the Campus School had available. I think that one of the drawbacks was that they missed out on some of the all-city type competitions or groups of things, but those are so broad based that if you wanted to be concerned about that aspect, you could make sure they got into something musical or athletic or recreation or something. JO: Well, they wouldn’t have athletic programs would they… from Kindergarten through sixth, they’re pretty much contained in the school room, aren’t they? TB: That’s true. I did interview someone that had went when the school was Kindergarten through eighthgrade, and they did participate, apparently, in some athletics, but they got beaten badly because it’s such a small pool of people. Let’s see, any thoughts about what the transition was like then for your children when they began to attend public school? Was it easy or hard? PO: That was the year the public school levy failed. And that was just when these children had moved on. I could speak to that because as a sixth-grader, Bill moved right to the middle school and now he was suddenly going to meet new people anyway. And that proved not to be that much drawback. He’d already known some of these people through church or through Boy Scouts or something. Maura was a fifth grader in Mr. O’Neil’s class, I believe, at Lowell School. Our second grader moved into a third-grade with a man that was suddenly facing forty children, he had no aides, no extra help. (And Lowell School is one of the better schools here). He actually had a nervous breakdown by the end of the year, it meant that even though they got him as many student teachers, whatever help they could, it was just too much. She continued to be a good reader. She went on into science and math. I don’t think she suffered. But it was the hardest on her of any because of the problems that the school district was facing at that moment with that particular funding cut. TB: Now, what about the report cards that students got. I understood they were not alphabet, A, B. PO: Evaluation. TB: Did you find that satisfactory as parents? PO: You answer that question. JO: I don’t remember. PO: Well, you saw them. JO: Yes, but they did pretty well, so it wasn’t anything we got troubled about. PO: It didn’t bother me. I didn’t know whether it bothered some of you academics more. You wanted it to be 100%, 90%, A, B, C, D. And I didn’t care. I thought we were trying to show level of achievement. TB: And did the children have any problem when they went to public school then and got letter grades? Did that bother them? JO: Not that we know of. 4 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PO: I think we were able to cushion that transition all right. We said, “You should be able to get A’s, but if you’re not getting up to that (because we expect a lot of you), do your best,” and they did. They came through; they were on honor rolls and so on. I don’t think they felt the pressure from home nor from the grades themselves. TB: Overall, what do you perceive as the strength of the campus school and then I’m going to ask, overall what did you feel the weaknesses were, if any? PO: I think you should speak to that. JO: Yeah, but I’m not a clear mind. TB: It’s been a long time, I’m sure, since your kids were in Campus School. JO: No, I think the teachers were able to help the individuals enough, but it was hard to remember how much they improved because you see them every day. PO: I thought, roughly, they had good quality teachers. I had seen it over the years. I saw only a couple of people that I thought could well be replaced. But essentially, I thought they had really quality teachers. And those teachers compared with any of the quality teachers I knew throughout the other fields. I think one of the big drawbacks was they became more elitist. JB: Campus School brats. PO: This worried the faculty themselves. Because when I first taught there in 1951-53, they were trying to have sort of a broad social cross section. We had a little more of a variety of types of students from high income, low income, different academic backgrounds and so on. As we grew, faculty sometimes had first options to get on the waiting list to get in and we got more and more faculty children. That, as I say, it became elitist. That was to me one of the big drawbacks that it wasn’t representative of the community. I think I liked specialized education; go as far as you can, but I think you do need to have a broader view of community. TB: I’m just curious, was there a fee? Did you have to pay any fees? PO: No. The kid just had to be on the waiting list and usually when the child was born you got on the waiting list. TB: And that’s really true. PO: That’s really true. TB: I’ve heard that story. So as soon as the kid was born you went and got them on the list at Campus School. PO: Yes. TB: As soon as you had a name. PO: I did think they gave preference to people that were siblings, so that if one of them was on the list, why then the next child could get on. I think that some of the people that came later on the faculty and wanted to get kids in the Campus School and couldn’t, were a little disillusioned. They thought it was really a little unfair. I could understand where they were coming from. I didn’t have a good answer. It was getting more and more compressed, they couldn’t expand it. They were needing to reach out into the community, which they later did, even in student teaching. Early student teaching saw everybody at one 5 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED teaching school, the Campus School. Everybody did at least three observations during the fall quarter or whatever. But now this became less possible. TB: Am I correct, there was only one class each of every grade, right? PO: Right. TB: So it’s actually (I suddenly realize), a small number of students that would go through. JO: Yes. PO: Twenty-four, I think, that was the limit. JO: Yes, so that wouldn’t take much of a neighborhood. Most of them lived close, although that wasn’t required was it? PO: No, not at all. TB: Well, any favorite memories of your children’s Campus School days? JO: I can’t think of any now. We talked a lot about what they did each day. PO: I think it was sort of a family type atmosphere. That Christmas caroling before classes began, because some of the dads would walk their kids up and they’d come over and sit on the floor beside them to sing the Christmas carols with Evelyn Hinds. That was sort of fun. TB: Yes. Well, can you think of some other questions that I haven’t asked you that would help us gather this story of the Campus School experience? JO: I don’t know. It would be hard to get the stories, I guess, of people who didn’t like it and then took their children out. TB: We might find one of those, though. JO: Oh, yes. PO: I know one mother who had one child go through the Campus School; and by the time the third rascal showed up, and was a little out of hand, they were asked to have him go to public school. She could give a little different viewpoint if you wanted. TB: Right. It sounds like these kids probably were pretty well behaved and if not, then they probably didn’t stay at the Campus School. It wouldn’t be like the public schools, they really have to keep all students. JO: Yes, they did have some say. PO: No, we didn’t have disruptive behaviors. I feel for the teachers teaching nowadays, there’s some real crises. JO: But it was a select group, I think. It’s hard to avoid, they didn’t take all of the people who could walk easily to the Campus School. PO: I could suggest the name David Maness, who was one of the organizers of the fifth-grade graduates, when their going to have a Campus School reunion. When the last reunion developed, he made sure that 6 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED group of fifth-grade people got a hold of their friends, and that was a very fine reunion, over at Miller Hall. And he has quite a lot of material and is willing to share it. TB: And he lives in Bellingham still? PO: No, he lives in Mukilteo, works at Boeing. I have an e-mail address I could get you (David.J.Maness@Boeing.com). TB: O.K. Yes, I’m sure we’ll want to talk to him. That’s all my questions, unless you have something else to say about that. JO: No, I think they enjoyed it. PO: I think they had positive experiences and I’d be glad to share more of the specifics about teaching there, because I’ve got some of the background, another time. TB: Excellent, O.K. Well, thank you very much. JO: It was kind of a sad time when they closed it, you know, but I guess it was a necessity. TB: I’ve heard that space was needed because campus was growing and everything else. O.K, well, thank you. 7 James and Patricia O’Brien Edited Transcript – July 27, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Gerald "Jerry" Punches interview--March 21, 2006
Description: Gerald Punches attended the Campus School, 1948-50; and later attended WWU receiving his BAE 1970, MEd 1971. His father was Frank Punches, WWU faculty member, 1948-1971.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_PunchesGerald_20060321
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Gerald Punches ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Gerald Punches ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Gerald Punches on March 21 st, 2006, at his home in Port Orchard, Washington. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Tuesday March 21st, 2006 and I am here with Mr. Jerry Punches. He did sign the Informed Consent Agreement and we are going to do the Campus School questionnaire and also talk about some pictures that he has here. Here we go, let‟s start with this group of pictures then. GP: As I recall, part of the questionnaire said „where did you live when you were in Campus School?‟ The address of this home is at 500 North State Street. It‟s about two or three blocks down from the campus itself and it‟s on the corner of State and Cedar on the northeast corner. This house burnt down. TB: I was just going to say, this isn‟t quite what it looks like! GP: It has been replaced by some three-level structure there right on the corner. But this home was the home that my parents and I moved into when we went to Bellingham in 1948. We bought the home from Raymond Hawk. He moved up the street. He was in the 400 block of North State Street. It was a little bit larger but it was still on State Street. It was on the hillside between State and Forest Street. That was one of the nicest places we ever lived. My Dad didn‟t know how he could ever afford it because it cost $9,500! [Laughter] TB: That was a lot then. GP: It was. This is a picture of my Father. I‟m not sure when it was taken, but judging from the suit he‟s wearing, it‟s probably around 1950. That‟s what he looked like when he was a teacher in the school. TB: Excellent. GP: It doesn‟t look a whole lot different than this picture. This is taken in 1948 just after we moved to Bellingham; that‟s me, my Mother and Father. TB: So you‟re an only child? GP: I certainly am. My Father always said it was better to raise one big one than a whole bunch of little ones! TB: Your Father looks like a really cheery guy, was he? GP: He had a nice sense of humor. Did you ever wonder where mine came from? [Laughter] This is something that came out of the archives that I got from my Father. I wrote something on the back of it here. It says, “Frank Punches serving salmon to Dr. and Mrs. W.W. Haggard, President of the College; WWCE Summer Conference 1956.” 1 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Excellent; that‟s a wonderful picture. GP: Well you can have it or give me a copy of it. TB: Yes I would love to take it in and scan it. I‟ve never seen a picture of Haggard at a barbeque. I assume this is a continuation of the ones that they had. They used to always have summer [salmon] barbeques. GP: Yes, they had one every summer up there. Here‟s something that I just dug out. It doesn‟t have a date on it but it has got to be around 1948. You can probably have this for your museum if you want, it‟s a Christmas program. Actually I put something down there, 1948. Anyway, it‟s a Christmas play that was put on by the kids in the junior high school. TB: Excellent. GP: This is all the participants. TB: And you were Helger, a peasant boy. GP: I was! It‟s got a lot of names you‟ll recognize. You can use this for whatever thing you want. The last thing was this (referring to the Alpha-Omega Yearbook). I‟ve got two of these. This came out of my father‟s stuff. It‟s been in a box somewhere. You‟ve probably got one of these things, don‟t you? If you don‟t, there‟s a spare copy because this is mine. It‟s the Alpha-Omega; I‟m sure somebody has told you the story. It‟s the first and last campus yearbook. TB: Now why did they call it that? GP: Go to the Greek section of your library and find out what alpha and omega [mean]. TB: They are the beginning and the end. GP: There you go! You picked right up on it didn‟t you? It‟s the first, the last, the only Campus Junior High yearbook. I don‟t know if you‟ve read through the thing or not. I go through this stuff just to kind of kick my memory into gear. TB: Keep going, yes. GP: I‟m reading it upside down, but these are people that I knew: Dr. Haggard, Raymond Hawk (p. [4]). These were the teachers at the junior high school (p. [5]). TB: Back up and tell me a little bit more about what Dr. Haggard‟s involvement with the Campus School. Did you see him very much? Did he come to assemblies? GP: No, he was the president of the college. I‟m not even sure what the enrollment was up there. 2,000? 3,000? It was a very small school. We didn‟t really see him all that often. We saw Dr. Hawk once in a while because his family and my family were social friends as well. I saw him probably more than anybody. Well, more than any of the other Campus School people. Like I said, I only lasted two years at the Campus School. I started there when I was in the seventh grade. Seventh and eighth grade then they shut it down and I and the rest of my classmates either went over to Fairhaven Junior High or to Whatcom Junior High. We finished the ninth grade there and then we all met again when we went to Bellingham High School. 2 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What was it like coming in for you, as a seventh and eighth grader? Was it easy to fit in with them or were they already kind of a tight-knit group? Do you think because your father was a teacher that helped you assimilate better? GP: You know that never crossed my mind. The class wasn‟t all that big. I didn‟t count it there but there couldn‟t have been more than twenty people all together in the seventh grade. Most of them had come up from the Campus School itself. I‟m trying to think. Maybe Bob McDonald and I were the only people that joined the class in the seventh grade. We both came in at the same time. TB: Is that Dean [Bill] McDonald‟s son? GP: There are lots of McDonald‟s on the campus. Dr. David McDonald was Bob‟s father. He was in the [education] department. Bill McDonald was in the athletic department. He‟s the one they named the Parkway after. Yes, I knew him too. TB: I‟m sure you knew everybody. I mean, you would automatically in a small community like that. And with your father being on the faculty you probably got to know most of the faculty. GP: Well, faculty in the education department, yes. I‟m just not familiar with the numbers of faculty and students there were at the time. It could have been very small, but I didn‟t know everybody, that‟s for sure. Anyway, those were the teachers there. Leslie Hunt was my seventh grade teacher. TB: What was she like? GP: She was a very professional lady. It‟s kind of hard to talk about any teacher because they ran a lot of student teachers in at the same time. TB: Right. GP: As the student teachers‟ supervisor she would come in. She was kind of an enjoyable lady. You wouldn‟t call her friendly but she was someone you could talk to if you wanted to, or she‟d chew you out if you did something wrong! TB: Keep you guys in line. GP: That‟s what she did. And then my dad was my homeroom teacher in the eighth grade, but he shared that chore with Willard Stradley. It was kind of interesting, too, because Willard moved from the Campus School over to Fairhaven when they moved the ninth grade over so I ran into him over there again. Later on I always regretted that I never did try to see him. He went down to Arcadia, California to Humboldt State University and he was on the faculty down there. I wish I had looked him up when I had the chance but that was kind of an out-of-way place down there so I never did see him after we parted in Bellingham. Jean Shephard was the ninth grade teacher. I never did know much about her except who she was. TB: What was it like having your dad for a teacher? GP: Again, we had a lot of student teachers flowing through. In fact, the pictures that they have later on where they talk about the student teachers, all of these teachers were teachers that we had to deal with while my father was the supervisor (p. [8]). I didn‟t have all of these but I probably had about four or five of them throughout the year and they did most of the teaching while my father did other things. I can‟t remember to this day whether [the junior high] was on the third floor or the second floor. It probably would have been on the third floor because there was an auditorium on the fourth floor in the south wing of Old Main and they had an access from the dressing room area or backstage area of the theater up there that went down to the third floor which came right into my father‟s office! So any time he wanted to get out of Dodge City, I think he could go right up the stairs and disappear and nobody would know he was gone! 3 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: That‟s convenient! GP: I think there was maybe a tiny adjoining room but I think it was two rooms where we had the eighth grade. The teachers I had, I wonder if I can remember who they were. Well I remember Winifred Marion, Ed Hickenbottom… boy! See how the memory goes? TB: I think Jim Roberts went on to be a district superintendent for Bellingham and Richard Green went on to become the assistant superintendent for Bellingham. They are both still alive and so is John Abrams. I recognize those names because we just sent off questionnaires to them. GP: The names just don‟t come back. TB: Is Hickenbottom the one that had been in the service? GP: Yes he was. In fact, I was thinking that he might have been the guy that gave me my first airplane ride. TB: Really? Wow. GP: Could have been, I might have it all screwed up! Back in 1947 my folks took me to the airport in Pullman and it was my birthday. They had this little stunt biplane out there, and they wanted to know if I wanted a ride. I think it was Hickenbottom that was there (that‟s why my dad knew him) and he took me up for my first airplane ride. TB: Wow. GP: If I‟m thinking of the right guy, he was a Marine fighter pilot in World War II, which is why he knew how to fly a biplane. I think later on he probably graduated from Washington State and then went to Western. Like I said, I might be all screwed up on that one. But it was an interesting experience for me. The rest of the student teachers I didn‟t really know about. I sent you a letter from when I was in the seventh grade. My coach was Pinky Erickson. Pinky was a guy I used to play ping-pong with all the time. That‟s while I was in the seventh grade because he finished school before this was out (referring to the yearbook). He doesn‟t show up here in this particular thing but he was the basketball coach, my first basketball coach when we were in seventh grade. Calhoun and I both made the team as seventh graders! TB: Did you guys not have a football team? GP: Are you kidding? What did we have, eight guys? [Laughter] TB: I was going to say because Pinky goes on to have a famous career as a football coach. GP: Yes he does and he was a student teacher for my father in 1948 and 1949. The reason I sent you that letter was because it had one of my recollections of when I was in seventh grade. Everybody liked Pinky, it didn‟t matter which grade you were in. Like I said, he was there and I played ping-pong with him all the time but he was my dad‟s student teacher. One day he brought this little baby into school. He said, “Look, class!” It turns out that was Dennis Erickson and was probably in the spring of 1949, sometime in there. That‟s when that happened. TB: Do you know how he got the name „Pinky‟? GP: No; his real name was Robert. I think everybody wanted to know why they called him Pinky but I never did get an answer to that one. TB: It wasn‟t until your letter that I actually heard his name because he is always just called „Pinky‟. 4 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Why don‟t you tell me about the Alpha-Omega yearbook? It looks like pretty much your whole class is on it, or a good representation. GP: That‟s for the seventh, eighth and ninth grades and I‟m not sure if I‟m on it or not. Well actually, I‟m back there (p. [9]). Catharine Stimpson was always the honcho on these kind of projects. TB: Yes, she‟s editor-in-chief there. GP: Yes; are you in contact with her at all? TB: We sent her a questionnaire but haven‟t heard back from her. She actually was one of the later ones we sent. Everybody says if we can get all the Stimpsons, we‟ll have the whole story of Campus School because there were seven of them! We‟ve only heard back from Mary. GP: Yes; she‟s in [Maryland]. You don‟t have Susan? TB: She‟s on the committee but she‟s never filled out the questionnaire; maybe she will. GP: And her bratty little sister Caroline? [Laughter] TB: She‟s the one we don‟t have an address for. I think I‟ve heard she‟s in Maine. Do you know what her married name is? GP: MacDonald. He was a legislator in the [Maine] House. I think his name was Torbert MacDonald [Torbert Hart MacDonald, Jr.], something like that. I was going to give her a bad time if I ever saw her! TB: Well maybe I‟ll find her. GP: Doesn‟t she communicate with her sisters anymore? TB: She probably does; none of them other than Mary have responded. I don‟t always push. We mail out the questionnaires and then we hope people will respond and if they don‟t… Susan is maybe too close to it since she is on the committee. I hope she does at some point. GP: I can send an e-mail to Catharine. I call her „Dodie‟ you know! TB: I think I heard that! I think I heard she had a nickname. Send her an e-mail. I did just send her the questionnaire. GP: Well this is a whole bunch of people, I kind of lost track of most of them (p. [9]). Are you interested in anybody here in particular? TB: Which one is was Butch Brand? GP: Butch is this guy right here, that is Robert Roy Brand. TB: We got him. We‟ve heard from Bruce Trafton. GP: You‟ve got Trafton? That‟s this little guy right here. TB: He still has his basketball uniform. He said we could have his basketball uniform. GP: How did he get that? 5 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: I don‟t know. GP: That‟s Marcia LaVeille, Gary Wagner, Gwen Campbell. They didn‟t identify these people, did they? That‟s Lee Brand. He and Rob are cousins. TB: Oh! We just heard from Lee. GP: Is he down in Palm Desert? TB: Yes, I think he is. GP: That‟s the last time I saw him; that was when I went down there to play golf about thirty years ago! TB: I know he just called last week and talked to my boss. GP: This was Marilyn Walter? Yes, I think Marilyn Walter. And that‟s „Dodie‟. TB: Do you now why they called her „Dodie‟? GP: Well, I don‟t really know. We just started calling her „Dodie‟ or „Toad‟ or something along those lines. She‟s still working, you know. I keep telling people that she‟s probably got the same retirement plan as CBS because Mike Wallace and all those old guys can‟t ever quit working and she‟s got the same mindset. I suspect that if she retires, she has to pick up the tab for her own healthcare. That‟s why she keeps working. TB: Maybe, or maybe she just likes it, she‟s a bright lady. GP: Yes, she‟s the dean of the graduate school [of Arts and Science at] New York University. I guess that pays the rent! TB: I would think so! GP: I‟ve threatened to go to New York and call her up sometime. How about Beret? Have you heard from her? TB: Yes, she‟s been helpful. GP: She‟s down in Olympia; and that‟s Ann Kingsbury. TB: She‟s on the committee, she‟s being helpful. GP: She knows everything that goes on here. That‟s Don Hartman. He was with us for a while but he only stayed through the seventh grade I think and then his family moved someplace else. TB: And you don‟t know what happened to him? GP: No. That‟s Dick Warner back there. I don‟t know what happened to him. He was a grade behind me. That‟s Celia Onkels. She‟s had kind of an interesting life. TB: I don‟t know her. I know the Onkels name, I recognize that. What happened to her? 6 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: She got married and divorced to a guy she was going with at the University of Washington. We were all students at the University of Washington at the same time. His name might come to me eventually. Then she wound up down in Miami or Miami Beach. TB: Is she the artist? GP: Could be. I‟m trying to stretch something out of my memory here. Hogan! That‟s her name. Celia Hogan was her artistic name, or her married name. She did interior design work I think. I would have thought that Ann would have been in touch with her or maybe Nancy. TB: It might come in later. GP: That‟s Nancy Scheldrup. TB: I‟m pretty sure I‟ve heard from her. GP: She‟s over on the east coast; Boston I think. That looks like Allene Ross. TB: That must be Dr. Ross‟s daughter. She passed away? GP: She died, yes, at a very early age. She was only about twenty two or twenty three when she died. TB: What happened? GP: I‟m not sure. I can‟t remember. TB: Wow, that‟s sad. GP: That‟s Karen Sahlin. You are dealing with an old memory here! TB: No, that‟s great. GP: That‟s Ernie Graham. TB: We‟ve heard from him. GP: Oh you have? He used to be in Puyallup or something, some place down there. Edgewood? He‟s got I think a doctorate in psychology and he taught at Pacific Lutheran as a professor there. TB: I think he completed the questionnaire online. GP: Here‟s this guy, you‟re talking to him right now! TB: Yes! And he‟s got on his Campus School sweater! Excellent! But you don‟t have your sweater anymore? GP: Well that‟s what I was kind of looking around for. I thought I had a big chest of stuff up in the attic. That‟s where I got some of this stuff. I left a lot of things at home when I went to college. The picture of the house I showed you, the one that burned down. When we moved to Bellingham, the property that we got included a vacant lot right next to that house. It‟s where the old Catholic Church used to be. The house beyond that where the Nix family lived was the Parish house or the place where the priest lived. But that little area was just a big vacant lot. It had an old fish pond in it that my dad put together for goldfish and stuff like that. But sometime in the early Fifties my dad decided that he would like to build an apartment complex there. He got together with another guy and they built the two-story apartment complex that‟s at 7 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 504 North State Street right now. I think that later on he sold it to a guy named Louie Lallas, who was the director of placement up there, he succeeded my father. I think Louie added a third story onto that thing because it was built for that. So if you go back there I think there are three stories up there now on that particular thing. Sometime in the early Fifties after I went to school, about 1955 or so, that building was completed and my mom and dad moved into an apartment on the upper level at that time and they rented out the two places on the lower level. One was to Synva Nicol. TB: Oh, right, the Kindergarten teacher. GP: Yes. And I can‟t remember who the other one was. Anyway, down at the bottom of that thing was this big trunk of mine that had all this stuff in it. I think that‟s where that sweater and that letter are. So the next time you go to Bellingham you might ask somebody, “Did you find an old trunk in here?” It‟s got all this old stuff in it! TB: If you find it, just to let us borrow it, I think would be great. We have found a letter. Someone had a letter because she was a cheerleader; she had the „C‟. I‟m sure it was the same kind of letter you [boys] had. GP: Yes, a blue „C‟. It was the same colors as Western. That‟s Sue Green as I recall. Is she on there? TB: Yes, Susan Green. GP: That was John Green‟s younger sister. Where is John? He‟s down in… I want to say [Healdsburg], California. End of Tape One, Side One; Start of Tape One, Side Two. TB: Excellent. Is that Kathryn Davis? We just saw her name, right? GP: That is, she‟s at Fresno. That‟s Kathy Davis. She may have been married and gone on with her life now. I think she lost one of her children. TB: Oh no. GP: But it‟s a place to start. TB: I should have brought the list. We may have her. GP: Where were we here? This is Sally Moren, right? TB: Yes, she‟s ninth grade. GP: Yes! I just saw her here. She‟s married to Bert Lindman. Bert Lindman is in my class in high school. He went to Whatcom. That‟s Gwen Campbell and Rob Brand. This is Gary Wagner and I haven‟t heard from him in a thousand years! Do you want to turn the page? TB: Sure. GP: Here‟s some more stuff, student council officers (p. [10]). It looks like more of the same people doesn‟t it? TB: How did that go? Did you change [officers]? They have two presidents. Did you go half a year [with one] president and the other half somebody else? 8 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: I think that‟s the way it worked but I can‟t remember. TB: I know we‟ve heard from Larry Johanson and Jerry Larson. Curtis Smith is on the committee. GP: Jerry Larson is alive and kicking. Curtis is selling books! [Laughter] TB: That‟s the most popular book in Special Collections! GP: I should have bought that thing! TB: And we‟ve heard from JoAnn Knapman and Rob Brand. GP: Where is JoAnn these days? TB: She‟s still in town, Bellingham. GP: I didn‟t know that. TB: I think her married name is [Praetzel]. GP: I have no idea. Is that Patricia Morse? Pat Morse? TB: She‟s still in town (Bellingham) and goes by that name, too. GP: Well, I haven‟t seen her since this picture was taken. That‟s my friend the Reverend John Calhoun. John R. Calhoun. That‟s „Dodie‟ Stimpson and Beret. That is Andra Lee Brand. TB: And that‟s Rob‟s sister? GP: His older sister. TB: So she‟s a year ahead of you? GP: Yes; she‟s in Bellingham or she was at the reunion we went to. TB: I think she might be in Bellevue, but she‟s in Western Washington. GP: That‟s Sue Green and this is Becky Boroughs. That is not who I thought it was. Yes, that‟s Becky Boroughs. It wasn‟t Allene Ross, I‟m sorry about that. That‟s yours truly again. This is Nancy Barnett? I don‟t know. That one escapes me. That little guy peeking out there is Chuck Lappenbusch. He was at the fiftieth reunion here last year for the class of 1955 I guess it was. Antoinette Graham, Gary Wagner, that‟s Jack Payne. That is Lynn Michel, that‟s Kay Williams, she is Mrs. Gomer Owens living in Bellingham. TB: So she‟s Kathleen Owens? GP: Yes. They were both in the class of 1954 at Bellingham High School. That‟s Rob Brand and Jerry Larson. Is that Larry Johanson? Is that his name? TB: Boy, he‟s small! GP: Don‟t tell him that! Yes, here he is, Larry Johanson. [Laughter] TB: I think he lives over on one of the islands, doesn‟t he? 9 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: Yes, he‟s on Orcas. That‟s Karen Sahlin, Curtis Smith. I think that‟s Karen. Is she on there? TB: Yes, she‟s the vice president. GP: Curt Smith, a noted dentist around town and book salesman. That‟s Celia Onkels and JoAnn [Knapman]. TB: There you are; so tell me about your Play Day, you were the general chairman (p. [11]). GP: Which was that? Student body activities? TB: Yes; March 23rd at Whatcom Falls Park. GP: Oh man! TB: Don‟t remember much about that? GP: Not at all. TB: That‟s okay. GP: I guess we just got all this stuff going and away we went. But the names are interesting. Jerry Ann Fickle, I don‟t remember her. Dixie Dunn has kind of disappeared off the face of the earth. Dee Dee Mulhern has died according to her brother Jack. Dee Dee was a year ahead of me and I think Jack was a year behind. Sidne Countryman… TB: We‟ve heard from her I think, and her brother is Keith. GP: John Mustacich, I haven‟t seen him in a while. Gwen Campbell I think was at the reunion. Kay Williams. Mary Jane Sefrit, I have not heard from her. Her older brother went to Campus School. Her name has probably changed. Jack Payne… TB: Jack Payne is in Bellingham. GP: Mavis Regier, I don‟t know what happened to her; Sally Moren, Adell Ross. Mac Kuhns, I haven‟t heard from him for a while. Andra Brand is a girl! TB: Andra Lee. GP: Grant Smith, oh dear. I haven‟t seen him for a while either. TB: He‟s one of the Western Roofing kids, right? His father owned Western Roofing? GP: I think so. He had a younger brother, too. TB: Winton I think. GP: Butch Brand, Dick Warner, Jack Larson … TB: Oh, Jerry‟s little brother then. GP: Jerry‟s little brother, yes; Jack was in my class. TB: They are at least a two-generation family because their mother went to Campus School, too. 10 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: Yes; they lived right down from Campus School on Twenty-first Street. Twenty-first Street doesn‟t exist anymore; they built the campus over it! Let‟s see, this is Ann Kingsbury, I saw her at the reunion. She just lost her husband not too long ago. TB: Richardson, too? I know her first husband Rogan Jones died young, he had MS or something. GP: Yes, he did. That was a real tragedy and a shock because he was only about 42 or something like that; a very nice, brilliant guy. He went to Yale I believe. We played on the Campus baseball team together when I was in the seventh grade. I worked my way up to be the pitcher and he was the catcher. He was two years ahead of me. He won‟t show up in this book but he‟s a Campus School guy and he died too young. Ann remarried Dick Richardson. He just died this last year. Bob Cederstrom I saw at the reunion. He‟s the class of 1955. His father was on the faculty at Western also. I don‟t know where he was from; Keith Countryman, Gail DeGrace … TB: I have not heard that name before. GP: That‟s a “him.” TB: Oh! Gail is spelled the way I associate with being women. GP: I know. Well if you are in touch with Ann Kingsbury, she‟ll tell you about Gail. She knows more about him than anybody. He went down to California somewhere. He has probably got a picture in here somewhere. Marilyn Walter … TB: Was that Dr. Walter‟s daughter? GP: Don Walter in music? TB: Yes, is that his daughter? GP: I think so. Don Hartman I told you about briefly. He left after the seventh grade. Gerald Micholson. I can vaguely put a picture on his face. I think he stayed through high school but he and I weren‟t close at all. Celia, I told you a little bit about her. I also heard at the reunion that she might be down in the San Diego area now, I don‟t know. Leib Alexander, I know too much about him! TB: Those are the best stories! GP: Yes. Tom Trammell. TB: Do you know what happened to him? GP: No, I don‟t. TB: At least that‟s a distinctive name. GP: Bruce Trafton. TB: He‟s in Eugene I think. GP: Marguerite Smith. I haven‟t heard anything about what happened to her. I just don‟t know. Russell Rude … TB: Do you know what happened to him? 11 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: Well I saw him at the Campus School reunion we had. When was it, ten years ago? TB: 1993; so he‟s probably on our list then. GP: Jerry Larson, he was at last year‟s thing, I saw him two years ago. Catharine, when did I see her last? She was giving a guest lecture series on women‟s issues and so she came to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where I was employed at the time as the registrar. I went to see her lecture. TB: And what did you think? Did she recognize you? GP: Oh heck, I knew she was coming because somebody asked me if I knew her or something. I said, “You’ve got to watch out for this girl!” She came down there and gave her lecture and Helen and I took her to lunch. We had a good time. But that was about the last time I‟ve seen her. I‟ve done some correspondence with her via e-mail so I know where she is. She is somewhere in New York. Paddy Jukes, I saw her at the reunion for the class of 1955. She seems to be doing fine. I didn‟t recognize her. You know, women change! TB: That‟s what we say about men! Women change, too? Everybody can change. GP: Don Cameron. I‟m trying to put a face on that. It will come to me. There is probably a picture in there. Myrna Harmer, she was at our reunion. She lives down in Ventura, California. I think I‟ve got her married name somewhere. I might be able to get something to really help you with some of these people. Jon Franklin, that one escapes me. Chuck McEvoy. It‟s coming back hard! TB: Tell me about that. You went to visit Fairhaven because that‟s where you were going to transfer. GP: Yes. We were the eighth graders. We were going to go over there and become part of the ninth grade class. We had a day where we went over there. We knew a lot of the people that went to Fairhaven. The boys played ball with them and there were a lot of neighborhood kids. We had a big neighborhood and they all went to Fairhaven and we went to Campus. It was basically a really easy thing to do. Yes, the junior high only existed for thirteen years. The ninth graders are a year older than me (p. [14]). I guess it‟s got everybody down here, who‟s who? Is that Marilyn Walter? It could be. That‟s Chuck McEvoy up there. Tom Trammell is this guy way back here, he was kind of a big kid. Sidne Countryman is this girl right here. Donald Andrus, I think he died. TB: I think he did, too. GP: Nancy Barnett, I don‟t know, that might be her. Becky Boroughs, we identified her before, is right there. Andra Brand is this one. Sidne Countryman is this one. Barbara Hansen, she‟s tall, there she is, a tall blond. Paul Hanson; where is the founder of Mount Baker Savings and Loan? That‟s Trammell in there. Paul Hanson isn‟t shown here. LeRoy Hurd and I played basketball together. Larry Johanson is this one up here. Jerry Larson is this one. Chuck McEvoy is that one. Gerald Micholson is this one I think (don‟t quote me on it). Sally Moren is here. Alice Adelia Mulhern, I know that‟s her. Janet Rathman, I‟m not sure about that. Mavis Regier, I think that‟s her right there. Allene Ross. She and Becky looked an awful lot alike. That‟s why I made that mistake! She died at a very early age, too. Russell Rude is back there. Karen Sahlin is there with the glasses. Curtis Smith, he‟s in there. Gary Smith is right there and Tom Trammell. Marilyn Walter should be this one right here I think. So the ninth grade I didn‟t know a lot about, well, I knew them, but not as well as I knew people in my own class. I can‟t even remember if I saw this or not. So I don‟t know about all this sort of stuff, baby pictures from ninth graders (p. [18]). I‟m sorry, I can‟t recognize any of those. But get into the eighth grade here and now we know a few things (p. [20]). Let‟s see, they ought to have little numbers on all these things! 12 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: To tell who people are? Yes. GP: There are only a few people I think that can do what I‟m about to do. Maybe a lot of other people have figured it out. In the top row up here, upper left, you start with Bob McDonald. TB: So he was your friend that came in the same year you did? GP: Yes, our fathers joined the faculty the same year, the fall of 1948. He came up from Riverside. He‟s currently living in Holland, Michigan. TB: Oh, you sent me his address, that‟s right. GP: Yes. That‟s Leib, that‟s Bill Davis, that‟s John Green. That is Jim Wallin. Jim Wallin had an affliction of some sort [and] it took his life when he was about nineteen or twenty years old. Something was haywire in his brain. I can‟t even remember what it was. He had to live in an institution after the got out of high school. It really became bad. I‟m not sure what it was. Is that Vince Mustacich? It should be. Do you have him down here? TB: Yes. GP: That‟s Mustacich, yes, that‟s him. That‟s Myrna Harmer, Marita Longstreth. TB: Her father was a doctor I think. GP: Well I was playing golf somewhere and I ran into a guy named Longstreth and I said, “I knew a lady named Longstreth a long time ago.” He said, “Marita?” And I said, “Yes!” So we had a long chat about that but I don‟t remember much more of the conversation. Anyway, that‟s me back there, that‟s Ernie Graham, that‟s Mike Lockwood. Have you heard from him? TB: It doesn‟t sound familiar to me. I don‟t remember him. GP: The last I heard he was in Fairbanks, Alaska. TB: Well we do have some people up in Alaska although I think one of them is Mimi Eddy. Who did you say that was? GP: Mike Lockwood is this guy here. They ought to number these people! How are you going to remember them after you‟ve left! I guess somebody else will figure it out. This is, well we called him Harry Gates but he didn‟t like Harry Gates so he wanted to be known as Don Gates. If you are looking for Harry Gates you might try looking for Don Gates! He never did like that name. Back over here, that‟s Gwen Campbell, Ruth Rairdon, Catharine Stimpson and Jan Van Aver. Her father was on the faculty. TB: I think we‟ve heard from her; her brother Phil is in New York. GP: That‟s Marguerite Smith. I gave you Ernie before didn‟t I? That‟s Kay Williams. That‟s Ann Kingsbury, Nancy Scheldrup, Celia Onkels, Don Hartman, and Robbie Calhoun. His name is John Robinson Calhoun. TB: And he always went by Robbie at home I think, right? And then when they got to school there were already a couple Johns in his class and so the teachers called him by Robbie. GP: I don‟t know. He was born in Chicago. He was adopted by his father and mother, the Reverend Willard Calhoun. 13 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Oh! I don‟t think I ever heard he was adopted. GP: Well he was, that‟s why [his middle name is Robinson], the family‟s name was Robinson. TB: His original birth family? GP: Yes, so that‟s why he became John Robinson Calhoun. He‟s a very good friend of mine. End of Tape One, Side Two; Start of Tape Two, Side One GP: Moving right along, this is Dixie Dunn, that‟s Adell Ross, that‟s Marcia LaVeille, that‟s Beret Funkhouser, that‟s Mac Kuhns, that‟s Gail DeGrace in case you ever wanted to know what he looked like a long time ago. That is Jack Larson. TB: So Jerry was in the class ahead of you? GP: Yes. TB: So do you remember some of the activities that you guys did? GP: Well as a matter of fact, here‟s a whole list (p. [21])! Do I remember them? I have no idea. I know we had Splash Parties. We went over to the gym over there and we had Splash Parties. What was the name of that gym? Was it Carver Gymnasium? TB: Well it became Carver but then it should have just been the Gym [Physical Education Building]. GP: Yes, well, we would go over there and we would have a little Splash Party. TB: What‟s a Splash Party? You would just get in the pool and splash each other? GP: You go and put bathing suits on and you swim for about an hour and then do something else. We swam or played in the gym from seventh to eighth and after eighth we danced in the eighth grade room. TB: Now where was the eighth grade room, your classroom? GP: Yes, it was up on the third floor I think, south Old Main. Do you have a layout map of those facilities for the junior high school? TB: No, we‟ll have to find it. We have a map of the Campus School itself but not of the junior high. And I want to find one because it will help all of us remember what it was like. GP: If you are looking north along Old Main it was on the southwest corner where you have the auditorium in the corner of the building there. If you go down one flight from there, you‟ll run into my dad‟s office and adjoining that would have been the eighth grade room. If you went out into the hallway going north and turned left into a corner room; that was the seventh grade room. Then you‟d turn right and go down the hallway and there‟s that horrendous long passage in Old Main that goes forever. You would go down the end of that and the ninth grade room was down kind of on the east end of that wing and then they had a little canteen room where we would sell candy and snacks or we could go play cards or do something like that – kind of a recreation room. Then between them there was a stairwell that went all the way down. Down on the first floor under the area where the seventh and eighth graders were was the boys‟ locker room. You would go to the right as you would come in that entrance on the south end and go to the right. It‟s now a big lecture hall but that used to be the gym. TB: Now I think it‟s the Old Main Theater. 14 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: Is it? Could be. TB: From what people have said I think that‟s what it is. GP: These are music things; music goes in one ear and out the other for me! TB: Oh wow, that‟s like somebody predicting the future (p. [22-23]). GP: That was. TB: I would be curious to see how much of that came true! GP: Hardly any of it I would bet! TB: So Ruth Rairdon must have been really religious. Ann Kingsbury, [sounded] like she might have been artistic. GP: Oh yes, she is. I‟m a sportscaster it says here. TB: There you go! GP: Ernie is playing ball. Well here‟s the future (p. [24])! TB: Robbie Calhoun wanted to be a pro athlete. Where are you at? Gerry Punches wanted to be a millionaire! GP: Yes! I‟m working on it! [Laughter] TB: That‟s fun; “Typewriter mechanic – Don Hartman.” Wow! Ernie Graham wanted to be a bat boy for the Boston Red Sox! GP: Yes! TB: “Anything except writing things like this” is John Green! GP: In the seventh grade have you got somebody you are going to interview (p. [26])? Rob‟s in that class, Rob Brand. TB: Yes, we did do him, and he clued us on to Pete Gaasland. GP: Pete is living up in Blaine I guess. TB: He has some business or something in Bellingham because I noticed he had a Bellingham address. Now Bob Funkhouser must have been Beret‟s brother? GP: Yes, let‟s see, it‟s got them all listed here: Lee Brand, Rob Brand you know about. Don Cameron. Bob Cederstrom. I don‟t know all these. Kathy Davis, there she is with glasses and braces! TB: Attractive in seventh grade! GP: Yes, we were all that way! Paul Everett, Bob Funkhouser. I saw him at the reunion of the class of 1955. He‟s doing alright. There‟s Myrna‟s little sister, Holly Harmer was the smallest girl in the class right here. 15 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Her name sounds familiar. I might have just dealt with her. GP: Well I can get you her older sister‟s address. Do you know Myrna Harmer? TB: I‟ll have to figure out who we don‟t know from your class and see if you know where they are. GP: John Mustacich is Vince‟s little brother. I lost track of him for just a minute there. Jack Payne, Grant Smith. Grant Smith is the younger brother of Gary Smith. That‟s the Smith connection that I was trying to come up with. Bruce Trafton, Gary Wagner, Karen Wallin is the Jim‟s younger sister. She lives down here in Gig Harbor I think. I met her at the reunion. She lives down there by the Narrows Bridge. I don‟t know what her new name is. TB: I remember mailing something to somebody in Gig Harbor, so hopefully it‟s her. GP: The rest of this stuff I don‟t know anything about! TB: Let‟s finish looking through that and then maybe we can run through the questions because maybe you‟ll be able to expand a little bit. GP: Sure; let‟s go see what we all did here, “Drama and music (p. [31]),” The Taming of the Shrew (p. [32]). TB: You were the narrator. GP: I was? I don‟t remember doing that. What is it, my dulcet voice? [Laughter] I don‟t know how I got into these things; probably because I couldn‟t act! TB: Well do you remember that? Did they do a lot of theatrical kinds of things? GP: They tried to do something like this one. That was presented on April 26 th and this was on April 18th (p. [33] The Stolen Prince) so we were doing a lot of that stuff and had everybody kind of involved with one thing or the other. I don‟t really know. I showed you that little thing from Christmas. I don‟t think they have that in here, it might be, who knows. That would have been from the year before this was printed. TB: Oh right, 1948. GP: There‟s all your musical people (p. [34] The Orchestra). There‟s a bunch of girls there. TB: Not surprising. GP: And the chorus is the same way (p. [35]). TB: That‟s because you guys were probably out doing your sports. So tell me about basketball. GP: This was the eighth grade team that I was on. This was the last year they had basketball there (p. [38]). These people are all identified, aren‟t they? Larson, Calhoun, Jack Larson, Gerald Micholson, the manager, Jerry Punches, Chuck McEvoy. Oh good! I‟m glad I got that connection there now. Don Andrus, Paul Hansen [not in picture]. TB: Was this when Pinky Erickson was your coach? GP: That was the year before, this year I think Willard Stradley was the coach. 16 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: He was your eighth grade teacher also, right? GP: Yes; I don‟t think they had a guy who was ready to coach or could coach or something. I don‟t know what the problems were. TB: Do you remember roughly how long your basketball season lasted (when it started and when it ended)? GP: It probably started in the middle of November for practice. We had a few games in December and then through January, February, March. We would usually have a game on Thursday or something, or Friday. TB: Were they afternoon games? GP: Yes, because we would have to go to some other school I think. We would play around the county and go to Lynden, Ferndale and places like that. TB: When you would play at Western, what gym did you have the game in? Was it the Campus School part or was it in the big gym? GP: It wasn‟t in the big gym because it was sectioned off. It had some half-court things. It wasn‟t the main court that we played on, it was one of the cross courts I think. TB: But in the big gym? GP: Yes, it was in the big gym. TB: Do you remember Sam Carver? GP: Sure. TB: What was he like? GP: I just knew him to look at him. TB: So he didn‟t have too much involvement? GP: No. TB: Well it says he is the director of boys‟ activities (p. [38]). But it didn‟t impact you boys too much? GP: No. I keep missing Paul Hanson. Wasn‟t he in this stuff? TB: What about your baseball team (p. [39])? GP: What I remember is, “We’re going to have a picture over by the library.” “When?” “Now.” “How come you aren’t in uniform?” “Now? Why didn’t anybody tell me?” So off I go. Here‟s the rest of the team in uniform. That‟s why I‟m sitting up there! TB: You missed some kind of [announcement]. GP: Something like that. I don‟t know. There‟s Jon Franklin. This isn‟t right. They‟ve got Jerry Larson. This is LeRoy Hurd. This is Pete Gaasland. They left out Jerry. Rob Brand. Ernie Graham, Harry Gates, Jack Larson. Back row: Mike Lockwood, Lee Brand on third, John Green on first, Jerry Larson (catcher). That‟s not Jerry Larson! This is Gary Wagner. 17 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I do a bunch of genealogy and I look at pictures that people have left me. I turn them over. When was this taken? Who are these people? Couldn‟t somebody just have sat down and done something like that (written that information down)? TB: The problem is, at the time people know who they are! We have some of those in our family, too. GP: So this is what I‟m doing here. I‟ll put this thing in here. That is Gary Wagner at first, Robbie Calhoun (center field), Don Andrus. There‟s a picture of Don Andrus! Russell Rude (left field). Let the record be corrected! TB: So do you remember some significant baseball games or have significant memories of the baseball games? GP: Of course! See that? “Jerry Punches – pitcher.” TB: Alright! So did you pitch some no-hitters? GP: We went to Meridian. I pitched a no-hitter! TB: Excellent! GP: The Meridian team had another great pitcher, too. He also pitched a no-hitter! TB: So this was a 0-0 game! GP: It should have been. I can‟t even remember who it was. The thing I do remember about it was we had a guy on our team, it was Ernie Graham, he‟s on here somewhere. Ernie was a good ballplayer. We were saying, “Ernie, hit this ball!” And it went through the hole into right field. But Ernie was kind of slow, so the right fielder picked up the ball and threw him out at first! Dang it! We could have avoided a no-hitter if Ernie could have run faster! I think we eventually lost because we bobbled a lot of things but that‟s the way it went. We didn‟t have a competing football team. We played intramural teams and [had] swimming class. TB: You played tennis (p. [40])! GP: Well yes, that‟s just to go lob a ball back and forth though. The cheerleaders! There‟s Allene and Andy and Dee Dee and Sally. TB: They liked to take pictures on the front of the library because there have been a couple pictures taken on the library steps. That‟s the library steps again. I love that (referring to quote in yearbook); “Cabbages are green, carrots are red, it’s been a nice year, but you’ve got rocks in your head.” John Green. “Don’t marry her for money. Marry some baby who will call you honey for your money.” Harry Gates. GP: There you go! TB: Words of wisdom there for you! GP: Oh yes. End of Tape Two, Side One; Start of Tape Two, Side Two 18 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Alumni Questionnaire TB: How did you happen to attend the Campus School? GP: Well, that was easy, my father got a job at Western starting in the fall of 1948. As a brand new “faculty brat,” I had preference for getting into the Campus School. I think all faculty sent their kids to the Campus School unless the kids wanted to opt out of it for some reason. TB: Was it at all difficult coming in at seventh grade by being a new kid or was it easy to be assimilated into it? GP: It was real easy. Like I said, the class was not that big. In fact, how big was the class? Did we ever make a count? Let‟s see. There were about thirty people in it. So it wasn‟t all that big of a class and that might be [part of it]. It was a very cordial group. Most of the kids were socially compatible and need I say brilliant. TB: That‟s good. GP: We didn‟t have any problems then. TB: That group would have been in Campus Elementary School up through sixth grade, so physically, seventh, eighth [and ninth] grade would have been separate over there in Old Main. GP: But it was the same kids and like I said it was just Bob McDonald and me. We were the only ones who came in seventh grade. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? GP: We started in the fall of 1948 through the spring 1949 and then 1949 and finished in 1950. In the fall of 1950 we all had to transfer over to either Fairhaven or Whatcom Junior High and finish up ninth grade there. TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School? I know you showed me a picture, [what was the] address? GP: Yes, that was 500 North State Street. It was on the Northeast corner of the street there. That was a house that was formerly owned by Raymond Hawk, who was my father‟s boss. Raymond sold that house to my dad and then he moved down the street to the middle 400s. TB: So was that the house you moved into then right when your [family] came to town? GP: Yes it was, that burned down. If you go down there now you will see a brand new three-story condo complex or something there. The garage is still behind it! TB: I‟m going to go look for that trunk! Do you remember what you guys did for lunch? GP: Old Main on the third floor I believe on the south end was where seventh, eighth and ninth grade classes were held. In that complex right on the side toward Sehome Hill they had a little recreation room or a lunchroom kind of set out for you. We had a little canteen there where we could go buy candy bars or a Coke or something like that, play cards. I think we had our lunch there. TB: Do you remember any of your favorite classmates and can you tell me a little bit more about them? Like Robbie Calhoun? 19 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: Well let‟s see, are any of them lawyers now? [Laughter] TB: Good point! GP: We had some regular guys that we ran around with. I ran around with Robbie Calhoun, Leib Alexander, Bob McDonald, Bill Davis and maybe one or two others. We were kind of close as a group. I don‟t know why it came out that way, but that‟s just the way it was. TB: Alright; and then you had also listed Catharine Stimpson. GP: Yes! Later on when we were in high school we would all go over to what we called “Dodie‟s place” on South Forest Street. We would play cards at her place or listen to music. We always had a good time at her place. It was a mansion because her father was a doctor, so we loved going over there! They had a tennis court, too. And Bob McDonald‟s house was only about half a block away from that. I could walk there no problem. TB: So it made a nice gathering place. Tell me about your favorite or most influential teachers. What was Miss Hunt like? We talked a little bit about her. GP: Like I said, we were exposed to a lot of student teachers and the principle teacher wasn‟t too involved with our daily activities, but once in a while we would have to have a wrap on the knuckles because we did something offensive to the student teacher. It was all in good fun. Of course, I have to say my father was my most influential teacher but it wasn‟t because of anything he did in the classroom. TB: How was that? Do you have any other thoughts about him as a teacher when you were in your class? Was it kind of filtered out because of all the student teachers? GP: [It was lessened] because of all the student teachers. He had a few things. I think he had to put me down one time because I did something that I shouldn‟t have done and it embarrassed him and so I learned a lesson -- don‟t goof around in my father‟s class when he‟s teaching because I‟ll get double whatever the punishment is! TB: Do you at all remember trying to take advantage in any way (as a class) of the student teachers? Or play jokes on them? GP: Of course we did but I can‟t remember what they were. I really liked Pinky Erickson when I was in the seventh grade. Like I said, he was a good athlete, he was my coach when I was in the seventh grade. I can still remember a day when I was sitting in a typing class and he came up to get me. He came into class and he says, “There’s a game on today.” “Maybe he’s come to get me.” And he was! I got to go suit up for the game as a seventh grader and I got out of typing class! TB: Alright! GP: Yes; Pinky was a real nice guy and like I said, a good athlete. I spent a lot of time learning how to play ping pong with that guy. I became a fairly decent ping pong player because of it. TB: Now where was the ping pong table at? GP: It was up in that hallway between the entrance to the eighth grade and the entrance to the seventh grade. TB: Do you remember what kinds of learning materials you used? 20 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: I believe they‟re called books. [Laughter] And pencils that sharpened up. TB: Did you have regular school textbooks then, not materials created by your teachers? GP: I think they relied mostly on books for that. Of course, we had access to the library if we had research projects to do. We could go over to the library; they had an extensive collection there. TB: Who helped you in the library? Was that Mr. Hearsey? GP: We knew Herb Hearsey because he lived close to where the McDonalds lived. TB: Did he help you do your library research or was that Miss Snow? GP: Miss Snow, that sounds somewhat familiar. But we would go to the library quite a bit and we knew how to be quiet and do our business and then get out of there. TB: What kind of grading system was used when you were there? GP: Letter grades. TB: Do you especially remember any creative activities? You talked about woodshop. GP: Woodshop, yes, I built a footstool in woodshop. TB: Do you still have it? GP: I don‟t know. I told you what‟s in the basement of the apartment unit at 504 North State, it‟s not the one on the corner, it‟s the one next to it where my folks lived. TB: Do you have any thoughts about what it was like to be observed so often by student teachers? GP: I never thought much of it. TB: You had came from a [different] background though if you came in seventh grade, but it still [didn‟t bother you]? GP: I didn‟t ever feel like I was being observed. We‟d have our task assigned to us. Of course, everybody evaluates everybody else. I can remember one time we were doing some basic math – fractions or something – they were teaching us in seventh grade. I was sitting there and they gave us an assignment so I sat down and I did them all and I got all finished in about five minutes and everybody else was still working on it. She looked at me and said, “How did you get that done so fast?” I said, “I just do it this way.” What had happened to me was, I had spent the sixth grade at the Edison School in Pullman, Washington. They had showed me how to do math that way. So I came to the seventh grade at the Campus School and I didn‟t have any idea that it was any different anywhere else so I just started doing it the way I‟d been taught. Boom! I get through there ten minutes ahead of everybody else! “Boy, is that guy smart!” No, I just knew something different. TB: That‟s interesting. You probably don‟t remember how else they were taught math. Some people seem to have got out of Campus School and not be very good at math and you learned your math somewhere else. GP: From the perspective of sixty years of hindsight and some liberal attitudes that I know about, I can offer some theories and I‟d certainly get killed for saying it! 21 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: We don‟t want anybody to get in trouble here! We talked a little bit about this, but what out-ofclassroom activities did you enjoy the most and what did you do at recess, lunchtime, etc? GP: We‟d all congregate down in that little lunchroom or break room that I talked about. As I recall, canasta was a card game that people were trying to learn at the time so we‟d spend some time at that. Let me think, I was involved in the athletics -- intramural football, basketball, baseball. We had a few science experiments that we played around with. I can remember once we were trying to make some volcanoes with steam and clay and all that sort of stuff. TB: That‟s pretty cool; any other specific thoughts about the transition when you went from Campus School to public school, the differences there? GP: Let‟s see, that would have been ninth grade going over to Fairhaven [Junior High]. Honestly, I can‟t recall any differences. As I mentioned earlier, we knew many of the kids that we were going to be joined with simply because we were in the same neighborhood. They had all gone to Fairhaven, they didn‟t go to Campus, they went to Fairhaven on the south side of Bellingham. We just joined up and met a few people we‟d known all our lives but never gone to school with. TB: Since you came to Campus School late, did you have any other thoughts about how different it was from the public school experience you had before that? GP: Not really. One interesting thing that you might have noticed, Willard Stradley was involved with the eighth grade activities at the Campus School. But when the transition took place, he went to Fairhaven. So he became one of my ninth grade teachers as well. There is hardly any transition because a person doesn‟t really come in and adapt a whole different set of skills or attitudes or teaching methods. I didn‟t notice any difference. One difference that you do notice, at Campus School everything was kind of taught in one classroom to the same group. When you got to the ninth grade, you had math in one class then you‟d go to English class somewhere else and PE or woodshop, things like that. TB: You said that Mr. Willard Stradley and your father both taught you in eighth grade. How did they kind of divvy up their job? GP: My father was a student teacher supervisor and a lot of his work took him out of the Campus School to other schools. He went around to all schools in the county. Student teachers, they placed them in different areas all over; Nooksack Valley, eventually down into Edison, Bow and Everett. I don‟t know how far his range was, but he had to be out there going to visit those schools quite a bit as part of his regular assignment. So they needed somebody to kind of hang around there in the eighth grade and do supervisory work there, too. Stradley was that person. TB: What other further education did you pursue? GP: The school of hard knocks! TB: You have a lot of credentials here! GP: I went to the University of Washington for three years and found out I was on the wrong career path there. I said enough of this and went down and saw my good old Navy recruiter and he says, “Well, we can put you into the ‘Navcad’ program because you’ve got at least two years of college.” I said “Okay, that sounds good to me.” I joined the Navy in the fall of 1957. They sent me down to Pensacola in January of 1958. I went through the pre-flight training program and spent a year there at Pensacola and six months at Corpus Christi, Texas. I got my commission and Navy wings in August of 1959. Then I was on active duty on the east coast for another three and a half years. 22 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: And you went to Vietnam. GP: Well, not quite at that moment. Once I finished my tour of duty then I thought I better go back to school. I got out of the service and by then I was married and had a child on the way, so I was back at the University of Washington trying to finish up and get that elusive degree! Little did I know how difficult that would be, just because all the credits that I had accumulated were in the wrong place. If you needed to switch majors or alter your career path, you had a long way to go. You know, I [took] that advice to heart because later on in my life I became a counselor to lots of people in a college environment and I made it a real point to start figuring out where people were, what their aims were, what they found was easy for them to do, what was difficult for them to do. I said, “I am going to take it upon myself to get these people going in the right direction.” I hope I have achieved some success in that. TB: Well I noticed you came back to Western to get your bachelor of arts in education. GP: See, then I spent another year in Seattle at the University of Washington and I added a few more credits but I didn‟t get anywhere closer. The Navy guy called me up and asked me if I wanted to come back in and be a flight instructor. I said, “Okay.” My wife at the time was certainly anxious to do that, so we hopped in the car and we drove to Florida and I was stationed at Pensacola for about three years. That was from 1963-1967. Then this little activity flared up in Southeast Asia so the Navy says, [“Do you want to go?”] I said, “Okay.” We‟ll stay in for the duration of that one. I was assigned to an aircraft carrier as the ship‟s company and flight deck officer. I made a tour of Vietnam in 1967. Then by 1969 this business of not having a college degree kind of caught up with me as they were winding things down in the war. I didn‟t have any career possibilities in the Navy, so I got out again. This time I came back to Western and I knew what I wanted to do then. My Dad helped me a little bit, too. He said I could parlay some of my experience in military and get some credit or waving of some courses so I could get a teaching certificate. I put some of these old science credits to use, I got a degree in…what the heck was it? I don‟t know! TB: What was it like being on campus at Western in 1969? That‟s when we were our most revolutionary. GP: 1969, 1970 is when I was there. I was married at the time. I had a second son born then. He was born in Bellingham as a matter of fact. TB: They were having some protests during that time frame in Bellingham, did you not think anything about it? GP: I basically ignored the protests. I can understand what protests are all about, I just don‟t happen to believe in them. TB: What else could you do I guess? You either participate or you don‟t. GP: Yes. I finished up with my physical science – that‟s what it was, physical science – degree, education and physical science degree. I could teach science and math courses, so I did student teaching in those fields. I finally got my degree in the spring of 1970. They opened up this new program in college student personnel administration. That sounded like fun. I‟m not sure I wanted to go out and teach in the public schools but being a college administrator didn‟t sound bad at all. This is again where my father‟s influence came in, he was the director of placement at the time. I knew a little bit about how organizations work, I thought that‟s not such a bad thing. I went through that program, the college student personnel program, and I finished it up in 1971; I got my master‟s degree. I somehow managed to get a job down in California at this small country school called Cal Poly! It was right at the time when there was a hiring freeze that had been lifted by Governor Reagan. I went down there. I was staying in the reserves at the time so I got a military flight out of Whidbey Island and flew down to some place. It was Vandenberg Air Force Base. I took the bus up to San Luis Obispo, had my interview, got a flight back. I think the whole trip cost me 23 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED thirteen dollars! Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be a qualified candidate and so I got the job down there as registrar. TB: Wow, so that‟s basically where your career was then, right? GP: Yes. I spent twenty one years down there. TB: And then you also participated in a doctoral program. GP: I did; I still had the G.I. Bill. This is one thing I didn‟t have when I got out of the Navy for the first time in 1963. I didn‟t have the G.I. Bill. I didn‟t have a way to keep going on things. [But] I still had [the] G. I. Bill left [in 1971], so I went down to the University of California at Santa Barbara. I drove down there once a week for classes. I did that for a year and half or so. I completed about twenty-five or thirty credits, post-masters degree credits. Then the G.I. Bill ran out and frankly I lost interest. I talked to many people on the faculty at Cal Poly. They said, “You’re getting a degree in what?” “Education.” “Pick a subject field! Do psychology, do something! Not education.” I knew a lot of guys who had a doctorate in education who were out looking for work, overqualified! There‟s something about this that I don‟t understand! I think I am beginning to see what it‟s all about here. I just quit doing that because I didn‟t know where I was going with that stuff. TB: Any thoughts about how attending Campus School influenced your life? GP: Not really; you can‟t put your whole life thing and trace it back to one school. TB: Actually now I‟ll shift gears a little bit because I think we went through the Campus School questionnaire. Do you have anything more to say about how you happened to choose to attend Western when you did finally come? GP: Well there was a lot of familiarity with it. Before I had joined the Navy, I left the University of Washington after three years. In the fall quarter of 1957 I had enrolled at Western and started into a few classes there. Then I got my military orders so I had to drop out. So I had been enrolled at Western before. Besides, it‟s a pretty good school, as you might know! TB: Yes, that‟s great. Then your first job after leaving Western was at Cal Poly as the registrar and you stayed there pretty much for your career. GP: Yes. TB: Are there any personal achievements you would like us to know about such as awards, citations, decorations or personal bests of any sort? Were you the “Outstanding Registrar of California” or anything like that? [Laughter] GP: I‟m not sure. I‟m kind of one of these guys that is sort of low-key. People will laugh at that, I‟m sure. I‟d get some letters of recognition or some accommodations and whatnot for doing things but I kind of work under the radar so to speak -- this needs to be done, I‟ll go do it. And it gets done. End of Tape Two, Side Two; Start of Tape Three, Side One I‟m not one who goes out and looks around for things to do. I‟ve been president of a bowling league. I‟ve been president of the men‟s golf club down here for two years. I was president of a Navy Reserve organization down in California. TB: When you were a student at Western, since you were already a family man, where did you live? 24 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED GP: When I first went up there it was a little apartment complex down there south of the campus. Then I bought a house down on Larrabee Avenue, which is right across the street from the elementary school on the hill there. TB: It might be Larrabee School. GP: It might be Larrabee, it‟s right across the street from it, 1906 Larrabee. I know that was the address that I lived at. There‟s a school right across the street and my son attended the first grade there. TB: Do you have any favorite memories of these experiences? GP: Not specifically. By that time I was in my mid-thirties or older and that was quite an age difference between me and most of the other kids that were going to school there. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? We like that question! Now we‟re talking about when you were a college student. GP: First of all, I have to remember who all they were! There was [Bill MacKay]. That was in the master‟s degree program, and Merle Kuder. These guys were all friends of my father, so it‟s kind of difficult for me to not know who these people were. TB: Tell me a little bit about Merle Kuder because I hear his name all the time. What was he like? GP: He was a very engaging kind of person, very provocative. He would ask you questions, educationally speaking, that would cause you to think about things and the answers that you had. You‟re asking me things that took place close to forty years ago now! The memories are just kind of fading away but see, I remembered a couple of names! TB: Very good, very good. What about your dad? Your dad you mentioned already but he influenced a little bit of your career since he was in placement, influencing you to go into the Student Personnel Program, any other thoughts about that? GP: It‟s hard to dissociate my father from a mentor. They are kind of one and the same, you know? We would have chats about things; where am I going? What am I doing? It‟s interesting that that‟s what I did with my kids. Both my kids, they are two different kids. One needed to go in one direction and one needed to go in another direction. And they are very stable kids, I might add. They are doing fine. I hope that influence from my father has been passed along and will continue to be passed along. TB: I don‟t know if you want to elaborate on your main course of study at Western? GP: What did I do? I was filling in all the holes that I hadn‟t filled in when I went to the University of Washington. I had to have a lot of psychology courses and education-related courses and fill in some of the science stuff for my bachelor‟s degree in physical science. I don‟t know I would have to go look at a transcript or something! TB: Were you ever sorry that you got out of the sciences then, since those had been your favorite classes? Did you ever miss that? GP: No, not really. What I found out was that my mind isn‟t oriented toward scientific things. I‟m more of a conceptual thinker. I have some ability to process mathematical stuff and scientific things, but it‟s nowhere near as good a mind as is necessary to move on in science. That‟s a hard concept for people to understand. The president of Harvard got fired because he made a difference or a distinction between men and women. He said men are pretty good at this analytical stuff and if you look at the top, women aren‟t up there. But if you look at the conceptual things like artistic and music things that are different, there are a lot 25 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED of women. They said, “You can’t tell us that kind of stuff! We don’t want you around here!” It‟s not politically correct. TB: What did you enjoy most then about being on campus? Our question is, what activity did you enjoy the most? GP: I was a married guy when I was there. Of course, I enjoyed watching the campus change. Where you‟ve got that big fountain in Red Square used to be my practice field! That kind of stuff. I used to be able to go over to the gym and do some gym ratting, just playing ball and things like that. They built all these new buildings down there heading down toward Twenty-first Street. They‟ve got all these dorms up there now on the hillside. There just used to be this one little thing there! TB: Yes, it has changed a lot. GP: I moved to [Bellingham] in 1948 and I was there living near the campus or going up there quite a bit. Even when I was in high school I would go up there and do a lot of research projects. My uncle also went to Western. He was my mother‟s brother. He started at Western in 1937 or 1938. TB: What was his name? GP: John Cornwell. He was up there until the war broke out and then he went into the service and became a Navy flier. He served on aircraft carriers throughout the Pacific theater flying torpedo bombers. Then he came back to Western in 1945, 1946 or whenever the war was over. We visited him then. We weren‟t living up there then, but we came in 1948. My uncle and my dad, they‟ve all had a big association with Western, so I‟m just kind of naturally attracted to the place. TB: Excellent. GP: It‟s like home to me. TB: Excellent; any other thoughts about either your time at Campus School or your time at Western or any other thoughts about your father‟s career at Western? GP: Most of what I have are the memories of the time, of the place when I was there. I used to go to the football games that they had over at the old Battersby Field. Since then they‟ve had Civic Stadium built and I don‟t even know where that is! I would watch the basketball games at the gym when I was a kid. I can remember going up there and watching Johnny O‟Brien play when he was from Seattle University. Wow! All-American! I remember guys like Dick Ravenhorst from Lynden, the basketball player. Some of these guys became my childhood idols and whatnot, so I remember all that. Of course, during the Sixties I wasn‟t there. In the Seventies I was just there as a little bit older student. My parents lived there at the time, so I had my Mom and Dad; he was still working there. We all had family there in Bellingham. My youngest son was born in Bellingham. I have a lot of fond memories of the place. Then we left and we were in California for twenty one years I guess. I haven‟t really been back much to see the area. I think I took just a little short tour up there one time and I didn‟t recognize too much! TB: It has changed! GP: Well, you put in parking lots and things like that. I remember kind of the way it was, not specifically the way it is. TB: Right, well, anything else? GP: No, I don‟t know what else we can do here that has to do with Campus School and Western. I enjoyed my time there, I made a lot of lifelong friends, I still have them to this day! 26 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Can you come up with any good reason why that is? It seems unusual to me, but there are definitely a lot of you that have kept in contact and consider yourselves to be lifelong friends. I think it‟s wonderful. GP: Well I‟ll give you an example. Even when you go to the high school reunions, you‟ll see people around there you haven‟t seen for fifty years and you can‟t recognize them. You can‟t recognize the women! [Laughter] And if you do, you say, “I wonder who that is, oh, I remember who that was.” No contact. But automatically, the Campus School kids gravitate toward each other, „Oh yeah, how have you been?‟ „Let me hear what you’ve been doing!‟ „Oh, that’s too bad!‟ Stuff like that. We sort of have developed a bond there with the Campus School groups that you associated with and not with anybody else. It‟s just like the Whatcom kids and the Fairhaven kids; they all group together. Well we‟re the Campus School group and we kind of group together. TB: So it‟s just probably because you went to school for so long together. GP: Something like that. TB: Okay, well if you don‟t have anything else, that‟s all I have, and I will say thank you very much. The End 27 Gerald Punches Edited Transcript – March 21st, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Frank "Moose" Zurline and Vi Zurline interview--November 8, 2005
Description: Frank and Vi Zurline had children attending the Campus School between 1953-1964.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_ZurlineFrankVi_20051108
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Moose and Vi Zurline ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Moose and Vi Zurline ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Moose and Vi Zurline at their home in Bellingham, Washington, on November 8 th, 2005. They are the parents of two Campus School alumni, Nancy Zurline Wutzen (Sixth Grade 1960) and Frank Zurline, Jr. (Sixth Grade 1964). The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is November 8th, Tuesday, and I am here with [Moose and Vi] Zurline. We are going to talk to about the Campus School from the parents perspective. Our first question here is how did you decide to have your children go to Campus School? VZ: Well, Moose having been a graduate [of Western], we had so much information on the Campus School on how excellent it was; and some of the people I had gone to school with went to the Campus School. We had to register the children just as soon as they were born to get them in at the time it would come up for their Kindergarten. TB: I‟ve heard that, it‟s fascinating. VZ: It was kind of competitive to get your child in! TB: So how many of your children attended Campus School? VZ: Well we just have two, a girl and a boy, and they both went to Campus. TB: What were the years/grades that your children attended? VZ: I‟ve got to think a minute now. Nancy was born in 1948. MZ: I graduated in 1950. VZ: 1953 she would have gone into Kindergarten, wouldn‟t she? Yes, she went into Kindergarten that year, and then Frank was born in 1952, so he was three years behind her. TB: So he probably started in 1957? VZ: Probably. TB: And then how far did Campus School go to? What grade? VZ: Grade six. TB: Have any other family members attended or taught at the Campus School? I guess that would include cousins or any other relatives? 1 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VZ: Moose‟s Uncle George [Hunsby] as a youngster went to what they called the [Normal Training School] up there at that time. He was born in 1898, so it was in the early 1900s. I don‟t know the exact date, but he often talked about that. He was even honored when they had the reunion. TB: Oh, in 1993. VZ: Yes. TB: How did your children get to and from school? VZ: We had to take them. We had a neighborhood pool, the Irvins and the Halls and us. It was every day. TB: Did they serve lunch at the school or did you prepare a sack lunch, or do you know what the lunch time experience was? VZ: I can‟t think. It seems like I fixed their lunches for them. Isn‟t it funny how you forget those things. MZ: I can‟t remember any lunchroom at the school at all. VZ: Well you don‟t know. They did lots of things up there, but I made their lunch. TB: Do you remember the names of your children‟s teachers? VZ: I do. In Kindergarten, they had Miss Nicol; Synva Nicol. In first grade they had the one we liked, Miss Casanova. Second grade was…isn‟t it funny how you forget? Third grade was Marglen, wasn‟t it? Marglen Vike. Well, she was the main teacher. There was Priscilla Kinsman in grade five. I‟m trying to think who the other teachers were. My kids would know. I can‟t remember exactly. I got very well acquainted with Miss Nicol and also with Miss Casanova. With Nancy, we didn‟t have much reason to talk to the teachers, but with Frank we had a lot of reasons! When he was in Kindergarten he lisped. He couldn‟t say „yellow.‟ That bothered Miss Nicol. So that‟s how I got to meet Dr. Carlile because Frank took speech from him. Isn‟t that interesting? And of course having all those facilities the Campus School could use. There were a lot of things done very well that way I thought. Nancy was the kind of student that was very sweet. When she had Miss Vike or Marglen, she said, “Oh I just love her.” I said, “Did you tell her you loved her?” And she said, “Yes, I sat up straight and tall!” Then Frank was full of it, and he had a classroom full of kids that were just full of it. He didn‟t have any trouble, he was a good student and he profited a lot more from Campus School than Nancy did for some reason. Nancy was in a class (I could name a lot of the kids) of pretty sharp kids. I think being shy [hurt her]. Miss Kinsman told me at the end of the fifth grade she didn‟t realize Nancy wasn‟t learning. With those kinds of things, I had no trouble with Frank. He was right in there. Nancy did fine. She went to college and everything. But you never know what the public school would have done for her. It might have been the same. But she got lots of good attention and they had lots of things like we had Christmas programs for two weeks before school. The singing and what‟s the gal‟s name that just married Von Bargen? TB: Evelyn. VZ: Evelyn. She was the teacher and she wouldn‟t let Frank sing in the choir! It‟s the little things like this is what you remember. They had some really good experiences up there. MZ: I used to remember Miss Casanova, her brother was the head football coach at Oregon. TB: I‟ve heard that. 2 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VZ: She was a nice lady. MZ: She was always coming to the games. VZ: They were all nice people up there. One day I went to pick Frank up and he was sitting in the window looking out like this: . So I went in and I said, “Now what’s the matter?” (You know that‟s the way it is). Miss Casanova said, “Sit down and I’ll tell you what’s the matter.” Boy, she had really a way about her. It was so cute. MZ: And you know the classes were limited to twenty-five. The quarter I taught at Campus School, it was like gravy train compared to when I had forty-five or fifty at other schools. VZ: But I thought the Campus School was really a good thing for our kids on a general basis. Every child is so different. Sometimes when children are more aggressive and sharper on the trigger or something, which is more aggressive probably, I think the teachers notice them more, don‟t you? I think with Frank, he didn‟t have much trouble and Nancy, as she went on to school, she didn‟t have trouble either. It was just the difference of their personalities. TB: Going back to the Christmas program, as parents, did you go sing with them in the morning then? VZ: Yes. It was fun. We knew all those songs. TB: Was that one day a week or every morning? VZ: It seems to me it was every morning for so many days before Christmas. I thought that was a wonderful thing. Dr. Taylor‟s daughter, Herb‟s daughter, was in Frank‟s class, wasn‟t she? MZ: I went one night to a Campus School meeting with her parents and Herb Taylor was the speaker. You‟ve heard his name. We were sitting at a table like this and then he walks over and sits on the table and crosses his legs and gives his speech. That was the first time I had ever seen that. VZ: The thing that you noticed, too, is that he had very opinionated ideas of what should be done. But of course he was very bright. TB: Who do you think were the favorite or most influential teachers and why? VZ: Well I must say that in the first two grades, Kindergarten and the first grade, you couldn‟t beat those two, Miss Nicol and Miss Casanova. I can‟t think, was George Lamb on the staff? TB: He was at some point. VZ: Was he? Because I keep thinking about him up in grade six, I‟m just not sure who their teachers were. One of the kids could tell you. I‟m sure some parents would think Miss Kinsman was [great], but I didn‟t find her that [good] for Nancy, maybe that‟s it. I don‟t remember with Frank. TB: As a parent, what did you like about the curriculum or think was the most beneficial for your child? VZ: Well with our kids, I think they had so many individual things. We had Renee up at school that taught French. They had French everyday. You know, conversational French. He was a darling kid, he came from…was he Belgian or French? MZ: Belgian. VZ: I don‟t know what happened to Renee, he lived with a family here but he was a good kid and it was fun for those kids to have that. There were all kinds of music available, and also gymnastics. They all had 3 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED opportunities like that. I think the numbers made a difference, only having twenty-five. I think probably [we didn‟t have any problems] except in behavior sometimes with Frank. But I think if there was something a child needed, they would get that attention. I felt that way. TB: Were there any issues related to there being so many teachers in the room, with the student teachers? Was that ever a problem for any of your children? VZ: No, I never heard them mention it, did you Moose? MZ: No. I couldn‟t see any problems at all. I think they had much more opportunity at Campus School than people, say, at Larrabee. They learned the basics. Like for instance, when they had to take a French class, they had a boy who speaks it. They had more opportunities, much more. All the kids I went to high school with who went to Campus, I could notice a difference. VZ: Oh a lot of kids I can mention to you, John Slater was a Campus [Schooler] he was in my class. Jean Burnet, Suzanne Rykken. All those kids went to Campus. TB: Do you have any other thoughts about – this is skipping years a little bit – but when you entered Bellingham High School and Campus School kids [were also entering the] school, do you have an specific memories about that? VZ: Well of course I always had the impression that they came from a little more affluent families. That I think just shows you the parents that worry about the kids and getting them in. It maybe was just my own way of thinking, but I thought they came from families [with money] and so you would see them progress. A lot of my friends were certainly top students and excelled in a lot of things. MZ: I think they were all better, in my opinion, the kids in Campus School . Those kids also played on the basketball team, and none of them played football. I don‟t know anyone who went to Campus School that played football. They liked basketball instead. VZ: I don‟t remember that. Loren Rankin went to Campus, his dad was a teacher at Whatcom. Do you remember Loren? He‟s active with the alums. I think if you ask any of my girlfriends, because we all still get together a lot, it seems like the people that went to Campus School were right in there. MZ: I think it‟s more rounded, the ones I knew. I remember my first time teaching school at Western, at Campus School, my one quarter, the first time I‟d ever seen them come out with an easel. They would turn the big easel over. Other teachers in other rooms, even at Larrabee, it was pinned on the wall. VZ: They probably had all the necessary tools to work with. MZ: Casanova and Nicol, they were teaching students plus teaching teachers. VZ: You‟re bound to make it a well-rounded education. It would be interesting for me to have you just ask my two kids what they think sometime. TB: We are trying to do alumni. How did the Campus School communicate with you as a parent? What kind of feedback did they give you on your child‟s progress? VZ: Well, we got notes and we got calls if there was anything to discuss. MZ: Teachers meetings. VZ: We had meetings, regular meetings. Dr. Hawk was the principal, wasn‟t he? MZ: Yes. 4 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VZ: He was a nice man, easy to talk to. I can‟t think of anything else. MZ: I remember the first parent meeting I went to, we got out at the end of the building to come in, it was a brand new building, pretty new, with that ramp going up, so there was no stairs. That looked good to me. VZ: It was a nice auditorium. TB: What types of special programs, if any, were the parents invited to attend? VZ: Anything the kids were in we were invited to. It seemed like we were included in a lot of things the Campus School put on. I think first because they had that nice auditorium, don‟t you? I think so. They wanted to make sure that people knew what they were doing up there. I got that feeling. TB: Do you remember what sort of corrective behavior tactics were used on misbehaving students? MZ: You got locked in the coat closet! VZ: No they didn‟t! MZ: Yes, they did. (Maybe it was at Larrabee.) VZ: Don‟t talk about when you were in school, she‟s asking about Campus School. TB: Tell me about Frank Jr. It sounds like he misbehaved a little bit. VZ: He‟s a good kid. We‟re naturally very proud of him, but they‟re just such opposites. Nancy has her Dad‟s wonderful, easygoing way, and I‟m afraid to say that Frank has my, do it [my] way [personality]! He‟s always been, I think, popular with his friends. He still has a lot of good friends and I think that he just needed this guidance that they gave him up there, because he had a rough class. He had Jim Bennett, the Bolster boy (whom I loved) Danny Bolster, the Vosti twins, they‟d jump over the ledge even! The older Vosti boy was in Nancy‟s class. We were notified any time [there was a problem]. MZ: They kept in good touch. TB: What did they do when kids were misbehaving? How did they quiet them down? Did they just split them up? VZ: I suppose. They would certainly let the parent know. We were always informed immediately. MZ: I‟m serious, they opened the coat closet door and put a chair in there and set them on it. VZ: I don‟t think so. MZ: If you get someone else to tell you the same story, then it‟s true! TB: Were there parent volunteers in the classroom or any kind of PTA or something? VZ: I don‟t remember any parents being involved in the classroom, but I certainly knew all the parents, because anything they had, we were all there. There was always such a wonderful parent cooperation I guess I would call it. Where today, I guess some parents don‟t even go to the meetings. I guess it‟s a different world out there now. TB: What were some of the differences that you perceived from the public school? 5 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VZ: Well first of all, the size of the class. Now I‟m not sure how big the classes were at Lowell. What else? I think probably just the individual support they would get. I think there was a constant feeling, because you did get to know the teacher pretty well when I think about it. Funny, I can‟t remember those other names. MZ: I noticed [the difference between] that one quarter in Campus School with twenty-five students and a lot of help from the head teacher, and [my] first job with Edison -- first day out, forty-five showed up! It was a change. VZ: Automatically you know you can‟t give the attention that you could for twenty-five kids. MZ: I probably didn‟t give them any attention, I was scared to death! TB: What was the transition like for your children when they began to attend public school? VZ: Well, they went down to Fairhaven and they both loved Fairhaven. We had no problems at all there, did we? And of course we lived on Park Ridge right there so they could walk to school. It seemed to be a happy time for both of them. Then Frank, when he went on to high school, Sehome had just opened, but Nancy went to Bellingham. She graduated from there. MZ: Fairhaven was seventh, eighth and ninth; [junior high] we called it then. TB: What do you perceive as the strength of the Campus School? VZ: You mean the strength of the kids who went there? TB: I guess the strength of what you thought the school offered your children. Some of it you‟ve already alluded to. VZ: Yes. I think the association was good. I think there again like I mentioned, there were all types of people. There were professors‟ kids, there were business peoples kids, or teachers‟ kids like ours. I got the feeling that everybody that was a parent had a reason to have them there and would cooperate, you know what I mean? I guess now in the public schools it‟s not too easy. MZ: I really think all the years playing sports and seeing those kids on campus, we always thought they were smarter. No question about it. They got a better education. We called them “sissified” because we were rough and tough. While we were out on the football field, they were playing tennis. VZ: They were probably studying or they were taking the cello. I think every one of them took a music lesson. Jean tells me now about how she hated the cello! Every time I see a cello player I think about that, it‟s funny. TB: What do you perceive as the weaknesses? Were there any weaknesses at the Campus School? VZ: The only weakness I could see was (and this is just from Nancy‟s experience), if the child was an exceptionally bright kid, which a lot of them were, there was too much attention shown to them. I think that it‟s easy to, you know if a kid‟s real smart and they know everything, it‟s pretty easy to always include them. I think that would be my only criticism. MZ: Yes, that‟s probably true. TB: Any favorite memories of your children‟s Campus School days? VZ: Well I think our favorite memories are the songs and getting together in the auditorium. That‟s what I always think about, don‟t you? And Dr. Hawk brings back wonderful memories. 6 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MZ: Yes. Christmas programs, with the kids involved, music and all of that. Always it was hard to get in, remember? Everyone wanted to go there. VZ: All the parents attended. You felt like you were a part of it. Now maybe they did that at Lowell too, I don‟t know, because we certainly felt a part of that at Fairhaven. TB: Anything related to the Campus School that I haven‟t asked you that you would like to comment on? VZ: I can‟t think of anything. I pretty much have said my feelings. What do you think, Moose? We didn‟t even pay a fee, did we? There was no fee I don‟t think. I can‟t remember. TB: That is a question we usually ask. We think it was actually considered to be a public school and they wouldn‟t have charged any kind of tuition because it really was a part of Bellingham public schools. VZ: They were teaching the teachers. Yes, of course. I don‟t remember any fee. I know that the hardest part was always having to pick them up. I remember Ray Lee that had the Woodstock out there, he said to me one day, “Thank god this is my last time to pick up kids at Campus School!” Funny things like that because there was no transportation otherwise. TB: You mentioned that Dr. Hawk was a great guy. Could you elaborate on that? MZ: He was a public relation guy, honest to god, public relations. He greeted the parents at the door, and when I was student teaching there, he would come in and sit and listen to your class, just walk in, just nonchalant. VZ: He was an exceptional man. MZ: When you were student teaching and the class was over with, he‟d even tell you, “You’re doing a good job, Moose. Keep it up, you’ll be a good teacher.” He did that to all of us! TB: Okay; well, if there‟s nothing else, I‟ll shut off the tape. Thank you. 7 Moose and Vi Zurline Edited Transcript – November 8, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Anne (Baughman) Valum-Johnson interview--November 7, 2005
Description: Anne Valum-Johnson attended Campus School, 1925-1932, and WWU from 1939-1941. Her father C. C. Baughman owned the College Pharmacy at 445 High St.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_ValumAnne_20051107
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Anne Valum-Johnson ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use&q
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Anne Valum-Johnson ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Anne Valum-Johnson, in Special Collections, The Libraries, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, on November 7th, 2005. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Monday, November 7th, 2005 and I’m here with Anne Valum-Johnson, whose maiden name was Baughman. She both attended the Campus School, which was then called the Normal Training School, I believe, and she also went to Western for a couple years. Her parents also owned a store, the College Pharmacy, which was across the street from campus. So she has some memories of that, too. My first question is how did you happen to attend the Normal Training School? AVJ: Because I lived right across the street. We had an apartment in my father’s store. TB: So do you want to tell me a little bit more about that? AVJ: Well his career started when he was manager of the book store. Oh, he actually went his two years and graduated from the Normal School, the two year teaching course. He went out and taught one year and that was enough. He found out that he didn’t want that to be his career. So, he came back to the Normal School and was hired as manager of the bookstore at that point and I don’t know exactly what year that was. But I think he must have worked here for maybe seven or eight years, I’m not sure about that. TB: How did he happen to decide to build the College Pharmacy? AVJ: Well, working for the college for a while, he got trained for business and he decided that business was where he wanted to spend his life. He went into competition with the college by building a building across the street and he designed it to serve the students. He hired a full time pharmacist. He had school supplies and they had a full service restaurant and fountain. My mother ran that, but my grandmother in the kitchen did the cooking. Both faculty and students liked her cooking. Also, this was before the student union building, but it was, you might say, the first student union building because it was the social center of a very small school at that time. People were very surprised I think about nine years later when the depression wiped out his business. They were surprised when he had to close the doors because they said, “The place is always full of students.” But the students didn’t have any money. People today don’t know what a bad thing the depression was, before there was any help. TB: That’s true, that’s true. So, you started attending the Campus School, then, what year was that? AVJ: 1925, because during that year he had built this building. Something that I found out when doing a little research for another reason, [was] that Stanley Piper, who was an English architect who settled here (but he came from England), designed the building. I knew Stanley Piper and his niece, Marjorie Brighouse. [She] was my piano teacher, beginning when I was seven. I knew Piper, but I didn’t know that he had designed this building until I did this little research project. 1 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Oh, fun. So you started Kindergarten in 1925. AVJ: Sometime during that year. TB: Did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School? AVJ: No. TB: Then you started in 1925 and went through all your grades? AVJ: Through the seventh grade and that’s when the depression ended the business. My father fought for that business. I remember the name of the bank and everything, but it just didn’t work, because the students didn’t have any money. We were helping at least one student who was waiting on tables at our restaurant, helped her with her expenses so she could become a teacher. She stayed at our store, set up a bed in our little old dance hall called the Viking Room where they had dances. TB: That’s probably 1932 then, about. Do you have any favorite memories of [living across the street from campus]? AVJ: I think one of my favorite memories would be the humor and the fun of the students being in the store socializing. I would sit at the counter and eat dinner and listen to all these wonderful speakers. I thought they were so witty and so outstanding and so grown up. And when I came back to college years later, I found out that they were kids. But to a young kid they seemed like very adult types. TB: And then, do you remember what you did for lunch? AVJ: Oh, I would just go out in the kitchen for lunch or dinner and help myself from the hot table in my grandmother’s kitchen. TB: So that was at the store. AVJ: Yes, at the store; and sit at the counter and eat. We didn’t have sit-down family meals during that time, much. TB: Do you remember any of your favorite classmates? AVJ: One stands out, a girl from a Norwegian family who lived on 21 st Street. Her name was Helen Egberg. She died within the last two years and she’s known by some other people here. She had other friends. We were friends in Campus School. There were others, but she was my main girl friend. I recall Carl (Buddy) Lobe – son of the Mr. Lobe who owned the B B Furniture – a large – several stories high building, such a nice kid. Later as a young married man he piloted a plane and died as it crashed at an airshow. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? AVJ: Well, I would say Miss Elliott, she was [my] second grade teacher. After first grade I learned to read pretty well. I’m a good reader. After I learned how to read I spent all my time with my nose in a book and the second grade teacher pointed this out to my mother, “This girl needs something else besides reading.” She suggested music lessons or something. So at that point I started piano lessons, age seven. Still, in the last few years, I’m off and on taking lessons. So it’s been a life long joy. TB: So, you remember Miss Kinsman. 2 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AVJ: Miss Kinsman, Priscilla Kinsman, a very gorgeous, white haired lady. She was the Kindergarten teacher. TB: Casanova, did you have Casanova? AVJ: No; well, I remember her being here, but I don’t remember that I had her. I don’t think I did. Oh, I remember there was a Miss Moffet, taught fifth grade. She was a little, tiny lady, kind of fierce I thought. Miss Dunning [taught] the sixth grade, I liked her very much. She seemed different than the usual faculty member. TB: In what way? AVJ: Just a little more femmie and less managerial. Of course, women teachers did not marry then. There was a rule. None of them were married. I remember Miss Erickson, she taught kind of a third year type of thing and if you got behind in any subject, you could go up to the third floor and be tutored, which I did a few times, in math. [Miss Crawford taught grade eight, and Agnew grade seven.] TB: So who tutored you up there? AVJ: A student, under Miss Erickson’s supervision. TB: Okay, so Miss Erickson tutored students from any and all grades that needed special help? AVJ: I think that’s what she had specialized in, as far as I knew, because she didn’t teach a [regular] classroom; and of course, each teacher in the classroom, they were faculty because their job was to train teachers. TB: So there was some room up on the third floor that was like a study hall or a tutorial center? AVJ: Yes, and I don’t know what all Miss Erickson did, but that’s the same area where the art department was and all of the Campus School children went up there and had their art instruction from people like Miss Plympton and Miss Breakey. I remember those two. TB: Can you tell me a little bit more about those two? AVJ: Oh, they were fine teachers, I thought. And of course I enjoyed art, too. I was not good at math, but I liked art and music. TB: Do you remember any of your student teachers? AVJ: I don’t remember them, but the students gave student teachers a bad time at first. Of course, I didn’t open my mouth, I felt sorry for them, actually. TB: But did they seem to pick it all up? AVJ: Oh, yes. TB: Do you remember a lot of people observing? AVJ: Oh, yes. A whole class would come in and observe and somehow that didn’t bother me. TB: Probably because you were used to it. AVJ: Yes, I was used to it, that’s right. 3 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? AVJ: Well, anything to do with reading and art and music, anything but math. TB: What kind of learning materials did you use, mostly? Did you have regular textbooks or did your teachers create a lot of material? AVJ: Both were used; they created some, but then there were some textbooks, too. TB: Do you remember what kind of grading system was in use during your attendance, whether you had letter grades or narrative reports? AVJ: You know, I’ve got report cards, I’ll bet you I still have. TB: Really? AVJ: But I think mostly it was satisfactory and unsatisfactory. TB: At some point we know that they switched to a more narrative report and we’re just trying to figure out exactly when. Do you remember any creative activities such as weaving or making things? AVJ: Industrial arts, we had the advantage of going over to the Industrial Arts Building and taking things like weaving or making things. TB: Now, did your whole class go or did they ever separate the boys from the girls and have them doing different things? AVJ: I think they did when it came to P.E., but anything else, no. TB: And I’ve already sort of asked you this: what was it like to be observed so often by student teachers? AVJ: It was no big deal, we got used to it because it happened so much. TB: Did you attend summer school at the Campus School? AVJ: Not during those years. I attended summer school one year when I was college aged. TB: This is still on Campus School then: what out of classroom activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime? What did you enjoy the most and what games did you play? It’s kind of broad. AVJ: We used to play a lot. I remember the sandbox. There was a sandbox kind of an area that was fenced in and you could get in the sand and play or walk on the rail around, it was like a rail fence and you could walk around on the fence. I took swimming lessons. I enjoyed swimming more than some of these games. TB: Now, where did you take your swimming lessons? AVJ: Down at the YWCA. In fact, Sam Carver, who they named the building after, of course, the gym, his wife, Jessie Carver taught swimming down at the YWCA and she taught me how to dive. I had a lot of swimming lessons and got as far as junior lifesaving and had a badge and everything. Well, if I had followed through, I could have earned a senior lifesaving badge. TB: Anything else that you did at recess? 4 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AVJ: Well, they played games. I remember soccer, that’s a long time ago, but I was a physical coward, I think. I was afraid of getting kicked in the shins and all this. So soccer, I hated that -- that was too rough for me. I see the girls on television playing soccer. They’re aggressive, they just go for it. I’m amazed. I admire them. TB: Anything else about what you did when you weren’t in a classroom situation? AVJ: You would never let a child wander around like I did, now. It’s too dangerous. But I was all over this hill, up what is now Highland Drive was Sunset Heights. Have you heard that before? TB: I’ve heard it called the Sunset Trail … AVJ: It was Sunset Heights and it was just woods and trails and there was a frog pond up there. Every class, I think, would take their students up there to look at the pollywogs and study nature, you know. And as a kid, my playmates, different ones, we would just wander around through the woods, just playing and watching students. They used that as a trail to get from one side to the other, to 21st Street, back over here. My mother probably never knew where in the world I was, but I was safe. [We also] played in the backyard or played in our apartment, which was not a good idea. Because some of my mother’s jewelry has disappeared, you know. Some of the young ladies that I brought down there I think helped themselves to some of her choice rings. I’ll never know. ATB: Did most of your playmates also go to the Campus School or were they from the neighborhood [and went to other public school? AVJ: A lot of them [were] from the Campus School, most everybody. But there were students from all over town. I think those people probably had to make arrangements. I had heard when they were born. They were supposed to get an arrangement made and get them enrolled. I don’t know. People in business, for instance, too, that I remember, were the Lobes, that’s L-O-B-E. He owned B B furniture. That’s kind of a high rise, but that was all furniture, on all those floors. Mr. Lobe ran that and he had two children in the Campus School. One was ahead of me in school, Carolyn, and she was, I think, in retrospect, I think that she was their child, but the one that was in my class, Bud (Carl Lobe), was adopted. He didn’t look anything like them. They were distinct types, he and his wife, you know. Buddy was a very popular kid, who later died in an air show, flying a plane, went down in front of his family. But he was a very popular young kid, a very nice boy. There were families, like, another family, I don’t know if you want names -probably not. TB: Yes. AVJ: Do you? Nix was the name and they had quite a large family. The mother taught swimming, or helped, with the swimming program at the Y, under Mrs. Carver, probably. There was another family, they were a large family and they had one daughter who was retarded and she was in our room. And I remember her as being probably older than we were. A very sweet tempered, but slow, mentally, girl. TB: They didn’t have a special education section? AVJ: I don’t think so. If they had extra help, I don’t know that they did, but I think that they were given extra help, they must have been. I really only remember that one girl being kind of retarded. But there were families, some of them, like my best friend, lived up on 21 st Street. Sometimes the children of students, who were coming back so that they could teach or further their teaching career, would bring kids who would play with me. TB: Nice. Do you remember visiting the college itself very much? Now, I know that you were in the same building as college students, but did you come to the college library, or attend assemblies or sporting events 5 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED that were more for the college students? Or any other connection between the Campus School and college students, besides the student teachers? AVJ: Or the social. No, I don’t think that there was any contact, except that they were always in our store. TB: At what grade level did you enter public school? AVJ: Oh, that would be in the eighth grade. TB: What was that transition like? AVJ: That was comical, to say the least. Because the contrast, between going to Campus School where you had everything, you had tutoring if you needed it, or you had specially trained art teachers and music and so on. To go from that situation out to Lake Whatcom, Northshore Road to be exact, to a little school called Sunnyside. That might still be on a map, the Sunnyside area; it’s towards the end of Northshore Road. It was just a little one room school. There were one room and two room schools all over the county. The county was not totally divided into districts. That was a non-high school district there, that’s what they called it. I was in the eighth grade there. And this was a first year teacher. In fact, that cured her, she never taught again. The thing is, when she was hired for that year, to teach, she had somebody in every grade. She was doing her student teaching the year before, in the industrial arts, up here and I was in that class. So I knew her when she came out to teach. At that time, they had so many rules and regulations, she could not live in town, where her home [was] (she was a Bellingham girl), and teach out there. She had to live in the district. So we had a family, they were all unmarried brothers and a sister, who had a nice home out there at the lake. They took this teacher in. She paid room and board there. It was very entertaining. I met students, some of the students there that didn’t have any polish at all, you might say. Their families were probably very uneducated and grammar was out of this world. I heard people saying, “’Up a gin’ the mountain” and, “Over hyar,” and “Over thyar.” I don’t know where they were from. TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. AVJ: Well, I was afraid I would not pass into high school; because, there was not much teaching going on. She had somebody in every grade. So my parents took on the responsibility of teaching me. We had state exams. Did you ever hear of those? TB: No. AVJ: They had to have some kind of standards for all these little schools around, with people of various kinds of training. My parents divided up the subjects, according to what was their favorite thing, so they got me through and I passed the state exams. You go to the court house and take the exam. All those little schools in the county, that’s what they did. So they maintained a standard. I remember the county superintendent of schools, women didn’t have jobs all that much, but it was a woman. TB: I think I’ve seen her name before. AVJ: Well, I can’t remember. So, I got good enough grades. I had to take agriculture and know how to judge a cow. I got a lot of laughs out of all the things. But then I went to, Whatcom, [it] was a high school then, now it’s a middle school. But it was a high school and that building is still here and it was there in my dad’s time, he graduated from there and I have a picture of him. He was salutatorian of his class at Whatcom. And let’s see what else? Well, when you get to the high school, of course, then you’re off and running. Well, I went to Whatcom those two years, and I didn’t like it because it was quite large by those 6 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED standards, about 1200. I had friends. I went to a lot of parties where they played kissing games which I didn’t care much for. Well, it happened that my grandparents were living for a while, out in the county. And they happened to be in the Mt. Baker High School district. I met some students who went to Mt. Baker. They invited me to come and visit, which I visited the school and it was a small school. I had a good time the day I visited, good enough so that I decided I wanted to go to school there. TB: Oh, so how did you get to school there, then? AVJ: Well, I went and talked to the principal, his name was Mr. Olmstead and I told him I lived over at the lake and I would like to go to school there. Since I was in a non-high school district, I could go anywhere I guess that I could get to. And he said, “Well, if you can persuade some of the other students that live out there, if there are any, to come here, too, we’ll send a bus down there.” I went to work on it, and that’s what happened. They turned around in our drive way, and so I went to Mt. Baker and graduated from there in 1938. TB: So how were you originally getting into Whatcom? You came in with your father or? AVJ: This was during the years he was county auditor, during the four years. Between the election time and the time they take office, there’s a little time lapse and I roomed and boarded with some people in town. [When] he started to work, which would be January, then I rode with him to school everyday. TB: So then you graduated from… AVJ: Mt Baker [High School]. I was salutatorian also. I had a big handicap, really, in one way, in that I was petrified to get up and talk and I never got over it really. It was a handicap. Of course when they gave me this wonderful honor of being salutatorian, I flat out did not want it. TB: So what did you do? AVJ: There were three girls, two others besides myself. Our grade points were just about, within a tenth of a point difference. I knew that there was one girl, one girl was picked for valedictorian, that was no problem, but this other girl had been working for it and she was really a student. She didn’t do any activities, and I did. Of course, I played the piano, that’s the main thing. So I told him I just didn’t want it and this other girl had been working for it so give it to her, I’d give it to her gladly. And he said, “No,” he says, “You can not give it to her, you are it.” So someone helped me, one of the faculty members who was a special friend of mine. She helped me and they shortened the speech length that year, lucky thing. I can’t remember it. I forgot it immediately after having delivered it. TB: So, you graduated in 1938, then? AVJ: Yes. TB: And then what did you do for a year? AVJ: Well, then my father’s tenure as county auditor was over. He created a disturbance, you might say, because he was county auditor, he had access to county records and he found out that when, in the purchase of road building machinery and other kinds of machinery, the county, for years there had been [overpaying] going on. And he found all this. My mother made scrap books of his four years as county auditor. It’s killing to look at it. His name was in headlines almost every day, it seemed like, I mean, umpteen times. He was always in the papers. She’s got these big scrapbooks, this big, full. And so consequently, people didn’t like that. They called him a muckraker, I think. That’s a good name. But he was right. And I thought he was a knight in shining armor. He was not reelected. His opposition, I shouldn’t say this, maybe, but it was a very close election and they beat him by sixteen votes. They went to a nursing home 7 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED and got people who probably had Alzheimer’s to vote against him. He never tried to take issue with that, [he] let it go. He ended up getting a new opportunity, but it took a few years before that opportunity arose. But he ended up in the hardware business in Concrete. It was a good opportunity. It was the branch of the Lakeside Western Lumber Company of Mount Vernon and it was operating in the red and the owner was about ready to close it and give up. But one of his deputy county auditors, a nice lady, whom I remember with a lot of pleasure, a very delightful person, she recommended him for this job, to try and save that lumber yard. So he went up there and was there for a while before he started introducing hardware items. He started with Sherwin Williams paint and Dutch Boy paint. And then he went on from there and he built an outstanding business and it’s still there. In real estate, he purchased real estate and developed it and made a pretty good fortune. My mother had to go back to teaching again. So, she made a deal with me. (I almost forgot what the question was). She said, “You could go to school next year, if you would stay and run the house, do the cooking, etc. while I go back to school and get a third year.” Which she did, and I didn’t know anything about cooking. Nobody had taught me anything, so I had to learn the hard way. TB: Then did you as a student at Western, ever observe in the Campus School? Did you take any education curriculum when you were at Western? AVJ: I didn’t zero in on teaching. I knew I didn’t want to teach, because, see, there’s that thing, you get up in front, I wasn’t going to do that, no way. TB: How did your attendance at the Campus School influence your life or your career? AVJ: I don’t know, but I feel like I had the best of everything when I was in the Campus School. I felt like it was a great opportunity, because look at the teachers we had. These were career people, they were not very young. Now, teachers, in a lot of cases, they’re just starting out, but they were people who had a track record, years [of experience]. They were very good and their job was to turn out teachers. TB: Are you still in touch with any of your Campus School classmates? AVJ: Not anymore; people are either dead and gone or look how old I am. I’m 85. TB: I was trying to figure that out. You don’t look it at all, not at all. Do you have any Campus School memorabilia, including photographs, class publications, crafts, art work, etc.? AVJ: I suppose I do, but I don’t remember. Well, most of my art doesn’t date back that far. I was starting to do things when I was in high school. TB: Please share with us any favorite memories of your Campus School days and comments about areas not covered by the questions above. Anything you haven’t talked about related to the Campus School times. AVJ: I don’t know, it seems like, it was a good experience. TB: We’ve talked about it, but not on the tape, but I’d like to talk a little bit on the tape, before we talk about your time at Western, [about] Dr. Fisher. AVJ: We didn’t even think of him as Dr. Fisher, we [thought] of President Fisher. TB: Well, can you tell me a little bit about how he felt about your dad’s store? 8 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AVJ: Well, it was competition and he probably had to raise the money, they still do, have to raise the money to operate this place. That’s probably the main source of his displeasure, with my father popping up across the street as competition. The store was a success, if it hadn’t been for the depression, he would have been there for who knows [how long]. But it only lasted nine years, because nobody had any money. TB: Can you tell me a little bit more about what all was at the store? AVJ: Well, my father had school supplies, he had all the candy and that kind of thing and he had the druggist, I got a picture of the druggist that we had. It had a full service drug store, which served a purpose up here because [there] were people, who otherwise walked downtown. It’s not like now, where they have to have forty million cars up here. The full service restaurant and fountain, which my mother operated, they employed college students, girls, mostly, as waitresses. Then there was some adult help. You had mentioned Mr. Gaasland; I know he worked there for a long time. He was an adult, he was not in school. But it was a social gathering place. He had what he called in the back of the store, with the bay view, windows all around, called it the refectory. I looked it up in the dictionary, because I have never heard that word in connection with anything else. Have you ever heard of it? I think its refectory. Well, it’s up about three steps from the main level of the store, and up there they would have booths, where people could eat lunch and also there was a big Victrola, that’s what they called them then, [with] a stack of records. So the students would have their coke and their sandwich and they would play records and dance. There was kind of a smallish, oh, it was big enough, dance floor with a view of the bay. And then in later years, where he added onto the store, he added on and rented out a meat market, a grocery store and a shoe repair we had at one time, and a barber shop and beauty parlor. It was like a strip mall before it’s time. I think maybe he started the idea -- all those different services. There was a garage underneath the building and a gas station, it was just everything. TB: He had the gas station, too? AVJ: Well, he rented it out. And then, because of this addition of space in the back, overlooking the bay, connected to the rest of the store, was a dance hall, he called it the Viking Room and Friday nights they would have dances. Which I loved, I was like so (indicating height), but I liked to dance. I’d get those young fellows, you know, to dance with me. What a nuisance I must have been. TB: Yes; now did they have a live band or did they use that Victrola? AVJ: No, that was in this other part. No, they had a band, but he bought a piano when I was in the second grade, age seven. When I started piano lessons, then, he got the piano for the orchestra, so they would have live music. And then I had a piano to practice on. TB: That is pretty cool. Do you have any idea how your father got the idea to build that store? AVJ: Well, I guess it probably was born when he was working managing the bookstore at the college. That was in Old Main and it was still there when I went to college. So, I’m sure that that’s where he found out that he liked supplying students with all the things they needed and so he just wanted to go into business for himself. That started him on his path of being in business. TB: Now I’m going to ask you about your time at Western. Why did you choose to attend Western? AVJ: I just never thought about going anywhere else. I wasn’t very ambitious or anything, but I did know that I had to go to school. I wanted to go to school. I went those two years before transferring to the university. TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western, then? AVJ: Oh, dear. Well, when I was nineteen I was a freshman at Western. 9 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: And that was fall of 1939, I think [when] you first entered. AVJ: I think that’s right. TB: So probably 1939 to 1941, if you went two years? AVJ: And then I went to…oh, what a difference in cost then. You know, it only cost us $100 a quarter. TB: At Western? AVJ: Yes. There was no tuition, then – just fees. TB: So it was room and board or books? AVJ: Oh, not room and board, I mean, that was just to go to school. You paid your hundred dollar fee. They just called them fees. TB: Well, what other degrees, if any, did you receive elsewhere? AVJ: I didn’t receive any degrees because when the war came along, I had been engaged to be married already and we went ahead and got married after about six months of war. And my husband, well, he had started working in the shipyard in Bellingham. So he was into boat building his whole career, really. He was with Uniflight, [that] was his last. He was very talented. He worked his way up, you know. Uniflight built a plant in the coast of North Carolina, in Swansboro, near Jacksonville. And there’s Camp Lejeune, you’ve probably heard of Camp Lejeune. Camp Lejeune was right there. So he was there two years and had the full responsibility -- buying the property, building the boat, building [the] plant. There’s more boating there, believe it or not, than there is here. I was surprised. TB: So you went to Western for two years, then you got engaged. AVJ: Then we married and he became a boat builder and I became just a house frau. TB: At some point you came to the University of Washington, though. AVJ: Well, yes, oh, yes. I was there for, well, until the war. Let’s see. It was into the war. The day of Pearl Harbor I was going to school at the U. That was December 7 th. TB: 1941 would be the fall of the second year; you’re right, the second year. AVJ: We were coming home on weekends. He was down working at Todd Shipyard and I was working at the University Bookstore. See, this is December, so there was still school in session. TB: So you were married and going to school? AVJ: Well, we weren’t married then, no. TB: So you were going to school and working at the University of Washington, is that right? AVJ: University Bookstore, yes. See, my father being a manager of a bookstore, a college bookstore, they must have had an association or something, because he knew Mr. McRae, who was manager of the University Bookstore. So, I got that job easily, I think, my father probably arranged that. TB: And then your husband-[to-be] was to be working at Todd Shipyard. 10 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AVJ: Yes, and we were coming home on the weekend. The day of Pearl Harbor, we had been out at the lake [at] that place. We had not listened to the radio all day. Radio wasn’t all that good then. I mean the sets weren’t. But on the way back to Seattle, we heard the news on the radio, but even before that we wondered what was going on because we met a caravan, you might say, of army vehicles heading north. Evelyn Mason! Yes, for crying out loud, I have trouble with that. Yes, you know her, was she teaching since you’ve been here? She taught psychology. TB: She probably was here when I came, yes. I came in 1974. AVJ: I met her over at the Carver Gym, where they had the exercise room, she was in that. And we got to chatting one day and found out that they, I mean the Mason family, owns the place on the lake that we lived in. So, that’s how come I did this for her, see. TB: Maybe we could get a copy of that? AVJ: You could, yes, you can. That’s taken out in the yard at the Northshore road. TB: Now, who’s that, the one armed carpenter? AVJ: That’s my father, and that’s when Evelyn found out that he was not a carpenter, but a business man. Isn’t that a kick? Well, we kind of got derailed here. TB: So, you left Western and you went to the University of Washington. AVJ: I went for like, maybe a quarter, or maybe two quarters; the war kind of messed things up. TB: Have any other family members attended Western? AVJ: Yes. TB: Well, I know your grandson, Ben. AVJ: Yes. I’m so glad he’s doing this. I think he’s going to be good at it. TB: So, who else in your family might have…? AVJ: OK, my number two child, Lynn Valum Starcher. She graduated from here, and I don’t remember when. Then the youngest in the family, I have five children, and my youngest is Arne and he graduated from here, too. Now, she graduated with a degree that they don’t give anymore and that is Home Economics. They don’t teach it anymore, do they? TB: No. AVJ: Well, anyway, she did that, not because she was interested so much, she’d lost interest in it, but she was closer to getting her degree and finishing it up, so she went ahead and got it. She’s always been a business lady and she’s also a very good singer and she sings a lot, now. She’s been in a lot of stage plays and Theatre Guild and stuff like that. But mostly she sings in churches now. She’s Lutheran, she sings in Lutheran churches where she belongs, but she also was hired by the Catholics to sing at their big church on Cornwall. [At] five o’clock on Saturdays, she’s the cantor. TB: That’s interesting. Are there any other personal achievements that you would like us to know about, such as awards, citations, decorations, personal bests? AVJ: That’s supposed to be my accomplishments? 11 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Yes. It’s your chance to brag AVJ: I don’t think I want to brag about anything. TB: OK, let’s back up a little bit. We talked a little bit [about] what your first job was after leaving Western, in terms of University of Washington bookstore. Could you give us another little brief employment record or what your career was like? AVJ: Well, mostly I raised a family. They were spread out, they were like three years apart, and that drags it out a lot. And when I got to the end with Arne back in college and so forth, I thought, well, now what’ll I do? I got interested in real estate and I took a class with Tom Follis, he’s still in business, you know and became interested in that, got involved and worked in real estate for probably about twenty years. TB: Now I’m going back to your experiences at Western. Where did you live most of the time while you attended Western? AVJ: I lived most of the time with my grandparents who at that time were living down on Pine Street, just up a half a block from the armory. TB: Now, what were your grandparents’ names? AVJ: Ticknor; Mary and Lee Ticknor; that’s my mother’s [parents]. TB: And that was the woman who also then cooked in your father’s store? AVJ: Yes. TB: Who were your most favorite or most influential teachers as a college student? AVJ: Well, one that stands out, they named a [college] after [him] and that’s Woodring. I enjoyed his psychology classes very much. He was very good. TB: Could you at all describe his style or why he excited you or…? AVJ: Casual, just kind of, but full of information and I think that I had him when he was probably in the first year or two he was here. TB: What was your main course of study? AVJ: It was just general education, you know; because that’s all you have the first two years, really. TB: Which classes did you like best or learn the most from? AVJ: Well, I think I learned a lot in Mr. Arntzen’s class, he taught history. And of course, psychology, I took a few courses in that, but I liked Dr. Woodring really well. Just on the side, some of these teachers had known me from way back, of course, like Mr. Kibbe. Did you ever hear of him? TB: I’ve heard that name. AVJ: He taught psychology and he always greeted me in the hall, “Oh, how come I don’t have you in any of my classes?” Well, he was just kind of a precious old fuddy duddy, you know. TB: What about Mr. Arntzen? What was Mr. Arntzen like? 12 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AVJ: Well, he was a very cool history teacher. My mother, of course, she had him for history and of course, she was a better student than I. TB: OK. Do you remember his outline? AVJ: Well, the thing that stands out when you mention Arntzen, is the dates. Here’s all these million dates. Of course, I know that he didn’t expect you to remember, probably, all that much, except to get the picture, you know. But I was intimidated by dates. TB: Anybody else that you remember? AVJ: Well, of course I enjoyed Miss Plympton. TB: You had her in… AVJ: Art. Goodness, I haven’t thought about that for so long. Lucy Kangley, she was another very outstanding teacher. TB: What made her a good teacher? AVJ: Well, she could give you the picture and well, I don’t know, I think it was literature, too. I’m not sure, but I think she taught… TB: Literature. AVJ: Literature, well, I liked literature. That’s right. I liked most of my teachers. TB: What about the music program? I know you were in music. AVJ: Oh, I didn’t do anything up here; I just stayed with the private lessons. I did sing in the choir for a while. TB: That’s right. AVJ: Nils Boson was the director. TB: What other activities did you enjoy the most, like sports, clubs, or student government? Were you involved in any of those things? AVJ: I wasn’t. You might have to speak, see. You know, my mother and father, especially my mother, did not have that problem, so I don’t know [why I did, but] it’s too late now. TB: Well, could you share any other special memories of your college days? AVJ: Well, I’m afraid that I was always in love. TB: Oh, but with different guys… AVJ: Yes, but when I got that Norwegian, you know, he was a good one. And he sang, you see. When I went to Mt. Baker that was what drew us together. He was the singer, it was a small school, you know. His parents came from Norway; they didn’t have money for training. He didn’t have training, really. Oh, maybe a little but not much. But he was a natural light baritone and he was a good musician, if he’d have had training, but he didn’t. He sang very beautifully naturally and I became his accompanist. And that’s what started it all, you know. 13 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Yes; so he was a classmate from high school? AVJ: Yes, from sixteen, because I became his accompanist. We did a lot of singing through that two years in high school and then afterwards he was very much in demand as a singer. He’d come over and we would rehearse and he would bring his date with him. And we’d rehearse and then he’d go off with his date. And then sometimes it was the other way around, he would come out, we would rehearse for whatever we were going to perform at, and then I would go off and leave him sitting there visiting with my folks while I went off on a date. And then one day we noticed each other. And we were married for forty three years. TB: So you must have got together after you came to Western? AVJ: Oh yes. TB: Well, is there anything else that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to share? AVJ: It seems like I’ve told the story of my life. Oh, there’s Mr. Bushell, he was here when I was here. Bushell; I liked him. As I recall, he played tennis and he was on crutches. Did you know he was on crutches? TB: No. AVJ: I don’t know if he was a polio victim, maybe. TB: Oh, you can see him on his crutch right there (referring to the picture in the annual). AVJ: Yes. TB: Yes, so he played tennis, though? AVJ: I didn’t get to play in his orchestra, because you know, I didn’t play an instrument, just piano. TB: Actually, I’m going to back up. You got to sing in the library. AVJ: I don’t recall doing it. TB: That’s where this picture is (referring again to the annual) and it says, “The choir at Christmas in the library lobby.” AVJ: Oh, can I look at this? See if I’m in there. TB: Yes, it says you are. AVJ: Does it? Well, then I was. I’d forgotten. I was a soprano. Jeez, such little faces, huh? I don’t know. Who knows, maybe that is [me]? TB: Well, if you don’t have anything more I’m going to shut the tape off. AVJ: Good. TB: Thank you very much. AVJ: Oh, you’re welcome. Addendum 14 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: OK, Sunset Heights. AVJ: OK, Sunset Heights originally was just woods and a frog pond, a place to play. And when they were going to put the street through, they were trying to, they meaning I don’t know who all, faculty or whoever, they were going to name it. My dad named it. He’s the one that came up with Highland Drive. I wonder if anybody remembers that, they probably think they did it. TB: Well, that’s good. AVJ: Yes. Now I recall – the area that the Performing Arts Building and plaza are on now – was once just a vacant lot – then later on a tennis court was built there. I got to play a lot of tennis. The End 15 Anne Valum-Johnson Edited Transcript – November 7, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Margot Casanova Wells interview--May 14, 2007
Description: Margot Casanova Wells is the niece of Katherine Casanova, Campus School teacher, 1932-1967; and faculty, Dept of Education, 1967/68.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_WellsMargot_20070514
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Margot Casanova Wells ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair us
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Margot Casanova Wells ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Margot Casanova Wells over the telephone on May 14, 2007. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. Mrs. Wells lives in Ferndale, California. TB: My name is Tamara Belts and I’m talking [on the telephone] to Margot Casanova Wells. You have read a copy of the Informed Consent Agreement, right, and you know you’re being recorded? MCW: Yes. TB: Okay, perfect. Katherine Casanova was one of the well-loved teachers at the Campus School, and I just thought it would be kind of fun to maybe fill in some more information about her. My first question is where was she born? (I know she was born November 27th, 1900). MCW: Well, she was born in a community called Grizzly Bluff, California. TB: Is that near Ferndale? MCW: Yes. TB: Did the family then move to Ferndale, or was that just where they went to school? MCW: No, my grandfather was working out in that area at that point. Well, that’s my assumption; he had worked on some ranches quite a ways out from Ferndale, and she was born in Grizzly Bluff. Her father was John Casanova, and her mother was (I’m going to spell it), Mariursula, all one word, Capaul. They were from Switzerland, and they spoke the language called Romantsch, and, in fact, the kids basically knew little or no English when they went to school. TB: Really! Now, was there just the two of them – your father, Leonard, and Katherine? MCW: No, there were six kids. TB: Oh, six! What was the birth order? What number is Katherine? 1 Margot Casanova Wells Edited Transcript – May 14, 2007 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MCW: She would be the youngest girl. There was a boy, Casper, then Mary, Dora, Katherine, and then my dad, Leonard, and then Johnny. TB: One of the things I wondered about, knowing only the two of them, and that they both went into education, was if education had been a strong thing in their family? MCW: Yes. Both her sisters were teachers, too. TB: Where did they teach? MCW: Well, my aunt Mary solely taught in little schools around this area. Dora taught in Paso Robles and Stockton and then ended up back in Humboldt County, and taught at several one-room school houses, and other schools, including a year up at [Hoopa], which was an Indian reservation here. TB: So all the children went to college then? MCW: Yes. TB: I know that Miss Casanova attended San Jose. MCW: Yes, it was San Jose Normal when she went there. TB: And then she went on to, I think, Columbia Teacher’s College? MCW: Right. She was always a good student. The family was quite poor, so they all had jobs from the time they were pretty young, even five years old, they weeded (carrots, sugar beets, etc.). She also ended up working at the grocery store, up in the office. She was fairly athletic; she played basketball and tennis. She was all-county in tennis and captain of the girl’s basketball team. Then after high school she went to San Jose Normal. She had to go by ship from Eureka to San Francisco and then on down to San Jose. While she would be home from school or college, on vacation, she [sometimes] taught – I know of one instance that she taught in a little one-room school house. You didn’t have to be accredited at that point, and then after graduation she taught in Lodi and in Stockton. When she was in Stockton she and a fellow teacher decided to go back to school for a bachelor’s degree and she applied and was accepted at Columbia, where she completed her bachelor’s and her master’s. I don’t think she’d ever been out of California before. While she was back there, the stock market fell. She was very brave. She’d been hired at New Mexico State Teacher College (I think that’s in Silver City, New Mexico) and she decided to borrow on her life insurance, and go to Europe. She visited Switzerland, and met her cousins, aunts and uncles. [She] toured around. I know she was in France and Britain. 2 Margot Casanova Wells Edited Transcript – May 14, 2007 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED She spent one year at New Mexico Teacher’s College, and the Depression hit, and she didn’t even receive a final paycheck. Someone told her about the opening at Western Washington, and she applied and was accepted. TB: Did she never desire to go back to California to teach? MCW: No. She’d be here for vacation and she took classes after she got her master’s, at both San Jose State, and at Stanford. Some place we’ve got some report cards [from] there. TB: Oh, very cool. MCW: She traveled. She and, I think it was Synva Nicol, went all over British Columbia. They took mail buses and boats, and toured the B.C. coast, and all these small towns and everything. She also traveled in Japan, Hong Kong, South America, Australia and Greece. And almost part of every summer was spent down in this area. Her sister Dora was married to a dairy man, and the other sister, Mary, was married to a sheep rancher. At one point Dora decided she wanted a log cabin; she purchased some property adjacent to her sister Mary’s place, and my grandfather felled the logs, and the three sisters peeled the logs for the cabin. TB: Oh, wow. MCW: And of course, she was a big football fan. My dad was at Santa Clara, Pitt, and Oregon. She stayed up in Bellingham for a year or two after she retired, I think she taught a class or two, and then after she retired she returned to Ferndale, California. She became very involved with the whole community. She researched the history of all the different buildings throughout the town, and she spent time at the museum. She belonged to Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church, the Village Club, and the Garden Club. She always contributed to my sister’s and my educations. We always had the latest and the best children’s literature, and she took us to the ice follies and things like that. (I was hoping I’d hear from my sister for some more input on what she remembers). Then when I decided to go back to school, to get into nursing, my son went over there everyday after he got out of school, and she took care of him until I got home from school. TB: Nice. MCW: She just was a wonderful, very neat, adventuresome woman. She lost much of her central vision later in her life, but it certainly didn’t stop her. She continued to live alone until, oh, just about five weeks before she died. Since she couldn’t see that well to read, why, she got books on tape from the library, she always was a voracious reader. TB: I know that when she lived in Bellingham, she lived at the Bellingham Hotel. That was interesting to me because a lot of the single women did live in different hotels. MCW: Right. The Bellingham Hotel, and then Mt. Baker Apartments, I don’t know if it was the same building actually. 3 Margot Casanova Wells Edited Transcript – May 14, 2007 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: They are close, but not the same building. Is there any special reason why football was so special in your family? Is that because your father, Leonard, excelled at it? MCW: Well, he got into coaching after he got out of college. San Francisco didn’t have a professional team at that point, so he played for the Olympic Club. He was also coaching at a small boys’ academy, and then he was hired at a local high school. He was asked to be assistant football coach and head baseball coach at Santa Clara which he was until World War II. He came back after the war, as an assistant football coach and about six weeks before the football season started, the fellow who had been hired as the head football coach decided to move back to Detroit, and my dad fell into the job at Santa Clara, as head coach. He eventually took Santa Clara to the Orange Bowl. (The year at Pitt you really don’t talk about, because they only had one win). We were here on vacation, when he was contacted by the University of Oregon. He went there and coached football for sixteen years, and then he was athletic director, athletic director emeritus, and helped with fundraising. He was at the university for a total of about fifty years. TB: When Miss Casanova was in Bellingham, she would go to all the Western football games. I never heard of her going to basketball, just football. MCW: Right, no, I don’t think she was that interested in basketball, probably primarily because of Dad, she was a football fan. But when it was a tight score she couldn’t stand to stay in the stadium. She’d get up and leave and go up by the concession stands and … TB: And wait until the game was over. MCW: Exactly, or until she heard that Oregon was ahead. TB: So she got down most weekends to the games down there? MCW: Oh, no, she’d come when Oregon would play Washington, at Seattle. She’d go there. Then my husband, Dave, was stationed at Fort Lewis, and so she came down several times and visited just us there. I had some surgery and she came down and took care of the kids. She was still teaching; I don’t know how she – she must’ve gotten a substitute. She helped take care of the kids until I could get back from the hospital. TB: How nice. MCW: Yes, she just that kind of a really giving person. She contributed so much --straight education, but also culturally, to both my sister and myself, and then to my children, and my sister’s children. TB: Very good. From everything I’ve heard, everybody just loved her, and you’ve kind of just added more to that. MCW: She was so fun to be with, you know. She just was always interested in everything. In fact, in our little town of Ferndale, why, our eighth grade kids take a trip each year and go to the bay area, to museums and baseball 4 Margot Casanova Wells Edited Transcript – May 14, 2007 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED games and things like that. All of the kids in my older daughter’s class decided that they wanted her to go as a chaperone, because they enjoyed her so much. TB: Oh, nice. Now, she did a lot of traveling, did she used to drive? MCW: Well, I think she knew how to drive at one point, but she never owned a car. She was a great person to travel by bus. TB: She never seemed to be sorry that she ended up at Western, up in Bellingham, so far from her family? MCW: No, no. She thoroughly enjoyed her time there, and she was proud of the campus. I can’t remember when the World’s Fair was in Vancouver, sometime in the 1980s. TB: 1986, I think. MCW: Right. She wanted to go up there. So, she said, “I’ll go, if you’ll go with me,” so I went with her. We were coming back from British Columbia, and came through Bellingham, and the bus driver said, “Well, let’s take a detour and go over to the Western Washington University campus.” And she was so thrilled to go back. TB: Oh, nice! MCW: I had never had the opportunity to be there. We took a quick tour and found the education building. She was just really pleased with how the campus still looked, and always had, very, very fond memories of all the time there. TB: Excellent. So you never came up here summers, she always went down to visit you down there? MCW: Well, my dad moved quite a bit between the Navy and coaching. And then my husband was a career army officer, so Ferndale was the place everybody came back to. Then my husband Dave and I ended up moving here in 1971. She only had a studio apartment, so there were not the facilities for her to put up many guests. TB: That makes sense. So she’d usually come down there at Christmas time, too? MCW: Yes. And she got marooned down here, [during the floods] in 1955 and 1964. TB: Anything else? MCW: I know I’ll think of several other things after we get off the telephone, but … TB: Well, I am going to transcribe what we’ve just talked about, and I’ll send it down to you and you’ll get a chance to edit or make any changes, or add to it, at that point. So feel free to add something in. Do you have Word? I could send it to you on a disk, if you’d like. Then you could make any changes, and do it on the document itself. MCW: Oh, well, that’d be nice. Why don’t you send it in the mail, and then I’ll go over it, and I’ll be able to discuss it very easily with my sister. Then I’ll get it back to you as soon as possible. 5 Margot Casanova Wells Edited Transcript – May 14, 2007 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Excellent. Well, it was very nice to be able to talk with you on the phone. I wish I would have known Miss Casanova. MCW: She was a great lady. TB: I’m really kind of excited that she got to come back and visit campus, too, although I’m sorry I didn’t know what I was missing when she was here. Anyway, I’ll get this transcribed, I’ll send you a copy and you can talk it over with your sister and make any other comments that you would like. MCW: Alright, very good. TB: Well, thank you very much. MCW: Thank you very much, Tamara. 6 Margot Casanova Wells Edited Transcript – May 14, 2007 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Rob Brand interview--October 2005
Description: Rob Brand attended the Campus School from 1942-1948; he also received his BAE (1959), his certificate (1962) and his MEd (1966) from Western Washington University.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_BrandRob_20051007
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Rob Brand ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" crit
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Rob Brand ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Rob Brand at WWU Libraries Special Collections, in Bellingham, Washington, on October 7th and October 17th, 2005. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Friday, October 7th, 2005 and I (Tamara Belts) am here with Rob Brand. We’re about to do an oral history as part of the Campus School Memories Project. The first question is: How did you happen to attend the Campus School? RB: I grew up on the backside of Sehome Hill on Liberty Street, so in effect the Campus School was the elementary school in Bellingham closest to where we lived. The next closest one would be Franklin School, but I think that the Campus School was recognized as being on the cutting edge in terms of what they were doing educationally at the time. I had an aunt who was a teacher in the Bellingham School District, so she had a pretty good handle on what was being done in the public schools and what was being done at the Campus School. I’m sure there was some influence there to encourage my parents to enroll me. My understanding is that at that time you had to get on a waiting list and everybody who applied did not get into the Campus School. What their criteria was, I’m not sure, but I started here in Kindergarten. It would have been September of 1942, and I stayed here until June of 1950, through the seventh-grade. At that time, when I was going to school, there was a junior high school as well, but it was discontinued in 1950 when a lot of men were coming back from the Korean War and going to school on the G.I. Bill. They needed the space. The junior high school classrooms were located in Old Main. TB: Did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School? RB: My older sister attended the Campus School; she was two years older than me, and attended through the ninth grade. TB: And what was her name? RB: Her name was Andra Lee Brand, and is now Andra Lee Phibbs. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? I think you might have already answered this. RB: I started Kindergarten in the fall of 1942 and went all the way through grade six. The Campus School was located in what is now Miller Hall. I then attended seventh-grade in the junior high school which was in Old Main, and that would have been until the end of the school year in 1950. When the junior high school closed, there were two classes then that were displaced. The ninth-graders of course, and that was my sister’s class, went to Bellingham High School, the seventh and eighth graders were to go to either Fairhaven or Whatcom. There were probably, I would guess, about 50 to 55 of us and all but one went to Fairhaven. The one that went to Whatcom was Robbie Calhoun, whose father was the minister at the Congregational Church. He lived probably about two or three blocks from Whatcom, so, it was, for him, a natural move. Then, of course, we reconnected when we got to Bellingham High School. 1 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Great. O.K, did you pay any fees? RB: I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know if there was a fee charged. If there was, I knew nothing about it. TB: Where did you live? Actually, you’ve already answered this. RB: Well, yes I have, in a way. When I started in the Kindergarten we lived on Liberty Street, 824 Liberty Street, which at that time was the last block on Liberty Street going up Sehome Hill. Then, when I was in probably third or fourth grade, and I cannot remember exactly which year, we moved across the alley to Mason Street, to 823 Mason Street. I know that I lived on Mason Street when I was in fourth, fifth, sixth and all the way then through high school and beyond TB: How did you get to and from school? RB: In the early years, and by early years I mean probably Kindergarten through grade three we walked. We would walk along Myrtle Street to Jersey Street and then we came to what we called the Jersey Street Trail, which went across Sehome Hill, facing the water. You could look out and see Georgia Pacific, the bay and most of the city. The trail emptied out at Edens Hall. Then we would cut under the little archway at Edens Hall where the maintenance crew kept their lawnmowers and other tools, then walk to the elementary school. TB: And do you have any favorite memories of this experience? RB: Of getting to school? Well, I remember when we were little kids, the older kids would take us in tow. So, there was my sister and another girl we picked up on Key Street. There was a boy who lived next door to us that was one year ahead of me, so there were about six of us. Then, we’d pick up my best friend who at that time lived on Key Street, too. So, the early days, we walked. The older kids looked out for the younger ones. After me, there were probably a couple of younger ones that would tag along with us for a time. When I got to fourth or fifth-grade, and I can’t remember exactly which one, we rode our bikes. My best friend, Pete Gaasland and me (and we’ll talk about that when we get to that section), rode our bikes. He grew up on Key Street and we were the best of friends. We were in the same cribs together when babies and went through school together at the Campus School, Fairhaven, Bellingham High School, and UW for a time. He grew up on Key Street and then he moved to Jersey Street. He and I both had old bicycles that we would ride across the Jersey Street Trail. Now, the reason we did that is that sports were very important to both of us. So, after lunch, the race was to get out to the play areas on the campus. Right now, where the Humanities Building and Red Square are located was all open space, so we could play football in the fall or we could shoot baskets or play baseball. If you ate at the school, you couldn’t be dismissed until everybody had finished. We learned that if we rode our bikes home and ate our lunches really quickly and got on our bikes and got back, we would be the first ones out there. We’d be first up in baseball, or captains to choose the teams. That’s what we did, and we rode those bikes forever. In Bellingham in those days, that’s what people did. I mean, we rode our bikes over to Downer Field and Battersby Field over by Whatcom for the summer baseball programs. You could ride your bikes everywhere. Of course it was nothing like Bellingham is today. All the people who grew up here, we liked those good old days. TB: You said this, but maybe elaborate, what did you do for lunch? 2 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED RB: Well, in the early grades, Kindergarten, first, second, third, I’m sure that I ate lunch in the school cafeteria. But I think we packed a lunch from home. I don’t remember eating school lunches. I still have the lunch pail that I carried to school when I was in Kindergarten. When they had the reunion in 1993, I took the lunch pail with me to carry that around. It was my memorabilia piece. The lunchroom was located on the second floor of what is now Miller Hall, so it would be located probably, where the psychology, counseling offices are now. That would be the old third-grade classroom and like everything else it is all office space now. Miller Hall, of course, has been chopped up forever. I mean, if people came back that hadn’t been there since grade school, about the only thing they’d recognize would be the ramps leading to the second floor and down into the lower level. What I remember about the cafeteria was not the food, I remember they had nice tables; they were not like you see in school cafeterias today. Campus School was pretty unique in a lot of respects. There was a dumbwaiter that carried things from the main floor to the second floor, like the cartons of milk. That was a biggy. Most of the kids ate lunch there because a lot of them didn’t live as close to the school as I did (though a lot of them did). There were kids who lived just down 21st Street, in houses that are of course, no longer there. And a fair number lived down Garden, 15 th Street, places like that, and most didn’t go home for lunch. TB: So the cooking part of the cafeteria was actually on the floor below? RB: I think it was. But that part I really do not remember and it’s probably because I never really ate the hot lunches. Now, when we got to the junior high school, again, I continued to go home for lunch when in the seventh-grade. But the people that ate here on the campus ate lunch in the dining hall at Edens Hall, which was on the main floor of Edens Hall, so there were junior high school students, but also college students in the lunchroom at the same time. TB: I think you’re going to give me a list then, of your favorite classmates separately from this? RB: Well, what I can tell you is kind of interesting. Bellingham in those days had one high school. Many kids lived here and stayed here. We had our fiftieth high school reunion in September and at the reunion they always say, “O.K, all those people who went to Birchwood School gather for a group picture, all that went to Washington School…, the Campus School…” We always have more people there than anybody else. We had seventeen people there and fourteen of them had been in the Kindergarten class that I attended. TB: Oh, wow. RB: Pretty amazing. TB: Yes. RB: So, the Kindergarten class, I’m guessing probably had about twenty-five, twenty-six students, because I think they limited the enrollment. They put a lid on the number of students they would have. Probably more than half of the kids that I went to Kindergarten with were at the 50th high school reunion. TB: Wow. Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? RB: Well, the teacher that was everybody’s favorite (there’s a difference between favorite and most influential probably), would be Miss Kinsman. Everybody looked forward to Miss Kinsman. She was a third-grade teacher for me. The class ahead of us, everybody thought got really lucky, because when they got to the fifth-grade, Miss Kinsman moved to fifth-grade, so they got her twice. When I got to the fifthgrade, though, she wasn’t doing fifth-grade anymore. Her classroom was upstairs. It was the first year that 3 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED we got to walk up the ramp to the second floor, other than lunchroom if you did the lunchroom thing. But she was wonderful, everybody loved her. It’s interesting. I can remember all of my teachers except for fifth-grade. I draw a blank on that one. We had Miss Nicol in Kindergarten, Miss Casanova in first-grade, I can tell you an interesting story about that, if you would like to hear it. TB: Yes. RB: Miss Elliot in second-grade, and she was old school. She was strict. Miss Kinsman in third-grade, Miss Merriman in fourth-grade, fifth-grade… In sixth-grade we had Miss McLeod and in seventh-grade we had Miss Hunt. The eighth-grade teacher was Frank Punches, whose son was a year ahead of me in school. I still communicate with him. The ninth-grade teacher was Jean Shephard. So, Miss Kinsman, definitely, left her mark on all of us. I mean, she was everybody’s favorite. In terms of being influential, I think Miss McLeod, probably, my sixth-grade teacher. I was very interested in sports and journalism. She let a couple of us develop our own school newspaper. We wrote articles about Seattle Rainiers baseball and in school things. We’d listen to the games and score the games. That was probably when my journalism interests were tapped. When I got to Fairhaven, I worked on the school newspaper, when I was in high school I was the sports editor of the paper. When I started out at the UW, my major was journalism. That disappeared for a variety of reasons that we probably won’t go into at this point in time. TB: Do you remember any of your student teachers? RB: Well, I looked at that one and that’s a tough one. We had a lot of student teachers because the Campus School was the place where student teachers did their training. It was a lab school and I think probably in those days, at least at the elementary level, I’m guessing that not very many people did their student teaching in the public schools. I think they were pretty much held on campus. The one that I do remember would have been fourth or fifth-grade, and I’m thinking fifth-grade, would be Stew Van Wingerden. Then Stewart later became a professor at Western. It was kind of interesting, when I was principal at Roosevelt School, this would have been back in 1978, Stew was supervising the student teachers we had and asked if we would do a mock interview for the interns. We had about seven or eight student teachers at that time and we did. I did that, along with a couple of other principals from 1978 until 2004, doing one every quarter, for prospective teachers. When I retired from the public schools in 1993 I then worked part-time at WWU, supervising students who were training to be teachers in a variety of capacities. When the elementary department reconfigured this program in 2005, several positions were eliminated or incorporated within other classes, thus marking the conclusion of my involvement with the mock interview process. This activity is still available in twice a year sessions developed and hosted by the Career Planning and Placement Center as part of their job search assistance for graduating interns. I remember teaching a number of summers in the admin department up here, working with people that thought they wanted to be school administrators, curriculum directors, whatever. So, it might have been my first summer up here, and I was teaching a class that had 33 or 34 students, most of them from British Columbia, because most of the admin students in those days came from Canada. Stew had a seminar group and he asked me, “Would I be willing to come and talk with them?” I said, “Sure,” and so I did. He had three students. Now, here’s an experienced instructor, right, with three students, and here I am with 33 trying to figure out what I’m doing. We joked about that experience. Great individual, great man and he was a great part of the faculty up here for a long time. My sister, remember, was two years ahead of me. In her ninth-grade year, two of her student teachers were Jim Roberts and Dick Green. Jim Roberts later became the superintendent of schools in Bellingham, so he was my boss, and Dick Green was the assistant superintendent, and he was my immediate supervisor when 4 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I was a principal for a number of years. I didn’t know them at that time when they were student teaching, but that’s a connection that we all have. Interestingly enough, the Bellingham School District, back in those days, when people graduated from Western, here’s Jim Roberts, who later became superintendent, right? He couldn’t get a job in Bellingham when he got out of Western because Bellingham would not hire inexperienced teachers. They made people go somewhere else and let somebody else train them and then they would hire them. I know Jim went to Ferndale, I started my career in Oak Harbor, and my wife started in Sedro Woolley; that’s kind of the way it was in Bellingham in those days. TB: Wow, O.K. Now, what were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? RB: Well, in elementary school I loved all the classes. I liked arithmetic. When I got to high school and had to do mathematics that changed. I was more a literacy/social studies kind of a person than math/science. But I liked them all. Obviously, we had a lot of special kind of activities, a lot of special things that we got to do that kids in the public schools did not. We got to go to the college pool and swim every Friday, so that’s where I learned to swim. Am I a great swimmer? No. I think we looked more forward to the end of when they did the teaching, so we could have free time and dive off the board and have free play time. The Campus School itself did not have a library. So, when it was library time we came over here into this room (Special Collections, Wilson 279) and the librarian at that time, whoever that was, did typically what librarians do, there would be a story time and then you would have time to check out books. I don’t remember much about the early years, I remember when I got up into fifth and sixth-grade that John R. Tunis became a favorite author of mine. I read Iron Duke I don’t know how many times. I remember it was on a shelf back here on this corner in this library when I came, that was pretty special. All of the classrooms, at least in the lower grades, had a room that was a classroom and they also had another room that was connected to it. It was kind of a workroom area. They had benches and vices and woodworking materials. You got to do a lot of things. We made boats and we did this and that. We had some very special kinds of things going for us. The building itself, if you went down in the lower level, not the main floor, but even down lower than that, those ramps on the east end of Miller Hall. There were three gymnasiums and one of them was exclusively for Kindergarten. It had huge blocks, climbing apparatus, etc. Then the other two were regular gymnasiums. Most of the P.E. that we had was taught by student teachers, not by the regular classroom teachers. TB: Going back to that extra room; when you used that extra room to do whatever kind of creative activities, was that a special class or for when you finished your class assignment? For example, if you finished your math assignment could you go work in that room? RB: Yes, I’m sure there was a combination of the two. I think there were times when it was a classroom activity: we’re all going whether you want to or not. But, I think there were times when you could go in there if you had some free time and do some of those kinds of activities. TB: Did you use regular textbooks or other kinds of learning materials? RB: I thought about that one. I can’t remember things like science and social studies. I know that we did a lot of hands-on kinds of science things. You have to understand now, the teachers, didn’t have to plan for everything because the student teachers were the ones that primarily taught the science. They did science or social studies and other core subjects, so it was a great learning opportunity for them. I work with teachers in the schools today, and recognize the pressure of WASL and other high stakes testing. For teachers today, literacy is number one, math is number two, and if they have time for other curricular areas, maybe it’s there. For years, I always felt that the most ignored program in elementary 5 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED schools was science. Well, that will change, because now, they have a science WASL, too, which will be done not by fourth-graders but by fifth-graders. Reading, yes; “See Spot run, see Dick, see Jane.” We learned to read in the Dick and Jane books. People complained later and many of the complaints had to do with gender issues. I mean, the dad of the home came home after work, suit and tie; mom stayed home with the apron and had the cookies and milk on the table. (I’ll tell you a story about my mother about that in a second, if you’d like to hear it.) Then they had the two children, a boy and a girl, and they had Spot, pretty unrealistic setting in 2005. So the main complaint related not about whether you could teach kids to read with texts like that, because you can. (A good teacher can teach kids to read with anything. You take a good teacher and give them a room that has nothing and they’ll teach and make magic happen. You take a teacher that’s less than effective and give them all the bells and whistles and it’s still not going to work). The story about my mother was when I was in fourth or fifth-grade, and I do not remember the year she had to go to work. That would have been probably about 1947. Very unusual; I think in my class she might have been the only mother that was working. She worried about that forever. Is this going to be the end of Rob? You know, that he’ll never survive without mom being at home. I was able to convince her I would. So what she did before going to work (either her or my dad, probably my dad), made the lunch. When I came home on the bike I would dump it. (We had two empty lots below us where we played football and baseball; we played basketball at my friend’s house one street over because he had a better set up for that). Ride home, dump the bike, run up, eat the lunch in about one minute, run down, get on the bike and disappear. I always told her, “You know, mom, if you’d been home, I’d see you for about two minutes, just long enough to grab the sandwich and be out of here.” Then after school, like I said we had these empty lots, so in the fall of the year we’d play football there, a few of us in the neighborhood. Another thing that’s changed, in those days we got together and organized ourselves. We didn’t have to have somebody gather us together, blow the whistle, and coach us. Winter time, we went to my friend’s house over on Key Street and shot baskets every night after school until dark. In baseball season we came back to my empty lot because that was better suited for baseball. Then we’d play out until dark, until somebody called and said it was dinner time. That was just kind of the way it went. TB: What kind of grading system was in use during your attendance? RB: You know, I don’t know. I think probably, somewhere in the family archives, there’s a copy; I think it was a narrative that was written by the teacher. That’s my sense. I can double check or I can ask my sister. She would probably know the answer better than I would. But I think that that was the standard procedure. TB: Do you especially remember any creative activities such as weaving, making things, etc.? RB: I don’t remember specific ones. We did a lot of different kinds of things. We did the pot holders, the typical kinds of things. One that I remember, this would have been upper grades, fifth or sixth grade, led again by a student teacher. We had pieces of copper that were probably about the size of this pad, maybe a little bit larger. Then with a stick tool you could make impressions on them. I remember making a deer head as I recall, then we’d put frames around them. So, yes, we had access to those kinds of things that you would probably not find in the public schools for different kinds of art activities. Arts and craftsy kinds of things were never my favorite. I remember when I transferred from the UW up here and had to take an art class, it was the one that was required for prospective teachers, that was a challenge for me. TB: What were your classes like? Were there a lot of student teachers observing and/or teaching lessons or parts of lessons? RB: Yes, I remember student teachers doing a lot. You could break the class down and do different kinds of group activities. In the elementary schools the interns probably did most of the social studies. They had 6 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED to develop units of study, science units, etc. I remember in seventh-grade that whoever the student teachers were took on the task of developing a play. The Campus School at that time had an auditorium and a stage. The room is still there, it’s a large lecture hall now, and I think it’s 164 on the main floor. When I was in seventh-grade they split seventh and eighth-graders into two different groups and each group did one play. The group that I was in did The Taming of the Shrew. I played the part of Petruchio in that play. There were two different casts, so I played Petrucio in one of them and John Green played Petruchio in the other cast. It was great. It was a great experience. I’m sure the reason I was selected is that I had the ability to memorize things. I was, believe you me, not a great actor and Hollywood didn’t come around knocking on my door, but I was able to remember the lines, which I guess was worth something. TB: A question I don’t think is on here, but it came out in other ones, did you learn to handle the student teachers? RB: I think we were pretty good. You mean handle in terms of test them out and things like that? I don’t remember doing stuff like that. I remember doing stuff like that with substitute teachers by the time we were in junior high school and high school, but while I was at the Campus School, I don’t ever remember doing anything purposely. I do remember though, when I was going to Western (in those days Western primarily was a place to train teachers. We’re talking about 1957, 1958. They had business courses, but my good friend who took them couldn’t finish up here, he had to go back to the UW. They offered general business and things like that, but not marketing, accounting and some of those kinds of things. So he had to go back to the U to finish up down there). I know of students who did observations in the Campus School and they would go around when kids were working on the easel and look and make comments and students would say, “No, here’s the questions you’re supposed to be asking,” because they had had so many. They were very savvy about that. And I think that became more of a factor later on. Somebody asked me recently about how the Campus School changed, because it did. I know the focus of what they were doing changed after we were gone, but I don’t know to what degree. I know there were a lot more observations and things like that. See these kids I work with, they get a practicum, they’re in a practicum right now, in their second quarter. They’ll have one in science, they’ll have one on math depending on the instructor, they have one in literacy, so by the time they go to student teach, they’ve had a fair amount of experience out in the public schools. When I went through the program, we visited the second-grade classroom as a class, like a Psych 455 class or something, just to go and observe a lesson for about 30 minutes. That’s the [first]-grade story that I was going to relate to you. That’s the only thing. We didn’t go there and stay or help a teacher or anything like that, so when I did my first student teaching, in those days we did two, you did a half a day, like in my case I did a half day at the elementary because I thought I wanted to teach secondary and then we did all day in the secondary schools, so when I went to Franklin school and did student teaching in third-grade, that was really, for all intents and purposes my first time in a public school since I’d been in the Campus School. But the [first]-grade visit was quite interesting. Miss Casanova was still the [first]-grade teacher. They were doing some kind of study or unit about the farm. I don’t know if they took a field trip to the farm or not (which is pretty standard, all the Bellingham schools do that). She was doing this lesson and she had a chicken on her lap. She was talking and I don’t know what about, but what struck me was that she did the same thing when I was in [first]-grade. So in [first]-grade I probably would have been about [six] years old, and now I’m probably about 20, 21. The lesson to my recollection was identical and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same chicken for that matter, either. That one certainly stuck with me. TB: Wow. Did you attend summer school at the Campus School and if so, why? 7 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED RB: Did not. I don’t ever remember going to a summer school session. I might have, but I don’t remember doing it. TB: What extra-curricular activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime? What did you enjoy the most? And what games did you play? RB: Well, several of us were really into sports things, so recess time that’s what we did; we played sports. You have to understand that out where Red Square is there was a board walk that went from the main entrance of the Campus School over toward the library, dividing that whole area into two expansive playgrounds, play fields if you will. We’d go out and organize our own games depending on the season. Basketball was a little tougher because at recess time, they wouldn’t let us go into the gym unsupervised. There were no basketball hoops outside, so at that particular time, I don’t know what we did. I do remember that bombardment was a favorite PE time game. In the seventh-grade we organized tackle football games on the playground and a lot of the college students would stay around and watch us play. We thought we were pretty good. We had sophisticated plays, double reverses, etc. One of my classmates was Chuck Lappenbusch; his dad was the football coach at Western for years. We’d go to all of the Western games; we’d go to their turnouts and watch them practice, and we knew all the players. An interesting side story to that is that one of my fellow students, and he shall remain nameless at this time, was in line to get a drink at one of the drinking fountains. You know how the kids line up and as he bent over to get the drink, somebody bumped him and he chipped his tooth. When he went home his mother said, “Well, how’d that happen?” He said, “Playing football,” which was not true. But the upshot of it was they made us quit playing tackle football. We had been doing this without pads. It was like rugby is now and it was rough and tumble. We were not pleased! We were not pleased with that decision but I guess that you adjust and move on. You talk about other activities or other things that we did. As I think back, I know the buildings that were here were the Campus School, Edens Hall, Old Main, the library, old Carver gym and I think that was about it. College Hall was built and back then it was a Men’s Residence Hall. At the time where the bookstore is now, were houses and a lot of the students lived in those houses at that particular time. The track was located not far from where the original Carver gym was, down in the hole down there, probably where SMATE is today. We had student teachers that were interested in sports as well, so we would go over there and set up track meets. We’d set up our own track meets. We’d come back on the weekend and if they’d leave the high jump, standards out, we’d do our own thing on the weekends. So there was a lot that we were able to do even when school was not in session. But a lot of what we did revolved around sports games. TB: Did you visit the college itself? The college library you mentioned, [but you did you] attend assemblies or sporting events or anything else at the college when you were in the Campus School? RB: Yes, of course we came to the library, but primarily to come to the children’s library which was located right here. There was another building that I didn’t mention. It was a woodworking building, and located in what is now the parking lot to the east of Miller Hall. It was primarily the shop where they did maintenance tasks, but I can remember in seventh-grade we went to the shop and there was a shop teacher. He later taught in the Bellingham schools, so I’m guessing he might have been a student teacher at that time. His name was Ian Monson. I remember doing woodworking and mechanical drawing in that building. It’s kind of ironic. My father’s original occupation was carpentry and then he lost the sight of one eye and could no longer do that. The carpentry gene pool did not trickle down. I can remember at Fairhaven we 8 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED had to do woodshop one year and metal shop another year. The worst grades I got in junior high school were in shop classes. We went to all the sporting events. We’d go to the college games, basketball games over in old Carver gym. We’d go to the football games, which of course, were held at Battersby Field on the other side of town. Western had a great football team in 1950, that would have been my seventh-grade year, so we knew a lot of the people and some of the guys on the team became student teachers and later went into the teaching profession. Basketball games I can remember some of them. The gym would be absolutely packed; those were the days when it was Eastern Washington, Central Washington, and Western Washington. They played Seattle U, and back in the late Forties-early Fifties, [they] had the O’Brien twins, Johnny and Eddie O’Brien. They’re a legend at Seattle University. They later both played professional baseball, so when they came up here and played the gym was just absolutely jam-packed. I remember we sat on the floor, right by the line that marked the outside part of the gym floor. It was fun, and we felt like we were really a part of it. When we were in the junior high school, when we would go home after school, the basement floor, as you would walk down toward what is now the Career Planning and Placement Center; about halfway down was the bookstore. (And it was even the bookstore when I transferred from the UW in 1957). You’d go there and buy your books, snacks, etc. We’d always stop there to buy an ice cream bar on our way home after our basketball turn out. The campus school in the junior high school was really very interesting. The classrooms I think must have been on the second floor, so we had the seventh-grade, eighth-grade; ninthgrade was in a different corner. Then there was an empty room that became kind of a canteen, where the student council met and kids could go there at noon time as a social time. It would be like the commons you would find in schools now, but not a real common occurrence in any public school, certainly in those days. It was an informal gathering place for kids to get together. TB: Did you go to any of the assemblies at the college? Special speakers or any of that? RB: Do not remember doing that. TB: What grade level did you enter public school? Why did you transfer and what was the transition like for you? RB: It would have been the fall of 1950, and it would have been that group that I went with to Fairhaven. Transition was fine, piece of cake, not a problem. The big difference for us would have been of course that in the Campus School we had just one grade of everything, so, one first grade, one second grade, etc. so the kids that I went to school with were in my class each year. When we got to Fairhaven in the eighth-grade, there were four sections: 8-1, 8-2, 8-3, and 8-4. In my homeroom section at Fairhaven there were probably 2 or 3 kids that went to the Campus School with me. But we learned to get to know other people; it was not a problem at all. The reason we went of course is that the Campus School junior high school was phased out after that year. TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. RB: I don’t think I was especially affected. I’m sure if I knew what I know now, I’d probably recognize more students, probably class sizes were bigger, probably a less forgiving attitude. You know, if you made a mistake in the Campus School they’d kind of work with you. At Fairhaven, if you did something you weren’t supposed to, there were consequences. We’re talking back in the Fifties now, so it was a different world in the public schools. I don’t remember everything of course. I do remember when I was in the eighth-grade and it was basketball season, a bunch of the ninth-grade kids, some of whom I still know really well, decided that it would be fun if they and some of their female friends spent a night on Chuckanut Mountain. We all went up there at various times to hike and fish. 9 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED There were a lot of things to do up there. Well, they went up and camped out. The short story is: they got kicked off the basketball team, except for one, Jerry Punches, whose dad Frank was the eighth-grade teacher. We happened to play Whatcom in the week when these kids had been kicked off, so we had one regular starter and the rest of us were eighth-graders. We lost that game 52 to 19. There were consequences for your actions, there’s no question about that that were different than what we encountered at the Campus School. You talk about teachers that were influential, at the middle school level, I had an eighth-grade social studies teacher and language teacher, his name was Tommy Hewitson, and he was in charge of the school paper. That’s when I really got hooked on journalistic “stuff.” We wrote articles and typed them, as part of a newspaper class/unit of study That goes back to the Campus School influence. In fact, I had a couple of pictures; I could have brought one to you. We’d learned keyboarding in elementary school. It must have been at an early age, because the picture that I’ll bring to our next session shows some of my classmates at typewriters. They’ve got to be about third-grade age I would guess. We learned on old royal typewriters the same make of typewriter that was used at Bellingham High School. When I took typing in high school, it was kind of like riding a bike, thing’s came back to me quickly. I remember in my class, I was a junior when I took typing, I was the fastest typer in the class, even more so than a couple of the girls and I’m sure that it was just the influence of having had previous experience. Then, when I started principaling, my office had the same kind of a machine, a Royal, so my fingers did pretty well. For years I typed my own messages to the teachers, the secretary didn’t do it until one time when I was at Roosevelt and the Kindergarten teacher spied this ancient relic of a typewriter and said, “What do you think? My Kindergarten kids would love to be able to pound on that.” She took it, and then of course, I relied on secretaries for the last part of my career, which probably would have been about ten more years. Then when I came up here following retirement from the public schools, computers were the thing. I resisted computers just as long as I could, because I was more a face to face communicator. In the schools I would go talk to the teachers and principals in person. I finally had to succumb and get involved because principals just don’t use their telephones. Their means of communication, for most of them, is electronic. I did it out of survival if nothing else. The point I’m trying to make is that I think the benefits we got by having that early training at the Campus School; training that you did not get in the public schools certainly paid dividends for me and I’m sure others later on. TB: Did you feel anything in the grading system going from what was a narrative kind of grades to letter grades? Did that affect you? RB: I don’t think so. I mean, I was not a four point student. I think my high school grade point was a 2.83 but I got into the UW. How things have changed. Now, people like me would say it’s primarily due to grade inflation, you know, as I figure my 2.83 was probably about a 3.83 or a 3.9 in this day and age. So no, it probably wasn’t a factor. I know that one thing that I can tell you doesn’t have anything to do with the Campus School. At Fairhaven they offered Latin in the ninth-grade and so my mother decided that that would be the thing to do, like when she thought taking violin lessons would be something I would appreciate. So we took Latin as ninth-graders and then we took our second year at the high school. Well, most of the kids at the high school had taken their first year at the high school, too, and they had a teacher who knew something about Latin. At Fairhaven we really didn’t get much background, so most of the Fairhaven kids struggled mightily. I remember the last grading period I got a D minus and the teacher said, “You know, I really 10 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED wanted to fail you,” but she didn’t. When my mother looked at report cards, she didn’t really care about the grade. In those days they graded as well on effort and attitude. I didn’t do well on those on that particular report card. So I remember stopping at Pioneer Printing or Union Printing on the way home, and got a little ink eradicator and I think I changed the grade to a D plus and changed the effort and attitude, so when I got home I survived what I knew was going to be a battle. TB: And the school didn’t notice that, didn’t they have to sign the report card? RB: They already had. In those days they gave you the report card and you took them home. TB: And nobody had to take it back. RB: No, no. They don’t do that anymore. Now of course everything at the high school level is mailed. TB: What further education did you pursue? RB: When I finished at Bellingham High School I went to the UW for two years, and my major at the time was journalism. I took several journalism courses. I can remember one of the instructors, he called all of the students in to talk to him near the end of the course and he said, “Well, you definitely could do this. Are you prepared to have a career where you’re writing obituaries?” Well, as I look back now, there were a couple of us riding the fence about, “Do we want to stay at the U? Do we want to go back home and go to Western?” It was spring quarter and the good weather was beckoning, a good friend had a place at Lake Whatcom, ski boat, etc. That probably just tipped me over the edge. In retrospect as I look back, I know what the professor was doing, it was a test. What he was looking for was somebody to say, “Not me. I’m not going to be doing that because I’m going to get through this program and I’m going to be out there and I’m going to be the sports editor for the Sacramento whatever.” But I didn’t do that. Still, journalism today is still something that I really would enjoy. TB: So you went to… RB: I went to the U, and then I transferred up here. It would have been spring quarter of 1957. The interesting thing about that is Donald Ferris was the admissions director and his son had been a year behind me in school as I recall, Billy Ferris. The winter quarter at the UW, just before finals week, I got sick and couldn’t take my finals. So I came up here to register and somebody was asking me questions and they asked me about my winter quarter and I said, “Well, I couldn’t do the finals, I have to go back and take them during spring quarter.” And she said, “Well, you can’t come up here because you’re going to have sixteen credits here and fifteen at the U, that’s 31 credits, you can’t do it.” So, I called Mr. Ferris over and he said, “Hey, he’s got the money. That’s his problem. We don’t care. We’ll take the money.” So what I had to do that spring quarter was to on three different weekends go back, or three different Fridays, go back to the UW and take my tests from the winter quarter to finish up. I work now with these students who think they want to be elementary school teachers and obviously most of them are female. I have 25 students this quarter and only one male (which is a sad commentary from my perspective because I think we need more men at the elementary level). And most of the girls knew twenty years ago or fifteen years ago they wanted to teach Kindergarten or first-grade. (I have a group that’s a little different this quarter). I was not one of those who knew forever and ever that I wanted to teach. I came in the backdoor. I was up here and I thought, “Well, you know, if I don’t go into education, I’m going to have to do something else, go back to the U.” So, I did it and it all worked out really well, but I was not one who knew forever that that’s the career I was going to pursue. TB: So you got your bachelor’s degree from Western? RB: Bachelor’s degree in 1959, December of 1959, master’s degree in 1966, in educational administration. 11 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Since you did attend Western and majored in education, did you observe or student teach in the Campus School? RB: No. In those days you did two student teachings. My first student teaching was in the third-grade at Franklin Elementary School, which for me was great because I could walk from home. I didn’t have a car in those days, so it was a great fit. Then the next quarter, which would have been the fall quarter, I did my second student teaching at Nooksack Valley Junior High School. So my certificate when I finished qualified me to teach K through 12. Being a mid-year graduate of course there were not a lot of jobs. I looked at the postings, there were a couple of jobs open in Oak Harbor, so I applied and got one of those and started then in January of 1960. The interview process in Oak Harbor was interesting, but it had nothing to do with the Campus School, so we’ll skip by that one. TB: How did your attendance at the Campus School influence your life and/or career? RB: Well, I think as I look at students that I went to school with and as I talk to these students that came back to the reunion (of course a lot of them were not able to), I think the underlying theme or message that would come through was that all of these kids were successful in whatever they chose to do. You know, be it business, or whatever. We all look back and really realize what a great start we had. I mean, everybody talks about the importance of those early years in education and we definitely had a leg up on a lot of other people. TB: Can you trace really what exactly it was? RB: I don’t know. I think we all enjoyed school. I think that we were a good group. I can’t remember anybody in the group that was any kind of a problem at all. We had to be a real easy group for teachers to work with. Our parents were supportive, education was a valued thing. You had all the things in place that provide school success. Interested, supportive parents, great teachers, great environment in the school setting, smaller class sizes, extra opportunities. We were fortunate. We all know that. We recognize that. TB: Going back a little bit, this isn’t one of the questions exactly on here, but since you had so many student teachers and yet you had the master teachers, how did the master teacher really insert themselves into the process so that you definitely had attachments to certain teachers, with so many student teachers doing so much? RB: Well, there was down time between quarters, of course, when the student teachers wouldn’t be there. I’m thinking about student teachers that I’ve worked with. When they first come to the classroom, the first week or so they’re not doing much. They’re extra help or working with kids one on one and doing these kinds of things, so the teacher’s still going to retain a lot of control. I think initially what they’re doing is they’re modeling instruction for the student teachers that are there. I think student teachers, as I think back, probably did not get to do as much teaching as the student teachers do today. By that I mean, they did units of study, as opposed to teaching all day long, maybe they taught a part of the day. Whereas the students today, to be certified, have to be responsible for everything, all the planning, all the teaching, for a minimum of three weeks. And a lot of them, depending on the teacher they’re working with, will do four or five weeks. I don’t recall where the student teachers really had control of the classroom for a long period of time like that. TB: Are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates and if so, can you help us contact them? RB: Well, going back to the reunion that I was talking about, one of them, Pete Gaasland grew up one block away from me. We were inseparable all the way through grade school, and even into junior high school up until about maybe eighth or ninth-grade. In high school, we drifted apart a little bit, same thing in college and then when we went our separate ways when out there in the real world. I didn’t see him for a long, long time. But we’ve kind of grown back together. We do a lot of things together; we traveled to Scandinavia together for three weeks here a couple of years ago. So, the friendship has been rekindled. He 12 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED would be the closest one. There are a few that still live around town that I see, but I don’t really mix with them socially. But, at the reunion seeing these fourteen kids (and there are a few that I will see on occasions that are not reunions), they’re all doing well. TB: Do you have campus memorabilia, photographs, class publications, crafts, art work, etc.? And may we contact you about these items? RB: Well, I don’t have any art work or things like that. You know, maybe, my daughter might have some stuff. I can ask her about that. What I do have is an annual from junior high school. It was the only one the junior high school ever did, and the title of it was, Alpha-Omega, meaning first and last. And this, in fact, was a picture from it, of our seventh-grade classroom. You can have that as I’ve got extra copies. Carole Morris has that book right now. I’m sure there are other people in Bellingham that still have it. The only thing I’ve got left is that and my lunch pail. TB: All right, but you do have your lunch pail? RB: I do have my lunch pail. TB: So possibly we could borrow that for the exhibit? RB: Sure. I don’t have the thermos. I remember the thermos. It was blue with red circular stripes at the top of it, maybe three or four of them. But it’s long gone. TB: Please share with us any favorite memories of your Campus School days and any comments about areas not covered by the questionnaire above. RB: Well, yes, any special memories. I remember coming to school during the war years. You’d come in the main entrance and they would be selling war bonds. We bought stamps to support the World War II effort. Green stamps, as I recall, were the most expensive and the prized ones. They’d sell purple stamps that were less expensive. But that was one of the things that I remember vividly. I remember the Jersey Street Trail experience all the time, coming across that trail, particularly on our bikes. I can remember a time and I think I was in sixth or seventh-grade when a student who was a year or two older shared that as she crossed the Jersey Street Trail (because she lived down, close to where KVOS is now on Ellis Street), she had been attacked or followed or stalked by some male. So the word was out. For a long time they wouldn’t let us use that trail, we had to walk down Indian Street, and then climb up a steep path to Myrtle Street, and we didn’t like that. But that blew over; there was no big deal about anything like that again. I remember in first grade that Mary Jane we were having a birthday party I think it was Gary Wagner’s birthday. There were cupcakes with one candle and they lit the candles. Mary Jane Sefrit (who came to the reunion, she lives in Florida now) had long hair. She turned around to talk to somebody and her hair caught on fire. We all remember that and we all kid her about it. Somebody got there, put it out immediately, but of course we remember that experience like it happened yesterday. Dr. Haggard, who was the president of the college at that time, and the grass was his domain. You don’t walk on the grass. So I’m in sixth or seventh-grade, I’m not sure which. So this buddy and I, ride our bikes across the Jersey Street Trail and down the walkway in front of Old Main. We must have been at the Campus School, not the junior high school. Down the sidewalk that has all the college memorabilia from the various years, then we’d cut across to our school from there. One time we had our bikes up at the top of the hill right by Old Main. We rode our bikes down the hill out onto the grass, the big expansive grass that is still there. Somebody saw us and turned us in and so Pete and I had an audience with Dr. Haggard about why we don’t ride our bikes on the grass. 13 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED It’s kind of interesting, you drive around now and you see all the maintenance people. In those days, Mr. George A. Dack was the lead grounds man and his helper was a guy by the name of Pete Lundstrom who had a wooden leg. Two of them maintained all of the grounds. TB: Wow. RB: Interesting. TB: Yes. Anything else I haven’t asked you right now that you’d like to comment on? RB: What I did Tamara, in preparing for this was look at the first six things. If I look at the others I’m sure there’re going to be some things that will jog my memory, so if you’re O.K. with it we could do another session some time. TB: Sure, yes, excellent. RB: So maybe we cut this one off at this point and time and I’ll look at that material and then I’ll call you Monday and we’ll set up a time. TB: Perfect, O.K., thank you very much. Session Two – October 17, 2005 -- Tape 2 TB: Today is Monday, October 17th, 2005, and I’m here again with Rob Brand and we’re going to continue our oral history. Some of the questions will be repeated, but he hadn’t really thought about them all before, so we’ll see if that changes some of this. Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? RB: Well, I remember, like everybody does, Miss Kinsman who we had in third-grade. I think the thing that I remember about that is spelling. We did a trial test and a final test. Then we graphed it throughout the year, so I know the Wednesday, or trial test, was graphed in blue and the final test was graphed in red. I remember that during the year I missed one word. I remember the word, it was uncle. I’m not sure how I spelled it, but what she was doing was integrating curriculum. It was not just spelling; it was learning how to do bar graphs and other things not directly related to spelling. We work with our student teachers now, to integrate curriculum and interrelate things, much as Miss Kinsman did back in 1946. It’s interesting, the fifth-grade teacher [Mrs. Gregory], I still can’t come up with her name. I was going to call somebody and ask them, so that one really escapes me, but I know that I mentioned Miss McLeod because she was my sixth-grade teacher and that’s where my interest in journalistic endeavors really had a chance to be sparked and flourish. That’s where it all started. Pete and I did a class newspaper and so that was a special person at that time. Miss Hunt was the seventh-grade teacher. We all remember Miss Hunt. She was old school, like Miss Elliot, the second-grade teacher. She was strict. But, that was O.K. The seventh grade class was a large one in terms of student enrollment, and probably required more structure. In thinking back, I mentioned that we played all the sports. The head coach at one time was Pinky Erickson. (Jerry Punches, I’ll give you his name too, was a year ahead of me, and didn’t go to the Campus School all the time, but his dad was the eighth grade teacher, Frank Punches). Well, Jerry and I were talking, maybe at the reunion, and he said, “Remember when Pinky Erickson was called away from one of our turnouts?” And I said, “Well, probably not.” And he said, “Well, it’s because his wife was having a baby and the baby was Dennis Erickson.” He later became the coach of the Seahawks. He also coached at 14 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Washington State, Miami, Oregon State, and he coached the San Francisco 49ers up until a year ago. I would have been in grade seven at the time. So, that’s one that I did not remember, but Jerry Punches did. TB: Oh, wow! O.K., do you remember any of your student teachers? RB: Well, the one I remember specifically was Stew Van Wingerden. I think that was in fifth-grade, so maybe I remember him more than I remember the teacher. And then of course, I’ve known Stewart ever since then because he supervised student teachers when I was principal at Roosevelt grade school, and then we were colleagues at Woodring when I came up here to work part time. I see Stewart periodically. His daughter, ironically enough, is a teacher in the Nooksack district at Everson Elementary School. I had students there in the mid-Nineties but I never had a student working with her because at the time she was a reading specialist. She is now a classroom teacher at that school. I mentioned the two student teachers that my sister had, so we’ll kind of skip over that one. But I do remember, this would have been a student teacher, his name was Jim Beasley and he helped us with the various sports programs that we had. We played all the sports, so anybody who did anything to help us in sports, that was a plus. I remember basketball. I think I told you about the gym that was down in the basement of Old Main that had a very low ceiling. You couldn’t shoot a regular shot; you had to have a different arch on it, one that had to be flattened out. When I was in seventh-grade we won one basketball game. We beat Custer Elementary School. I don’t know what the score was. My cousin was teaching and coaching at Custer at the time and that would have been 1950. The last two winters, I’ve had practicum students at Custer and the gym is still the same one that they used back then. The school out there has been added onto any number of times but the gym is the gym that we played in in 1950. The Custer school is scheduled for a major remodel in 2008. I don’t know why I didn’t come up with this before; you have to understand that the Campus School had a small population to draw from, so athletically we could not compete with Fairhaven and Whatcom. We played schools out in the county. We won one baseball game and of course the thing I remember from the baseball game is that Jim Mace was pitching for Mount Baker and we had a man on third base, Jerry Larson, and I got a base hit to center field that won the game. Only game we won, I got carried off the field. The next week we played Lynden and I made three errors in one inning. I remember Robbie Calhoun had to come in and take my place. That was going from the ultimate high to the ultimate low in a matter of seven days. That was interesting, but sports were just, our life, that’s the main thing we did; and the academics kind of were secondary to those kinds of things. I do remember another teacher, I jotted it down and I’ll mention this, and not one that was necessarily influential. Her name was Miss Gragg and Miss Gragg was a handwriting specialist. So at the Campus School we had a handwriting specialist and I can remember she came to the classroom and I can remember doing circle-“o”, circle-“o”, circle-“o”, half circle-“c”, half circle-“c”, etc. The irony of it all is that if I looked back at my handwriting in junior or senior high school, it was like chicken scratch. I mean, whatever she was teaching just didn’t take for me. And my handwriting didn’t really improve until I was out principaling and had to write a lot of notes and memos when I was supervising student teachers. It was certainly not the style that she taught us, but I developed, I guess, like most of us, my own particular style. Miss Gragg, I’m not sure, I had in the back of my mind, that she was related to the Haggard family. TB: Miller, she’s Miller’s aunt [or great-aunt, depending on the generation]. Gragg’s named after her. RB: Gragg Miller, that’s what I wondered. I thought the connection has to be that Gragg Miller was named after our old handwriting teacher. 15 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Well, the other question is, did she not teach you printing? I’ve heard people say you learned to print, not handwrite. RB: Oh, she must have, because when I started teaching in 1960 in Oak Harbor, I taught fourth-grade where the children were expected to use cursive. My cursive was so bad that I had to write in manuscript on the board. I couldn’t write in cursive because it was so bad. So I’m sure we spent a lot of time on printing. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? RB: I liked them all in elementary school. I liked arithmetic. It was not until I got to high school and we had to do mathematics that my interest waned I was probably more a literacy, social studies person than a math/science kind of a person. I think I mentioned last week, that my father, by trade, was a carpenter. He lost the sight of one eye, so he had to give it up, because the eye-hand coordination made it difficult to hit the nails instead of your thumb. So he had to change professions, or change jobs. The carpentry gene pool did not trickle down. The worst grades that I got at Fairhaven were in woodshop and metal shop. And to this day, at our house, if it has moving parts my wife does the repair work. My job would be to call the plumber and say, “Come over here, we have a problem.” But she can get in and fix it -- didn’t work for me. TB: Any other thoughts about the textbooks or the learning materials that you might have used? RB: You know, I don’t remember much about the textbooks. I do remember the reading, because we did the Dick and Jane series which came under a lot of fire later on. What I remember about reading is doing a lot of round robin reading. Are you familiar with what round robin reading is? We discourage the students we work with now from doing it. It would be like a group reading and you had x number of kids in the group and one would read, then another would read, another, etc. In the group all you had to do was remember who you followed and then you had to pay attention when they were reading so you would know where to pick up when it was your turn. It’s a system that is no longer taught, but we did that a lot. For those of us that learned to read, that was fun. It was not a problem. The question that I ask students a lot is “Do you remember how you learned to read?” This one came from my wife who was a reading specialist before becoming a principal. Most of us who learned to read without much difficulty don’t remember how we learned to read. If you talked to kids who struggled and maybe were special education students, they will remember all they had to do in terms of “B-ball” and similar tasks. So, you know I don’t really remember and I don’t remember if we had a book for spelling or if we had books for math, social studies and other subjects. TB: Any other thoughts about the grading system? RB: Well, probably as students we didn’t pay too much attention to it. I know it was never anything that as a student I worried about. You know, it was not like the WASL pressures that kids are under now. I knew I was always going to go to the next grade and if there were issues or problems I was never aware of them going through the Campus School. TB: Anything more about the creative activities you might have done, the weaving, making things? RB: I guess I don’t remember as much about that. Usually kids can look back and remember. Even when my son was in middle school at Shuksan, they made things in shop that came home, and we still have them around. Whatever they were, I don’t remember making anything that remained a family heirloom, if you will. What I remember, from a creative standpoint, is more the creative writing in terms of newspaper kinds of things as mentioned earlier. It was not something that was specifically taught. It was more 16 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED something that was encouraged and we did more of it pretty much on our own as opposed to something that was a specific class time that was set aside. TB: Right. So did you start a newspaper then… RB: We did one in sixth-grade. But it mostly had to do with sports things that happened outside of school, as opposed to writing about what was going on in the Campus School. TB: What were your thoughts about what the class was like with student teachers observing and/or teaching lessons or parts of lessons? Any thoughts on that? RB: No, as I look back, I know the expectation on student teachers in those days was not like it is for student teachers now. When they go out today, they have to do at least three weeks of full time teaching, where they do all the planning and all the teaching for three weeks. It could be longer, some will do four weeks, or five weeks. It will depend on the teacher, the supervisor, the student, etc. I don’t remember them taking over like that. What I remember about them is their being responsible for a unit of study in science, in social studies, doing plays, things like that, things that our regular classroom teacher probably would not have the time to do. From the classroom teacher’s standpoint, it was a real plus. I know the Campus School and its focus changed after we were gone. I think when we were there probably what was happening instructionally was not a great deal different than what you’d find in the public schools. I think the basic difference would have been the number of adults you had, a smaller class size, a lot of extra things that you could not provide in the public schools at that time. Later on they got into things like foreign language and other things that were just not a part of what we experienced when we went through the program. TB: Anything more about the extra-curricular activities, recess, lunch time, games that you played? RB: Well, I mentioned the sports stuff, which I say was absolutely critical. I think that a typical day, when we got finished we’d play either on the grounds or we’d go over and watch the football team turn out or watch the students playing track and things like that. We’d come up on weekends and do our own track meets on the track. Those were the days when we didn’t have programs in the community like they do today. So when kids did something it was, “Let’s meet somewhere and divide up” and we’d play work up or have teams if we had enough people to do that. But we were not dependent on a coach being there and somebody blowing a whistle and saying “Now, this is what we’re going to do.” It just didn’t occur. I can’t remember the grade, Pete Gaasland probably would remember. We would have been in fourth or fifth-grade. It was the first year that Bellingham had a summer baseball program. Frank Geri, who was an institution at Whatcom Middle School for years; he was the boys’ P.E. teacher (and my aunt was the girls’ P.E. teacher. She later taught math). Well, Frank started a summer baseball program and the first year, kids were not age divided. So as fourth or fifth-graders, and I’m not sure exactly which, we played on a team that had high school and junior high school kids too. You can imagine the success we enjoyed when we were at bat against somebody throwing real hard. None. I don’t think I got a base hit the whole year. Which reminds me of a story, when we were on the baseball team we played out at Nooksack Valley. Now, remember, I’m a seventh-grader, so my bat was almost as big as I was and we played against a pitcher, Bob Reimer, who has since passed away. He later, went to the UW and pitched for them. He got a scholarship to the University of Washington. He threw hard. I was the first batter up and I walked on four pitches and I don’t think I saw one of them as they just went by me. The next two guys went out and so I got the sign to try to steal second base. The second baseman was Pete Gaasland’s cousin who lived in Sumas. I took off and he had the ball waiting for me and said, “Don’t bother to slide, Butch,” (Butch was my nickname at the time). I mean, I was out by twenty feet. But the interesting thing about that game is 17 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED we didn’t get a hit. Not just me, nobody got a hit. And by the fourth inning I would say, the only Nooksack players that were on their feet were the pitcher and the catcher and the first baseman. Everybody else, the outfielders were lying down, the third baseman was sitting on the bag. They knew this guy was so good that we weren’t even going to touch him. And we didn’t. So it’s funny how those things kind of stick in your memory bank. TB: That’s right. Any other thoughts about your interactions with the college itself? RB: You asked that question before and I tried to think about that one and I don’t remember. I don’t remember doing things with performing arts, those kinds of programs. Like we mentioned, we supported them in the sports programs, particularly basketball and football. The only tricky thing about coming to the basketball games at night was on the way home we had to go across the Jersey Street Trail when it was pitch black. I can remember one time when I was by myself. I started from this end by Edens Hall and I got up on the flat part of the trail, I could see a cigarette coming toward me. I knew somebody was going to be on the trail with me, probably about the middle of the trail, which was a part where there used to be an old motorcycle climb that they used (they came off Indian Street and would try to see how far the motorcycles could get up the trail). So I worried all the time; who was this, was it going to be a problem. When we got side by side, I just took off and ran as fast as I could. It was not a problem, but it made you think a little bit when it was ten o’clock at night in that kind of a setting. The safest way would have been go down High Street or Indian Street, where there were street lights. TB: Were the kids really supposed to be on those trails in the woods? RB: Well, we grew up on the other side of Sehome Hill, so we were up there all the time. I mean, we camped out on Sehome Hill. We went up there and did all kinds of things. So for us, it was just kind of an extension of our back yard. But I mentioned to you about the girl, who some male advanced on to some degree. It was nothing that was overly serious, but it got everybody’s attention and for a time they said we couldn’t use the Jersey Street Trail going to and from school. That lasted for maybe a couple of weeks and then everything was fine and they changed back. That was the only time. Other than that, I mean, that was just common stuff for the neighbors that lived on Liberty, Key, Jersey, Mason, and Myrtle Street. That was our transportation mode. TB: Any other thoughts about when you transferred to public school, after eighth or ninth-grade? RB: Seventh-grade for me. I left after seventh-grade because they closed the junior high school in June of 1950. TB: O.K. RB: The Korean War veterans [were] coming back and they needed the space. The junior high school was not a part of what is now Miller Hall. It was in Old Main. And there were three classrooms. One room set aside, as I mentioned was kind of a social gathering spot. They called it the canteen. You could buy pencils, paper, and those kinds of things. That’s where student government met and did their thing there. Student government was kind of interesting. I know that in the seventh grade I ran for treasurer. Interesting they would have a seventh-grader be the treasurer and I think for some years after that we still had five dollars in the bank. I don’t think I closed out the account. I ran for treasurer against my best friend, Pete Gaasland, and I was elected. I’m sure the reason was that I had an older sister in ninth-grade so I probably got some of the ninth-grade votes that he wouldn’t get, simply because of that. What I remember is the campaign speech that I gave. Not every part of it. It was not an original. My aunt, who taught at Whatcom, had seen somebody do that speech at Whatcom. What is was was you go through 18 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED the word “treasurer.” So, you know, O.K, “T,” I will be trustworthy, “R,” I will be responsible, “E,” I will be earnest, “A,” I will be accurate. I might be able to resurrect the whole thing, but that was the campaign speech and I was elected. We did student government and did some of those kinds of things. There was a student council and I don’t know how much say we had about what happened or what didn’t happen, but it was an attempt, I think, to get us somewhat involved. Then as I was reading through, I think I left you the picture, the picture, of the seventh-grade class. Did I leave you a picture of the seventh grade class? TB: No. RB: O.K., we’ll talk about that. But I noticed in that picture, that’s a part of the Alpha- Omega annual that I have, we also had officers, each of three quarters, in the class. So our individual classroom had officers for all winter and spring and I’m sure the eighth and ninth-grade kids did, too. So I think it was obviously an attempt to get us introduced at some level to government and how it worked. TB: So any other thoughts about what the transition was like from Campus School to the junior high? RB: It was not a problem for me and not a problem for those people that were close friends of mine either. I did have a cousin, distant, very distant cousin, who would have been a ninth-grader at Fairhaven when I was an eighth-grader. I think he kind of got the word out. You know, we had heard all the horror stories; they’re going to stuff you in the garbage can. The same thing goes on now when the kids leave Happy Valley or Larrabee or Lowell, they hear the stories about getting your head stuck in the toilets or stuck in a garbage can. It truly doesn’t happen. There was no hazing that took place for us that I can recall. TB: And then getting grades, suddenly getting grades after…? RB: I suppose that was different, but again, school for me at least, at that stage of my career, was not an issue. I never had to worry about what kind of grade I was going to get. TB: Well, any other comments then about the education that you further pursued, because you went to Western and got your bachelor’s degree in education, right? RB: Correct. TB: Any other thoughts about that and the influence the Campus School had on you. For example, did Campus School influence your going into education as a teacher? RB: No. In fact, when I got out of Bellingham High School in 1955, the goal for most of the kids was not to go to Western. Bellingham High School, from a population standpoint was probably almost as big as Western was at that particular time. It’s a beautiful campus. People that grow up somewhere else and come up here and some of these kids live in these dorms that overlook Bellingham Bay; that’s going to be the best housing they have as long as they live. But for us that grew up here, it was not the thing to do. I was going to go to Washington State for ever and ever. Peer pressure, a lot of my buddies were going to the U, we were being rushed, and several of us joined the Sigma Nu Fraternity. So, we were there, kind of as a group, kind of did our thing. I stayed there for a couple of years and then came to Western, but even when I came to Western, it was not with the idea of becoming a teacher. I was not one of those who knew in Kindergarten that I was going to be a Kindergarten teacher. I get students like that: “I’ve known since I was in Kindergarten with Mrs. Jones that I was going to be a Kindergarten teacher.” I’m one of those who can prove that you can come in the back door as an educator and find your niche and be successful. I came in the back door and found that yes, this indeed was a calling for me and today I’ve been doing it for 46 years. So, it must have been a fit somehow. 19 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Yes. So how did attendance at the Campus School influence your life? RB: I don’t know about that. I think that as Campus School students we were privy to a lot of things that kids in the public schools didn’t get. I think the expectation pretty much for most of us was: Campus School, high school, college. I think that was just kind of an unwritten credo that we all subscribed to. It would be interesting. I talked about the reunion and the number of kids from the Campus School that were there, seventeen, which is pretty good, and fourteen of them at the school since Kindergarten. But what I don’t know is how many of those kids went to college, how many finished college, what they were doing later on. It would have been an interesting thing to try to find out. TB: Have we totally gone over what kind of Campus School memorabilia you might have, including photographs, class publications, crafts, artwork that we…? RB: I have a few photographs. If I could come up with some I will share them with you. Carole has the annual, but I’m sure a lot of folks still have the annual. That’s probably about all that I have left. I looked for ever for my basketball jersey, because we all got to take them with us at the time. It used to be on a panda bear that I’d had when I was young, but it’s gone, gone forever. I do remember we talked about the crafts, the woodshop, the typing, and those extra things. I do remember in seventh-grade we had cooking class in Old Main, down in the basement of Old Main at the far end, and the instructor was Miss Countryman. Her [nephew] Keith Countryman was in my class and her [niece], Sidney Countryman was in my sister’s class. Now, the interesting thing about the Countryman family is that when we were in sixth-grade, we had School [Crossing-Guard Patrol], just like the public schools did. The crosswalks that we covered were High Street, where the bookstore is now and then straight down below on Garden Street where all those streets now come together. School patrol was a big thing, you wanted to be captain or lieutenant and I’m sure I was at some point in time along the way. But the public school kids, the trade off, or the carrot that they looked forward to at the end of the year was going to Birch Bay to the amusement park to ride the rides. Our parents at the Campus School were not just going to do what everybody else did. So we went to Orcas Island to Cascade Lake in Moran State Park. The interesting thing is how we got there. We got there on the Osage, which was a mail boat that plied the waters from Bellingham and delivered mail out to the islands. The owner and captain of the Osage was Keith Countryman’s father. I don’t know if you get the Bellingham Herald. Do you get the Bellingham Herald? There was a picture in there probably about two weeks ago, (I should have cut it out and didn’t). It showed the Osage, and what it said is that they lost the mail contract in 1950. That would have been the year that the Campus School junior high school closed down. So, when Keith and the rest of us went to Fairhaven, that’s when his dad lost the mail contract. I think it said he continued to carry cargo for a time, but not for a long time. That’s about the time when that type of mail delivery or cargo delivery was being taken over by other, more efficient means. So that was a very special ending to our sixth grade year. I remember the end of our seventh-grade year, too, because of course, that was the end. That was the end of the Campus School. Our entire seventh-grade classroom went to Pete Gaasland’s summer place at Lake Whatcom. Do you know where The Firs is located now? Well, The Firs bought that property from Glen Corning, who had all the property around Lake Louise. I think he had about 35 acres, maybe more than that. If you went south down the island toward blue canyon, the next piece of property was owned by Pete Gaasland’s dad -- beautiful property, white sandy beach, just a great spot. So we all went out there the last day of school. The whole class; the mothers did a huge buffet luncheon or dinner. That was kind of a special ending for our class, even though we didn’t really split up. Our class, the whole bunch of us, went to Fairhaven the next year. So we still saw everybody and were in some of the same rooms. But obviously, compared to the Campus School, Fairhaven was about four times bigger. TB: Any other favorite memories or comments that you haven’t talked about? 20 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED RB: It’s interesting. I called my sister to see. I said, “I know you’re not going to fill out the survey.” (I think she’s on the reunion committee, that’s what Carole told me, I don’t know). I said, “Just send me a couple of memories, if you can think of any.” What she remembered was buying the savings bonds, the war bonds, like we all did. TB: During World War II. RB: Yes, and she remembers the smell of the rubber ramps. Like I told you, if students come back now, the only thing they’re going to see that they’ll remember are going to be the ramps, because they’ve chopped up all the classrooms into small spaces. I didn’t notice the smell of them, so I thought that was kind of interesting. TB: The woman I did yesterday talked about the smell of campus. RB: Did she? TB: Yes. Well, anything else? That’s all of our questions. RB: One other thing that I’ve got down, two other things. And one of them fits with “how you got to school and back.” As I told you, Pete and I rode our bikes across the Jersey Street Trail, now this is an interesting one. So, at both ends of the trail, it drops down, so at the other end of the Jersey Street Trail, when you come down the trail, like this, it makes a bend and Jersey Street is below. Well, our bikes were really very interesting. Pete had a Pioneer bike, a blue Pioneer bike. I had a silver and black Hawthorn that my folks bought out in Blaine for five dollars. Now, you have to understand, this is wartime. We were lucky to even have bikes. To this day I remember, I saved and saved and saved so I could buy a new bike, I paid a hundred dollars for it and it was not nearly as good as that old Hawthorn bike that I had. Pete could only work the brakes if his right foot were in the back position – on this one occasion his feet were reversed, he could not slow down, missed the curve and went airborne, landing in a heap below on Myrtle St. The good news? Both Pete and the bike were O.K.! 21 Robert Brand Edited Transcript – October 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Jean Burnet interview--September 9, 2005
Description: Jean Burnet attended the Campus School from 1931-1942 (kindergarten through ninth-grade). She later attended Stanford University. Her family were good friends with the family of Arthur Hicks.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_BurnetJean_20050909
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Jean Burnet ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" cr
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Jean Burnet ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Jean Burnet on September 9, 2005 at her home in Menlo Park, California. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Friday, September 9th, 2005 and I (Tamara Belts) am here with Jean Burnet in her home in Menlo Park, California. She just signed the Informed Consent Agreement and we will now proceed with the oral history. She has an outline that she will follow. JB: All right. My name is Jean Burnet, and I was born on March 18, 1927, at 401 15th Street in Bellingham, Washington. There’s a little story that goes with my debut. My father was a Scotch immigrant and had brought all of his family with him and as you probably know, at the early part of the century, the Scotch and the Irish did not get along well. My grandfather was the presiding physician at the birth and my mother begged him to make sure that I wasn’t born on St. Patrick’s Day. He managed to hold me off until a couple minutes after one o’clock on March 18th, much to my mother’s relief. Our family history in Bellingham all starts with my grandmother who was born Sevilla Cleveland in Illinois in 1865. She grew up on a farm which was on the Rock River and she used to tell about the annual spring floods that would bring their neighbor’s topsoil down and deposit it on their farm and take her topsoil and deposit it on the farm below them! She said they had a different batch of topsoil every year because of the floods. She went on from the farm to graduate with a master’s degree in mathematics in 1889 from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. When she was at DePauw, she became a charter pledge of the charter chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta, which was the birthplace of that sorority. In later life, I ran into women who had said that when they were initiates into the Theta sorority they had to memorize my grandmother’s name as part of the initiation ceremony, which was kind of fun. She had a college romance with the man who later became her husband, but in the meantime she went to have the Grand Tour of Europe after graduation. She went to the Black Forest and learned how to carve wood. I have a mirror frame and my brother has a three-panel screen and a bookcase that she carved. In their house in Bellingham, she carved panels that flanked their entire staircase to the second floor from the entry hall. She was a very serious carver. She and her husband had been at one time students of David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford University. He invited them to be on his first faculty, but Grandma had already been to Lynden in the Washington Territory, where her brother, Frederick Cleveland, was practicing law. She liked the wildness of the frontier, and she thought Stanford was too “sissy-fied.” When he finished his medical training in Indiana (my mother was born in Tipton, Indiana in 1892), they went right away to Bellingham where he established his practice and eventually built the house at 413 Maple Street in Bellingham. It was a three story house quite close to town, if you know where Maple Street is. After he passed away in 1927, she converted the house to eight apartments, and the last time I went down that street, it still had the sign “Axtell Apartments” on the front of the building. As far as I know, they’re still there. That was where my mother grew up. 1 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED My mother married right after she graduated from the University of Washington in 1913. She married a student from Pullman, which was known as an agricultural college. He was going to be a farmer and they homesteaded in Okanogan, a god-forsaken patch of dry desert. They had nothing but jackrabbits and sagebrush as far as I could tell the one time I saw it. They also had a farm in Laurel, which now I think is part of Bellingham. My brother was born there in 1915. Unfortunately, the Spanish flu caught up with his father and my mother was widowed when my brother was only three. By that time, my grandfather was an army doctor serving in World War I, and my grandmother had been elected to the Washington State Legislature in 1912. I believe two women were elected that year, so they were the first two. Then she ran later for the US Senate and just missed being the first woman Senator by, she said, ten or fifteen votes that were missing from out in Oak Harbor someplace. It was full of high drama in those days. President Wilson appointed Grandmother to be the first woman to head a federal commission. She went to Washington to discharge those duties and my mother and brother went to live with her in a residential hotel in Washington. Douglas MacArthur and his mother lived there and my grandmother often played bridge with Mrs. MacArthur. Mother taught high school at Western High in Washington and had the distinction of having the first Miss America in her home room (Margaret Gorman, 1921). I think she was sixteen or something like that. She was still with us until fairly recently. Anyway, they came back - when my grandmother’s duties were finished - to Bellingham and my mother and my brother Bill lived in their house on Maple Street and Mother started back teaching in the English department at what was the Normal School. My grandmother started teaching in the first school that was out in Lynden and then it moved to Bellingham, and I think then it was called the Normal School. In my tenure at the Campus School, it was called the college, Western Washington College of Education. Then I think it went to Western Washington State College, and then Western Washington University. Anyway in 1922 Mother started back in the English department, only taking time off for my birth in 1927, I started to kindergarten when I was four and a half so that Mother could go back to teaching. Bill was already in high school by then. I think the Campus School went through - it was called the Training School then – I think it went through eighth-grade and then he went to Fairhaven High School. I came along in 1931 to go to the Campus School. I went two years to kindergarten because I was so young. My parents decided (since I was born in March), I was either going to be the oldest kid or the youngest kid no matter what class I was in. There was to be a new substitute kindergarten teacher, so I would have had a different teacher those two years. I actually went eleven years to the Campus School because I went from 1931 on through 1942 through the ninth-grade. Generally speaking, we were almost all the same children in the class. There were between 22 and 25 children in each grade. Some moved away and some went to different schools and new kids came in, so there was a fluctuating band of students, but the core of us all went off to high school together. You can imagine going from a class that small and with the same children for nine or ten years -- Bellingham High School was an eye-opener for us. All these wonderful strange boys with their athletic sweaters and all the people you’ve never seen before and you’d wonder who they were and where they came from. They came from two junior high schools; there were two junior high schools besides the Campus School. I should say that the college physical plant at that time consisted of Old Main, Edens Hall, Sam Carver Gym, the Library and the Industrial Arts Building and that’s all there was. The college students and the training school students all were going to class in the same building. In fact, the ninth-grade classroom was next to the President’s office near the front door. Some of us little girls that were fourteen or fifteen (trying to get away with wearing Tangee lipstick, thinking nobody would notice), discovered that if we went out to the one drinking fountain that was there in the central hall at the entrance to Old Main during the breaks when the college students were changing classes, we could see all the eighteen and nineteen year old college freshmen with their athletic sweaters and their mysterious ways. We drank a lot of water! We spent a great deal of time going to the drinking fountain! 2 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Kindergarten through third-grade was on the first floor above the gymnasium; the basement was the ground floor. Then on the second floor were fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. Until we got to the ninth-grade, we didn’t move from classroom to classroom. We stayed in the same room all day, but we did have special classes using teachers from the college. It started out I remember as being hobbies, and you could choose (I don’t think it was every week, I think it was every other week). You could go to typing or you could go to art or you could go to industrial arts, or you could go to music. There were quite a few choices. That was when we were actually taught by college teachers. My recollection of the Campus School is that all the teaching was done by students and the teachers – the bona fide teachers, so to speak – were observers. It wasn’t the other way around. The teachers didn’t teach and the students watch. The students taught and the teachers observed. We usually had two per quarter, so over the years we saw quite a few budding teachers go through. The teachers, it’s odd that I cannot remember the names of two, but I can remember all the names of all the others and of course they were all single women. There was just one man who was the ninth-grade teacher and he didn’t last very long. One of the chief benefits for my brother and me was that we were faculty kids. We did all the special events that included the faculty, like every Christmas there was a faculty party at Edens Hall. I think it was on the top floor in what was called the “Blue Room.” Christmas will always mean for me (I think we went beginning when we were four, five, around in there), the spotlight going on and making a circle on the floor (usually we kids were sitting on the floor or crawling around on the floor); Victor Hoppe, the head of the drama department would step into the spotlight, and he would say “Old Marley is dead. Dead as a doornail.” He would go on with his special shortened reading of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. You didn’t have Christmas until you had Vic Hoppe saying “Old Marley is dead.” There was also caroling; we had students come at five, six in the morning. Of course, it wasn’t really at Christmas because they were home on vacation, but they would come and carol in the dark to each faculty house and we had quite a show on Fifteenth Street because Sam Carver lived across the street and Herbert Ruckmick, the industrial arts man, lived two doors down so we got quite a nice little concert. Then there was the spring tea for the faculty wives and women and they took their daughters. There was a weekly faculty night at the swimming pool. My dad used to take me swimming at Carver Gym. There were lots of advantages to being faculty children. That’s how our family happened to join forces with Arthur Hicks and his wife Bernice and daughter Clarimonde. Dr. Hicks was the head of the English department and had quite recently gotten his PhD from Stanford. I think Clarimonde was eight when they moved to Bellingham and lived in an apartment on South Forest Street. They eventually built a house a couple of doors down. By that time, my relatives from Scotland had pretty much dissipated and we were just a one-child family. My brother had gone off to college, of course. We spent our holidays together and sometimes a little bit of summer vacation. We were very close. One of the big memories is when the Hicks first moved to the neighborhood, we would wake up in the dark in the morning and hear his feet pounding down the sidewalk because he ran every morning, and that was very unusual in the Thirties. He’s well known for walking and reading. I think until the very end he always walked to and from school, always reading. One of the advantages of going to the Campus School was that we had special classes. A college teacher taught music, and then she also conducted the junior high school orchestra, which I played in diligently for three years. We also had the advantage of having classes with Herb Ruckmick, for instance, who taught us auto mechanics and photography, how to develop film and print pictures and make pinhole cameras. He went on to a very illustrious career as a civilian employee in photography with the Navy in Washington. We also had the art teacher from the college who taught us many kinds of art, from papier maché to water colors to oils. I’m pretty sure we went once a week to handwriting class with Miss Gragg. I’ve noticed as I’ve kept in touch with my Campus School classmates, all of us have quite distinguished handwriting, and I think it’s because we were kind of busting out from her strict rules! There was a typing teacher, if you could imagine, on the college level and we all were exposed to typing, so we all came out of the Campus School being able to type, which was certainly a great advantage. 3 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The impact on all of us from going from such a close little community to such a big high school was something that I think I’ll always remember, particularly since it was during war time and there were odd things like shoe rationing and food rationing. I wore wooden clogs half of the time in high school because I was saving my leather shoes for when I needed them. We had a teen canteen downtown in the YMCA building that had to be maintained. It was on Friday nights only, I think. We shared the space with the USO, who had it on Saturday night, and then they had a Sunday canteen for the servicemen that were in town. Another aspect of being a faculty child, and particularly my mother’s child, was that she was responsible for the publication of the weekly newspaper The Collegian and the yearbook, which was the Klipsun. The people in her journalism classes used to come once a quarter to have a party at our house. It was always lots of fun and my father was pouting around because they all called him Frank, but they called my mother “Ma,” “Ma Burnet.” Part of the fun of that was – this was at the very end of the Thirties – some of the boys who were editors used to take me to football games. I remember Clarence Soukup, particularly, had a Model A convertible and he used to pick me up and take me to the football game over at Battersby Field in his convertible. The students seemed to stay close through the years. Finally, toward the end of my mother’s life, she had to beg off corresponding with some of the editors from the Thirties -- that was forty years of correspondence. We’ve got several names floating around here -- my half brother’s last name is “Hussey.” My mother first went to Western as Mrs. Hussey, and then she returned as Mrs. Burnet. In the meantime when my grandmother went into politics, she changed her first name, which was Sevilla, to Frances, because she thought it was a more viable name in the political arena. That’s how come we have so many different names in this really quite small family. I hope that clears some things up. After Grandmother ran for the Senate, she became a parole officer for Whatcom County and had a big shiny star badge and a big county car that was more like a boxcar on wheels the way it was designed. And you know, cars used to tip over all the time in the Thirties. One Thanksgiving we went to Vancouver for Thanksgiving Day in her big car, and all along the way to Vancouver, there seemed to be these big cars lying on their sides. They tipped over either in ice or rain. That was a time to remember because that pea soup fog that apparently appears in Vancouver every once in a while came and we got stuck in the city. We couldn’t get out; we couldn’t find the road back to Bellingham. I remember walking in front of the car with my hand on the fender so I could see where the edge of the pavement was and tell my father how to steer. We finally found a kindly man that said, “Follow me, I know where I am.” So we followed his taillights right into his garage! He said, “Well, this is as far as I go.” We really had no idea where we were then. Finally we found a street; we had to just leave the car. My grandmother, my mother and I had to take a street car back downtown and stay overnight. We barely got out the next day because the fog really didn’t lift. There are two special memories that I remember about my time, my age and what it was like to grow up going to grammar school in conjunction with a college and college students. Besides the drinking fountain escapades, one of my friends who was also fifteen and I noticed that all the students walked up High Street and crossed on a crosswalk in front of Edens Hall and then walked along the drive in front of the knoll and then into the Main Building. We noticed that there were a lot of college boys using that crosswalk because Edens Hall I believe was the only dorm on campus. The men had to find their own housing. So we volunteered to be there at eight o’clock as crossing guards because school didn’t start until nine. We were there every morning, saying hello to our favorite ones and picking out how “He‟s the cutest”, “No, he‟s the cutest,” “Oh no, oh, no, I know the cutest one!” We were never late, wind or rain or ice and snow didn’t deter us. I decided that my favorite of all was a husky young man who was probably eighteen or nineteen named Rolf Jensen. True to his name, he had blonde, blonde hair and piercing blue eyes and a nice tan, a husky boy. Boy, I made sure that I got to say hello to him every morning! Fast forward to 1950 and I’m in the Foreign Service working in the embassy in Buenos Aires, and someone comes into my office and says, “There‟s someone to see you out in the lobby.” And I said, “Who?” and she said, “Well, he says his name is Rolf Jensen.” If you can imagine, I just gasped. I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe it! And there he 4 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED was. I had a roommate from Ellensburg, who also had red hair, as I did, and he squired us two redheads around town for the whole weekend and we sure turned a lot of heads with his blonde hair and us two redheads. It was quite an unusual sight in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I’ll tell you. I have one other interesting story that goes back to the drinking fountain escapades. My favorite was a football player named Pete Gudyka who was a lineman and always wore his letterman’s sweater and I could usually find him on maybe one or two trips to the drinking fountain. On my fifteenth birthday, my grandmother made me a dress with kind of a Hawaiian print blue on white, square neck and a drop waist, because I probably didn’t have any waist yet (and I probably had bands on my teeth). I was out in the alley banging the tennis ball against the neighbors’ garage wall, as I did hour after hour (I don’t know how they stood it). The cook came out and told me that mother said it was time to come in to dinner and to wash my hands in the kitchen before I went in to the dining room. I pushed open the dining room door and there, seated at a candlelit table were Pete Gudyka and his girlfriend, and the current editor of The Collegian and his girlfriend, his name was Al Biggs. Of course mother knew Al, and Pete’s girlfriend was in one of her classes, and somehow or other she imposed on them to come to dinner, and there they were sitting at my dining room table! That was probably the most memorable birthday celebration I ever had. That’s the kind of thing that can go on in a small college with a small student body and a small faculty. It certainly was wonderful for me. When I was I think in the ninth-grade and then the first year of high school, the friend from crosswalk monitoring days, and the daughter of President Haggard and I had a trio that we called the Anjemar Trio, using parts of each of our names. I played the cello, Marcia Ireland played the viola or violin, and Joan Haggard played the piano. We regularly played in the orchestra pit before Theater Guild productions. My father seemed to be in almost every production that came along even though he was a character actor. He did things like Abie‟s Irish Rose and Cappy Ricks and The Man Who Came to Dinner, which was his supreme triumph, Cricket on the Hearth, and Lady Windermere‟s Fan. We played before and after and between acts. By the time I was that age, I was cuing him and helping him learn his lines. I always knew pretty well what the script was, what was going on. One night, I think it was during Cricket on the Hearth, there was this loud scream, and a terrible noise and thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. I soon became aware that my father was on the stage by himself and he was playing two parts (just to keep the dialogue going, he wasn’t acting as though he was the woman). Finally the curtain came down at the end of the act, and we sawed away on our instruments. Then someone came out from behind the curtain and said that the female lead’s dress had caught fire in the heater in the dressing room which was up a flight of rickety steps and she had panicked and started to run and had fallen down the steps, and that was the thump, thump, thump, thump, that we heard. With not a very great lapse of time, the curtain went up and the third act went on, and here she was, in a different dress, of course, but swathed in gauze on both hands and arms, and her hair looked like it had been kind of rearranged to cover some singeing or burns. That was in the Theater Guild that was across from the museum, the Whatcom Museum of History and Art now, which was the original city hall. (There had been one that was in the Parish Hall of the Episcopal Church out on Eldridge, then I think they built their own building and I’m not sure what part of town that’s in, I never was there). It was quite an experience to have had. We also gave recitals presenting the Anjemar Trio for heavens sake. Don Bushell was on the Western faculty and later became director of the Seattle Symphony and he was my cello teacher. The girl who played the fiddle, her teacher was Mrs. Rogan Jones, who had been concertmistress of I think the Philadelphia Philharmonic and had a Stradivarius. We had good times with our music. And of course the concerts, we at that time in the Thirties (I think it stopped when travel became difficult during the war), had something called “Sol Hurok Presents Civic Music”. We had the Ballet Russe and the San Francisco Symphony, and Fritz Kreisler and Artur Rubinstein and Marian Anderson; I think there was a concert every month during the winter. I don’t know how they supported it because the auditorium they used first was just a little auditorium in Old Main, which I don’t think would seat more than 125 or so. It was a subscription series, so maybe they made up the money that way. Anyway, civic music was an institution both for the college and for the community. 5 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED One of the sad events that affected the whole college community and town was the tragic deaths in the avalanche at Mt. Baker. There’s a memorial beside Edens Hall. The news trickled so slowly and when the impact finally came that there indeed had been an avalanche and indeed had been fatalities and who they were, one of them was my mother’s Collegian editor. It really points at the way and the speed with which news traveled in those days because we still had boys pounding down the streets in the middle of the night shouting “Extra, extra, extra!” whenever there was any breaking news. And that went on even until the beginning of World War II. You didn’t have TV cameras and you didn’t have good telephone service and the news came down very slowly from the mountain. It was a dreadful day when we were waiting to hear who had survived and who had not. It pleases me to think that the memorial is still being tended to and people stop and think about things like the vagaries of life, so to speak. One of the big events in the lives of the Campus School students was the assemblies that Mr. Fisher, president of the college, had with us. I remember particularly always Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving and then one other time during the year. He was a special favorite of the children because he was kind of like a big teddy bear, kind of rumpled and tall and very good humored and had a real good empathy with the younger students. One of his sons was a contemporary of my brother’s and they were often playing tennis together in tournaments or just for fun. One summer that I recall particularly, my mother engaged Chuck Fisher to give me tennis lessons every morning from nine to twelve (if it wasn’t raining) on the campus courts up there on High Street. It seemed to me to be an awful long summer. It went on day, after day, after day, that poor boy! I can’t imagine! After it was time to go back to school, he gave my mother a bill for $35 for the summer, which was pretty astonishing. Until his passing, he kept in touch with my brother, who took tennis to a higher level and at 90 is still ranked in international tennis, and US tennis, too. Tennis was a big deal in Bellingham in those days. Some big name tennis players came to play, I don’t know if they were charity events or what they were. The tennis court was a very busy place up there on High Street. One of the things that my brother and I both remember is having to spend many Thursday afternoons in the print shop on the corner of Holly and Cornwall, in the basement of the bank where the Collegian was printed. Mother had to spend Thursday afternoons there reading galley proofs and page proofs. Of course it was all hot-type then, linotypes. We both remember the linotype typist Mr. Sutherland. He used to put our names on a slug and put a penny in the slug and we all had these little linotype things that were stamped all over my old books and so forth, just my name. Anyway, the only daylight that was in that shop came from the round chunks of glass of opaque green I think it was originally, set in the sidewalk on Holly Street. I was fascinated to sit down there and watch the feet going over the glass. It wasn’t clear, and of course it was scratched from being trod on so many years, but it was almost like being underwater. It was a wonderland of looking up and seeing these round portholes so to speak and all these feet walking over them all afternoon. My brother said yesterday he thinks he spent half of his life in the print shop waiting for Mother! We noticed big changes when the war broke out. I was riding horseback and I remember we came back, drove into the garage of a friend’s home and her mother came running out saying, “We‟re at war! We‟re at war! Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor!” A lot of changes came about very quickly. Rationing – for instance, I remember one evening about seven o’clock there was a knock on the back door. We opened the door and there was the son of the people that owned the grocery store that we patronized and he had a hundred pound sack of sugar over his shoulder for us. He said that sugar was going to be rationed the next morning. Little did he know that we didn’t bake or eat sweet things and I think we finally threw the rest of the sugar out when we left Bellingham in the Fifties! Very quickly shoes were rationed and then we had beastly food stamps to deal with. Mother decided that she couldn’t be bothered with food stamps so the three of us had dinner every night and Sunday noon at the house up the alley a little way on Sixteenth Street where an older woman who – it was a large house and just she and her husband were left -- fed, oh probably ten or twelve of the neighbors every night. We just turned our stamps over to her and then we all gathered. Daddy came from the office 6 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED and mother came usually from downtown (enrollment dropped to 400-500 at Western and there weren’t enough students, to really put together a bona fide class, so Mother sold real estate and I think taught one class during the war). When we moved to North Forest Street, we were too far away… I think we still went for the Sunday dinners, but then we gathered at a mom-and-pop restaurant on State Street right in that area of the Herald Building. I remember that three course dinners were a dollar and a quarter, but we had to turn in our stamps, too. I had to bring my food stamps when I came down to Stanford in 1945 because I started just two or three weeks after the war was over. But the gas rationing went off very quickly. The other aspect was, I was in junior high, and I was having my teeth straightened in Seattle, which was a bad move as it turned out because with the speed limit lowered to 35 miles an hour, it took almost four hours each way to get to Seattle to the dentist. Mother had B ration stamps because of the real estate enterprise, so if somebody else drove, we had to give them some of our stamps for gas. If you took the bus, you could never sit down if you were a kid. You always had to stand all the way and sometimes it would be three or four hours. I can remember Bellingham High School won the cross-state basketball championship that year and a bunch of us girls went down and stayed in the Meany Hotel and went to all the games. But getting there and getting home – first of all, there wasn’t space on the buses lots of times, and you’d have to wait and wait and wait until you could finally get on a bus to Bellingham. Then you’d have to stand the whole way. There were quite serious interruptions in what we thought was a nice, small town life. One of the things I dimly remember was large-family life because I was the youngest child almost in my father’s family; he was one of nine children. They almost all except one immigrated eventually to Bellingham and there were a lot of cousins and a lot of uncles and aunts. They were great on doing parties and what I call music hall skits. The brothers would have these tricks that they did. My father always had a lot of hand tricks that he used to bedevil me with when I was a little girl. Anyhow, we didn’t celebrate with his family at Christmas because they were Reformed Presbyterians and didn’t celebrate Christmas; such frivolity was sacrilegious in their view. New Years is the big Scotch party time and they observed among the family a tradition of what is called “First Footing,” where you go around to your friends and your relatives and if you’re the first foot in their door on New Years, then you are going to have an exceptionally fortunate New Year. That was the big thrust there. They eventually all moved on to Seattle and the cousins moved all around the west coast. Grandmother, I think right at the beginning of the war, maybe in 1942 or maybe just before the war, sold the apartment house on Maple Street and moved to the University District in Seattle. She was 75 and my mother described her as “as giddy as a school girl going off to a new school year.” She was really active in Seattle organizations – women’s groups and so forth. Eventually, all that was left was our little family. My brother after the war never came back to Bellingham. He got his college degree at Boston University, living with the uncle that had started it all by practicing law in Lynden and enticing my grandmother to move out to that area. In preparation for a system of ranking for instructors and professors at the college, the day after we got home from my graduation from Stanford in 1949, Mother enrolled in a masters program at the University of Washington and received her master’s degree I guess at the end of the year. I’m vague about this because I was in Buenos Aires and I’m not positive what the timing was on that, but that was how she finished up her career at Western. Her thesis at the University resulted in a booklet entitled Mark Twain in the Northwest, which included his visits to Bellingham and the area. She collaborated with Mark Twain’s daughter, who was a concert pianist and was living in Berkeley at the time and she really enjoyed that connection. I’m not sure that they actually met, but they talked on the phone quite often when mother was writing and after she moved down here to Menlo Park. Her name was Clara Samossoud. Mother’s career ended at retirement in 1954 and since her mother had passed on the year before in Seattle, they felt free to move down to California where I was working in San Francisco. I always thought that 7 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Mother really spent most of her life trying to get to California. For instance, when I was five years old, in fact, for my sixth birthday, we took a cruise I guess you would call it, on a Luckenbach ship from Seattle to Los Angeles and I had my sixth birthday in Los Angeles. It was just after the Long Beach earthquake which was so devastating. I remember driving around looking at the wreckage. There were apartment buildings and big houses with their walls just stripped off and the rooms inside were just the way the people had jumped out of bed and left them. You could see bedding on the floor and tipped over dressers and windows broken out. I’ve always remembered that. The trip was fraught with all kinds of possibilities and impossibilities. I remember the day before we left, I was at home in the bathroom having my hair washed by a lady name Netty Guether, who washed my mother’s and my grandmother’s hair every week. Netty Guether was just finishing up when Mother burst in, out of breath and hat askew. She had gotten to the bank to get the money for the trip half an hour before Roosevelt closed the banks for the bank holiday. We hung in there and got on the boat all right. On the boat we always had the same waiter, as you do on cruise ships usually, for gratuity purposes, I discovered. I was, as I say, five years old, almost six. The ship’s band played a popular song at that time called “Pink Elephants on the Ceiling.” I pestered them every time we went to the dining room, every time we went to the lounge and they were playing, I would pester them to play “Pink Elephants on the Ceiling.” We got off the boat in Los Angeles going down the gang plank and the band struck up “Pink Elephants on the Ceiling!” Lo and behold! Fast forward to 1950, and I’m on a cruise ship going to Buenos Aires and the waiter (it’s an 18-day trip so you talk to your waiters quite a bit) indicated that he had served on the Pacific Coast on the Luckenbach line, and I said, “Oh, I went on a trip from Seattle to Los Angeles on a Luckenbach ship” (I knew the name then, I don’t think I do now anymore). He kind of cocked his head and he looked at me and looked at my red hair. He said, “Did you ever know a song called „Pink Elephants on the Ceiling?’” We laughed all the way to Buenos Aires! Sometimes it’s good to have red hair. In 1954, my mother and father (my father had already retired) sold their house on North Forest Street and moved to Menlo Park. I was still working and living in San Francisco, but it was close enough. Mother worked for four years at Stanford, first in the registrar’s office and then in the education library. After my father’s death and after I moved down from San Francisco to Menlo Park, she became a reporter for the local newspaper, which was called the Menlo Park Recorder at that time. She covered City Hall Planning Commission and Board of Education, all with nighttime meetings and early morning deadlines. She kept that job until she passed on in 1971. She had a very full journalistic career here in California. I am reasonably convinced that she was glad that she finally got herself to California. I think she held it against my grandmother that she wouldn’t come and be on the Stanford faculty. Like her mother before her, Ruth Axtell Burnet was an avid house-remodeler, her finist moment coming in 1934 when Better Homes and Gardens awarded her and her husband second place in a remodeling contest. The article in the August issue, price 10 cents, states that the contest was for projects costing $150 to $500 and that they spent $485.65 to convert a turn-of-the-century two storey house into a sleek Cape Cod home. Next came, ten years later, conversion of a rambling family-style home at 225 Forest Street, into two flats and two apartments. Wartime, it was a difficult project and some materials had to be bought in Canada as they were not available locally. Five years after moving to California, she was at it again, putting a 500 square foot addition on the house in Menlo Park. My ventures in this field have been modest, but I do admit to an urge to change, or add this or that. I like to think my mother would be pleased. She certainly would be pleased to know the house they bought for eleven thousand has a market value of over nine hundred thousand in today’s market! I have been interested to note as the years roll by, the comparison with how we clothed ourselves in the 1930’s and today. My grandmother made most of her clothes: a spring outfit and a winter outfit. My mother and I had a seamstress who made almost all of our clothes until the late Forties. Our seamstress was named Selma Nelson and a Seventh-day Adventist. She would come on Sunday’s and sew all day, pausing only for Sunday dinner with us. By the time I was in high school, Mother would order special things for me from the New York Times, mainly Best’s ads, but she still bought most of my clothes (unseen by me) while 8 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I was at Stanford, mostly from Frederick & Nelson, and even outfits to take with me to Buenos Aires. Luckily, I was a standard size. It was an exhilarating change to go to work at the White House department store in San Francisco and begin choosing all my clothes off the rack – and at a 20% discount! Although it didn’t happen often, I remember with fondness the occasions when we had heavy snow, enough to close school because the college was heated by sawdust burners and the big trucks couldn’t get up the hill to fuel the furnaces. A favorite sledding hill was a block from home, the Fifteenth Street hill. A more challenging one was the run from Seventeenth Street down to the bay, perhaps on Easton Street, but closer to town than Knox Avenue, and longer. All sorts of people were pressed into duty to stand at the intersections to stop traffic as sledders whizzed by. The climb back up was too tedious for me and I stuck closer to home, sometimes chancing the Indian Street hill near school. I fondly recall that we had a white Christmas in 1948, my last Christmas in Bellingham. Early in the Thirties we often trekked across the moor to ice skate at a pond there on the Larrabee property, and before Edgemoor was developed. Skiing was primitive: my rustic skis had just leather straps to hold them to my galoshes. Mt. Baker and its lodge were rustic and quite untouched, although we were all thrilled when the movie crew came to film parts of The Call of The Wild and lots of us gathered to wave at the stars as they rolled through town on their special train. That was nothing compared to when the circus train came to town! Dr. Rykken would round up his kids and their friends and take us on sunny 6 AM mornings to the station to see the animals unloaded and then to follow their parade through town to the circus grounds. I’ve grown up to like nothing about circuses, but when I was under ten it was the epitome of excitement. When it was time to decide where I was going to go to college, I wanted to go to the University of Washington. I actually had been to a few visits and dinner parties at the Theta house and I thought that was my cup of tea. (When mother was a Theta at the University of Washington, they lived in a residential style house and there were eight members of Theta only, big change!). Anyway, turned out that she had applied for me to take the entrance exam to Stanford, which was held in Meany Hall at the University of Washington on a Saturday morning at 8 o’clock. (Friday night, we had a championship basketball team game at Bellingham High School, and as I was a member of the pep club, I was heavily involved. I got about maybe two hours sleep on the road. Of course, it was still war time, so the speed limit was still 35 miles an hour and it took between three and four hours to get there, one way). I thought I was all set for the University of Washington and lo and behold, I passed the entrance exam. As a pleasant dinner conversation, my mother came up with the happy announcement that I was going to go to Stanford because I had passed the exam and I was able to go. Who wouldn’t be able to go? Tuition was $48.00 a quarter, and board and room was $200.00 a quarter, which was ten weeks. So, off I went to Stanford. I think it was planned somehow in the stars or with somebody’s urging that we were all to end up in California. That doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy going back to Bellingham. I have gone; I went to my fiftieth high school class reunion and enjoyed it very much. In August of 1949, I graduated from Stanford, and my grandmother came down for my graduation. She had graduated from DePauw in 1889 and here I was graduating from Stanford and there, still living at Stanford was the second Mrs. David Starr Jordan, whom we called on. There were a couple of professors, I think they were emeritus professors by that time, who had been at DePauw with her, so it was quite an event. For the trip home, I don’t know how we all got in the car. There were four of us and my roommate who came back to visit Bellingham. It was a 1941 Chevrolet, and if you’ve ever seen one of those, … and considering there was luggage besides, I can’t imagine how we sat crammed in that car for two days! My brother had a government career after he’d graduated from Boston University. He was what they called a “90 day wonder;” (quickly produced ensigns in the Navy). I think he went to Harvard for his training and became an ensign in the Navy in 1942. He served mainly on minesweepers in the north Atlantic -- which was very hazardous duty with those little ships -- until he was transferred to the Pacific theater. There he became an aide to Admiral Shafroth, who was on a cruiser. 9 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED In fact, just this past weekend, September 2, Bill has gone to the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Harbor. At ninety, he figures he was probably just about the only one there who actually participated in the ceremony. Although there were quite a few people who had been crew members, he didn’t discover anybody else that actually was part of the ceremony. After the end of the war, he transferred to the regular Navy and served in Panama, again with Admiral Shafroth. Then he switched to the State Department /Foreign Service and served I think about six or seven years in London, then in Munich, then in Burma, Thailand and Togo. He discovered the body of the assassinated president of Togo, who was assassinated about the same time John Kennedy was. Let’s see, Malawi and Lesotho… then he switched to the United Nations and was representative of the United Nations in Samoa – Western Samoa, then he later had some duty in American Samoa and I’ve forgotten what the distinction was between those two. Then he opened the first embassy in Mauritius, so he had a full military career and also a State Department career. He then, after retirement, was I believe vice president of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He was in charge of protocol and making all the arrangements for the foreign visitors and so forth and working as Peter Uberroth’s right hand man. They joined forces again and put on the Miss Liberty weekend in New York, celebrating the anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. So he had that kind of service. Meanwhile, he was playing competitive tournament tennis and was nationally ranked and then eventually internationally ranked in his age group. Although he’s still ranked, I think probably he’s not going to be on the court any further, but he certainly has tournament experience. His training at both Western and the University of Washington stood him in good stead for a lifetime of tennis participation. His wife is also internationally ranked. They have traveled the world over playing under all kinds of circumstances and all kinds of conditions. After some training in Washington DC, I was happy to have six months there living in a boarding house that was right at the Calvert Street bridge over Rock Creek Park and I thoroughly enjoyed the city and enjoyed the time; I was very pleased to be assigned to duty in Buenos Aires. I went down on a Carnival cruise ship, eighteen days to get there, as I mentioned. It was fun in Buenos Aires. Although the Perons were still in power, Buenos Aires seemed, at least on the surface, a rather benign place. I loved the food and loved the music. The city was magnificent and still pretty much in its prime, which I think it reached in about the 1930s when labels on cosmetics and perfume and clothing would say “New York, Buenos Aires, and Paris.” My roommate was from Ellensburg, and she had just had duty with the legation in Vienna. As I think I mentioned, she had red hair too, so we cut quite a swath in our fancy sublet apartment on the twentieth floor of the tallest un-reinforced concrete skyscraper in the western world I think was how it was described. There are no hills or trees to speak of in Argentina, and we were high enough so we could look out over our terrace and see the curve of the earth as the city stretched out in front of us. We had parquet floors, and when the wind blew, the furniture traveled across the floors. You’d go to bed with a chair on one side of the bedroom, and you’d wake up in the morning and it would be against the wall on the other side of the room. Then the Korean War broke out, and I sensed that everybody was going to get frozen in their jobs. I was in the agriculture office. We did a cycle of reports on dairy, meat packing, grain consumption, wool production, shipments of offal to the United States. One right after another – you could look ahead and know exactly what you were going to be typing three months down the road, so I came back to the United States, back to Bellingham in 1950. I couldn’t find any jobs that I seemed to be suited for in Bellingham so on New Years Day, my father and I got on the train and came down to San Francisco to get me a place to live and a job. The first morning I looked in the newspaper and saw that the president of the White House department store needed a secretary, so I walked a couple of blocks down the street, and even though it was a Saturday, I managed to have some interviews and was hired as executive secretary of the department store, which was just a simply marvelous, marvelous job. The man was a Frenchman and had been aide to De Gaulle in the First World War, and was the nephew of the founder of the store, which was almost a hundred years old at the time. 10 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I did runway fashion shows for employees before the store opened for each season. First the gowns for the opera ball opening and the symphony opening. Then the winter clothes would come out and then you’d prance around and show off those things, and then spring and summer. We could shop any time we wanted to at the store -- that was fun. Of course, we had big discounts. Mr. Weill was also very prominent socially and in civic matters. He was president of the de Young Museum Society and was treasurer of the Stern Grove concert group. He was chairman of the signing of the Japanese Peace Treaty during the time that I was there. I got involved in interfacing with caterers and making arrangements for events and parties and that’s what led to my future career that spanned about thirty years. After about three years of that (unless I wanted to go into being an assistant buyer or actually selling, there wasn’t any way that I could progress), I reluctantly went to work for one of the Bechtels because of a contact that was made when Bechtel was building the refinery out at Cherry Point. That was not a good experience. Bechtel owned the workman’s compensation company that naturally serviced the Bechtel Engineering. It involved doing luncheons for the board and luncheons for business meetings in Los Angeles a couple of times, so I was getting more and more experience in events. In 1957, just before my father passed on, I moved down to Menlo Park and got a job at Stanford Research Institute in preparation for their first international industrial development conference which was in San Francisco. It entailed about 500 people and their spouses. It was a big event and the reason I was hired was because I had done these events and meals. One of the founders of SRI (the threads weave around here) was a man named Dudley Swim, who originally was from Lynden and told me that my Grandmother boarded at their house while she was teaching at the school there. At the time when I knew him, he owned Western Airlines and then National Airlines. He was a lovely man as was his wife. I did some parties for him, too. Everything seems to just kind of intertwine here, but all paths seem to lead to California, you notice. At SRI we didn’t have any conference facilities at first. I was doing banquets outdoors under oak trees where measuring worms came down over the table just before the guests arrived, or it rained, or somebody forgot to turn the automatic sprinkler off. Then in 1967, we started planning an international building which would be a conference center with an auditorium, a daily dining room, catering, a bottle club for evening cocktails, and many smaller meeting rooms. It opened Labor Day weekend of 1969 and continued. I think by the time I quit working, our food and beverage volume was up over a million dollars a year, and sometimes we had as many as six or eight private catered luncheons going on at the same time because we had a covered patio area around the courtyard and almost all year round we could have lunch out there if we needed the space. The daily dining room kept us hopping. We were very busy. After that I didn’t do any more traveling. I had been traveling a lot putting seminars on around the country and I’d be in a different city for a different seminar every day. I sure learned how to pack and how not to take too much stuff. I wore the same clothes and if I broke a heel or something I just bought a new pair of shoes. I figured nobody is going to see me two days in a row so I just wore the same clothes. I remember one trip in the spring, I had kind of a leaf green, fuzzy kind of tweed jacket, which was perfect because you could use Energene if you got a spot or something because it was fuzzy, it wasn’t flat, and you could clean it up. I washed my nylons every night, just took enough underwear, no change of clothes. I had to take a hat because we wore a hat and gloves then. Oh and I had sort of a dressy top that I could wear with a skirt for dinner, which I usually ate by myself in the hotel dining rooms. I did two more of those international meetings also in San Francisco. If you look at the Fairmont Hotel on television or in pictures, you see that over the front entrance there’s a bank of international flags – I think there are thirty or so. I originally put those up in 1961 for the international meeting. The hotel liked them so much, they bought the flags from my supplier and they’ve been there ever since. Meanwhile, the international building did not fare so well. It only lasted about twenty five years and then it was dismantled. It was filled with artifacts and handmade rugs and artwork and carvings and all kinds of things donated by our associates around the world. SRI’s business prospects declined and they finally stripped the building and have rented it out to law offices. They closed the dining 11 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED room and they use that for meeting rooms, they kind of put up partitions. They kept the auditorium but they don’t have use of the courtyard for any of their own meetings. Fortunately I was already gone by then. One of the things that goes back to Western is that one of the big events that my Mother planned every year was the Publications Ball, there were no boys for the ball during World War II, so she worked with Buck Bailey, who was the athletic director or coach at Pullman to send over bus loads of their NROTC and ROTC boys. That must have been some drive at 35 miles an hour from Pullman to go to a dance in Sam Carver gym. Buck Bailey was the uncle of the man with whom we designed and built the international building (there’s always another little thread running through). I don’t think Buck ever came to Western, but I sure remember those buses pulling up, because I was of course still in high school. Buck Bailey came through with those poor bedraggled boys. I think that that ball was in the winter time and they’d have to go over one of the passes, Snoqualmie or Stevens Pass. Anyhow, we had a laugh about that; the name of his nephew was Hoot Gibson. He actually has many functions and memorials honoring him at Pullman and in fact was once considered or asked to be president at Pullman. I forgot one little piece of family lore having to do with my grandmother and her experiences in the wild west of Lynden. It must have been about 1890; the terminus for the transcontinental railroad was going to be situated in Blaine. Hearing this stunning piece of news and not wanting to miss anything, my grandmother hired an Indian pony and rode all night with a group of friends to buy property in Blaine. One of our Sunday outings as I was growing up was to go look at Grandma’s lot in Blaine. Of course, the terminus didn’t come and the lot was still empty the last time I saw it. My mother finally let it go for taxes in the mid-Fifties. She also bought a lot close to Geneva at Lake Whatcom. My father and three men from England who were waiting in Bellingham for their minesweeper to be finished, used to go out and chop firewood every Sunday for exercise out at the lake and come to our house for high tea. Finally after about six months and lots of firewood the boat was finished, but never even made it back to England. Those were fun Sundays. Mother also worked at the USO at the YMCA during at least two years of the war and she served coffee and donuts on Sunday mornings to G.I.s. My father was part of a not guerilla warfare but a kind of homeland force that was going to protect us. We had gun emplacements in our backyard on North Forest after the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor. We had trucks with soldiers and submarine guns in place … right next to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where the original St. Joseph’s was. Anyway, in the process of getting documented, he discovered that he only had one fingerprint; that was all he had, he didn’t have any others. When I went to be fingerprinted (so I could be bonded when I worked at the post office in the summer of 1945 after I graduated from high school), turned out I don’t have any fingerprints at all, not one! That caused great consternation when I was in the Foreign Service. Occasionally strangers would call me by some other name. They’d mistake me for somebody else and I’d think, “Oh, please! I don‟t have any fingerprints; I can‟t prove who I am!” I had my dental chart on file at SRI for a long time. Of course, now that’s even gone and some of the teeth are gone too! Every time I see these newfangled ID things that will use your fingerprints, I think, “Well, I‟m out of luck on this one!” I suppose I’m just as conspicuous because I don’t have any. I should have embellished my stories about childhood memories and holidays and parties and the fun that we had with the Hickses. The interesting part was that they were so obviously not from any small town in the state of Washington. Mrs. Hicks was in the style of the Thirties, kind of a flapper beauty with lots of eye makeup and lots of apple red rosy cheeks and clothes fresh off the rack in California when they came to Bellingham. I think I recall that the last fashion show that she modeled in (and she used to do it regularly for various events and charities), she was well into her eighties. The last time that she modeled she was still the same size that she had been when she first burst on the scene. They were (besides Dr. Hicks’ running in the murky hours of the morning) health nuts. My father was bald, and Bernice said that if he would eat wheat germ, his hair would grow back. They gave him a big bag of wheat germ for Christmas one year. I swear it was Valentine’s Day before he stopped wearing wheat germ on his head as he sat around the house with it trickling down over his ears. If Bernice was there, she pretended she didn’t notice. 12 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Another time when we all went to the – it must not have been the Christmas party because it was daylight – Clarimonde stumbled on the top steps of Edens Hall and rolled all the way to the bottom, much to our horror. She got up and dusted herself off and was fine! We also had running jokes. One thing that they did was in the middle of the Depression they built this Cape Cod house on South Forest Street, just down the block from Sycamore. Except for Clarimonde’s bedroom upstairs, they never finished the second story, so there were just all the studs and planks where the floor would be. But up at the top of the steps was one room that was finished and that was Clarimonde’s. The last time that I saw them when I was in Bellingham, Vi and I took them to the yacht club for lunch and went back to the house. They had finally painted the interior of the house; the last time that I had been there when I was in high school, they had never painted the plaster or the woodwork. I shouldn’t tell tales out of school, but when my mother worked briefly in the registrar’s office at Stanford, she said that Arthur Hicks had the highest IQ of any that she could find in the records. He was one sharp cookie! And Bernice – I was scared of her when she first arrived because I’d never seen anybody exactly like that -- but she was a good scout. Arthur was from Ashland, Oregon, but I don’t know where she was from, I don’t remember. I remember going out to work in the Sixties sometime, I went down to the cross street at Gilbert here, and here I see Arthur Hicks with Bernice in the car, driving around and around, peering at house numbers. It turned out that his niece lived in the house at the end of the block. I didn’t even know Arthur drove because he didn’t when I lived in Bellingham. They didn’t have a car and he didn’t drive. Poor mother was still asleep and they of course insisted that they were going to see her. I had to come back to the house and rouse her and convince her that it was really necessary for her to get up and comb her hair and put on a pot of tea or something for them. Sometimes I feel forlorn that none of my family, not even the immigrant Scots, remained in Bellingham. As I’ve said, I feel that my mother always yearned for California; the cruise to Los Angeles in 1933, the drive down to the world’s fair in 1939, my Stanford experience, followed by several drives down when I lived in San Francisco, then Mother’s stint at Sunset Magazine in Menlo Park, and finally their move in 1954 and meanwhile I was settled here and my brother was a diplomat shuttling about the world although he had plainly selected Southern California as his home base by the end of the Thirties. We both feel very close to the town and its history as well as cherishing our own personal deep roots in the area going back more than 75 years. 13 Jean Burnet Edited Transcript – September 9, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Isabelle (Fisher) Berry interview--September 23, 2005
Description: Isabelle (Fisher) Berry is alumna of WWU, Class of 1939. In addition she did student teaching in the Campus School.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_BerryIsabelle_20050923
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Isabelle Berry ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Isabelle Berry ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Isabelle Berry at her home in Bellingham, Washington, on September 23rd, 2005. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Friday September 23, 2005 and I am here with Isabelle Berry. She is a Golden Viking and the sister of Vene Fisher, who was one of the avalanche victims in 1939. We are now going to proceed with our oral history. My first question is, why did you choose to attend Western? IB: Because he did. TB: Did you know you were going to be a teacher? IB: Yes. TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western? IB: From summer of 1936 until spring of 1939. Then I went back and got my degree in 1942. TB: Your BA degree? IB: Yes. That’s all they gave then. TB: Did you go anywhere else or get any other certificates from any other institutions? IB: No. I did go to Monmouth because my first year of teaching was in Oregon and I had to take Oregon history and law. TB: O.K. Have any other family members attended Western? IB: Yes, my granddaughter. TB: What’s her name? IB: Rene Rhone. TB: And then your brother. IB: And my brother. He was in about the third class that got their degree, BA. TB: Do you know why he picked Western? 1 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IB: No. TB: Where did you live when you attended Western? Did you live in a dorm? IB: I lived in Mrs. Davis’ house, but I didn’t see it listed as an organized house. But I know it was an organized house because my sister-in-law had graduated in 1919 and she lived at Davis Hall. The last year I lived at the Harborview Hall. TB: Any favorite memories of your living experiences? IB: No, I don’t think so. TB: What was your main course of study? IB: Science and math. TB: What classes did you like the best or learn the most from? IB: I think math. Although, I took a lot of history because I felt I was weak in history. When I went back for my degree, I took several history classes, and I ended up with that as being a teaching a field because I had taken so many history classes. TB: What other extracurricular activities did you enjoy the most? IB: I loved sports. When I was a junior, I was vice president of the Associated Women Students. TB: What was that like? What kinds of things did you do? IB: The Associated Women Students provided three assemblies for the women during the year and I was in charge of doing that – of getting the speakers or entertainment. TB: What kind of speakers did you usually try to get? IB: I only remember one and that was Miss Lowman, who had paddled to Alaska in a canoe. She was from Anacortes. She came and talked to us. I don’t remember the other two! TB: Was it usually a woman speaker? IB: No, not necessarily. TB: Also, you were on the WAA (Women’s Athletic Association) cabinet. IB: Yes. I was one of the sports directors or whatever. General Sports Manager I think it was called. That held the same point value as the president, and you worked for points to get a letter sweater. The quarter I was to get a letter sweater, they discontinued them! Miss Rupert, the newest of the PE teachers, was very opposed to the letter sweaters. She got them done away with. That was a disappointment. TB: Was Lillian George still around when you were there? She worked in the library as a cataloger. IB: I believe she was, but I don’t remember her. I’m sure she was. TB: Did you have any experiences with the Campus School or the Training School? 2 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IB: I did my student teaching in the Campus School. Well, not in the new school, it was in Old Main. My first student teaching was in math in the seventh grade. Then I did my second student teaching in the spring under Miss Trent because I thought I needed to be qualified for both fourth, fifth and sixth and seventh, eighth and ninth. That was junior high. You had a different supervisor for those. Miss Trent was very unhappy with people who came down from junior high and taught in intermediate because you needed it to get a job, or you thought you might. TB: Oh. So she didn’t think you were as devoted to that age group or something? IB: She didn’t think that we should change. TB: What was it like doing your student teaching in the Campus School? What was the Campus School like? IB: It was part of Old Main. I had Miss Van Pelt as the math teacher and she was a very strict, very severe person. But I don’t remember the lady I taught under out in the city. I went out to the city for my intermediate teaching. I can’t remember where the school was. I’ve tried and tried to find it! TB: So you did the Campus School student teaching… IB: In the fall. Then in the winter I did some student teaching under Miss Weythman for PE. In the spring I did student teaching out in the city. TB: Was that pretty customary for people to do student teaching out in the city as well as in the Campus School? IB: Well usually you had a choice, but I was working toward my degree. When I started, I thought I would go straight through. I started it in the summer. But then I didn’t do that so I was just getting in all my student teaching in one year. When I went back to get my degree, finish it up, I didn’t have to do any student teaching. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers and why? IB: I think Dr. Bond (he was the math teacher), Miss Weythman and Miss Rupert, and then I took some classes from Arntzen in history. I think they were my favorites. TB: Tell me a little bit more. What was Dr. Bond like? IB: He was a very friendly, interesting person. He had been superintendent in Coupeville at one time. He always treated the kids from Coupeville with a little special favor; we were always invited to his house for dinner. My first quarter I took two classes from him, I took beginning math and junior high math. I did very well in the beginning math but not so good in the junior high math. I think I got a B. Then I took trigonometry from him. I used to be very good in geometry in high school but somehow it didn’t carry over to trigonometry and I had a little trouble with that but I got through it all right. He was a very kindly old man. I think he started the climbing up at Mt. Baker. Maxine said that my brother worked for him, but I didn’t know that he did. He worked for a man named Herbert Ruckmick. TB: The industrial arts guy. IB: Yes. He did a lot with them on printing and so forth. The one thing Br. Bond did, he used to scribble maybe three columns of figures across the board real fast and then write the answer down at the bottom. I know how he did it he did it because he kept adding groups of ten. But it was very impressive. 3 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What about Dr. Arntzen? What was he like? IB: The thing I remember about Dr. Arntzen, he was always telling stories about the history of things. The one thing he said was that whoever started Boeing (I can’t remember his name) graduated at the end of his class in engineering at the University of Washington. He said there were 157 in his class and he was 157! He always thought that was so funny because Boeing had developed into such a good company. TB: Who were your science teachers? IB: Miss Plympton and Miss Sundquist. TB: Can you tell me about them, what they were like? IB: They were both very friendly and pleasant, but Miss Sundquist was more outgoing and I think maybe it was the course, but I seem to remember learning a lot more from her. I think in Miss Plympton’s class we measured the amount of coloring in the root of your hair and they told me I would not turn white! I remember that. I remember the astronomy part of it was really interesting. We used to go up on Sehome Hill and observe the stars and things sometimes. TB: That was with Miss Plympton? IB: Plympton, I think. TB: What about Miss Weythman. What was she like? IB: She was the PE teacher. She was a good teacher, but of course she was older and the younger teacher always captured your imagination more and Miss Rupert had just come the first year I was there I think. The thing I remember about her, which didn’t set the best example maybe, but, she had a new Pontiac, a very nice car, and she came from I believe Iowa or Ohio, back east somewhere, and she said no one ever passed her on the highway. That’s not such a good thing to tell a group of college students! TB: She had a heavy foot, then! IB: Yes. She was a little lady; she was small. But Miss Weythman, they used to take us on campouts over on the island. There was a Women’s Athletic Association camp on one island, I can’t remember. What island is that? TB: Sinclair Island. You didn’t know Margaret Aiken, did you? IB: No. TB: What about the library? Do you remember the library or did you know Mabel Zoe Wilson? IB: The library was quite new when I went to school there. We thought it was beautiful. It was a nice place to study in the reading room. We were very impressed with it. TB: What about Miss Wilson? IB: Well she was kind of a strict little lady, but we all liked her I think. And then Miriam Snow was there too. She was in charge of the children’s library, or they called it that. TB: Special Collections where I work is the old children’s library. So what was she like, Miriam Snow Mathes? 4 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IB: I don’t remember so much except that I know we had to go into her part of the library to get books for our students. TB: What do you remember about Dr. Fisher? IB: He was a big man who was very friendly and he used to have assemblies for the kids, every Tuesday I think it was, 11 o’clock, and it was required that we go to the assemblies. We had some very interesting speakers. One was Thorpe. TB: Oh, the runner? Jim Thorpe? IB: Yes, Jim Thorpe. I think it was football. The other one was Jesse Owens, the runner. He brought in very interesting people. In fact, Owens gave a demonstration of running in the gym one time. I think he talked to us in assembly, too. Different kinds of programs like that that were really something for someone who came from Coupeville to hear. I thought that was one of the nice things he did. 1939 was Fisher’s last year. Of course, they tried to say he was a Communist, but I never did believe it. TB: You just thought it was really enlightened kinds of speakers, not political. As a student, did you have very much sense of the politics involved in trying them trying to get rid of President Fisher? Did you know before he left that they were trying to get rid of him? IB: I think it came out more after I left than I knew about it at the time. TB: I’m going to try telling you the story of the Avalanche in 1939 that you told me when the tape wasn’t on and maybe you can just sort of confirm it. Maybe that will be easier? IB: O.K. TB: Your brother Vene was not going to school anymore but had wanted to go on this hike, and so he had drove himself up to the mountain and by himself had hiked in to Kulshan Cabin. Then he met up with the group there. IB: Yes. TB: So they did the hike, and at least story-wise, you’ve always heard that he was the last man in the group, sort of bringing up the rear. We think the hike was on a Saturday. IB: Well they hiked in Friday and then they climbed up the mountain on Saturday and then came back to Kulshan Cabin and hiked out on Sunday – normally. TB: O.K. So on Saturday there was this avalanche. IB: It was just after lunch, I believe. TB: Then your family didn’t hear about it until your mother went out to get the paper on Sunday morning and that was the headline of the Seattle paper. You were living at Coupeville at that time. You were upstairs and not up yet. IB: No. TB: Your mother came up and got you up and told you about it. Where was your father? 5 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IB: He was there. Mother woke him. Then we I suppose discussed what to do. We called Roscoe Berry, my boyfriend, and then he came and helped us drive up to Point Roberts. TB: Point Roberts, where your older brother was fishing. What boat was he on? IB: The Saint Michael’s. It was owned by Mike Criscoll and his son did have the boat up here afterwards. TB: But the boat was actually out of Coupeville, so your other brother had been still living in Coupeville. IB: Yes. TB: So you went up and got your other brother from Point Roberts and you all went up to the mountain, it sounds like. IB: Yes. TB: Then your brother Allen… IB: I’m sure he stayed. And then he brought Vene’s car down. TB: He went and worked with them (the rescuers) and tried [to find the bodies] and stayed for a couple days. They probed every square foot of the slide area. IB: Well I think longer than that. They searched for quite a while. You know, they didn’t have helicopters. They didn’t have cell phones. They ran out of money and they had to stop looking. Things were kind of different then. They didn’t call in the government. They didn’t blame the president [laughs]. There was some controversy at the time about them not being roped together. Some people felt if they had been they would all have been lost. They had just got around the crevasse and they thought that the ones that weren’t found were swept into the crevasse. Nobody thought to sue in those days! One girl’s father used to come back every year [to look for her body] because they were Catholic and having the body was real important to them. TB: O.K. TB: Tell me about Mr. Kibbe. IB: Mr. Kibbe taught psychology and we had a good time in his class. He never got a PhD because he said that only those who had to have a doctor’s degree to get a job went for a PhD. I think he had a Master’s. He didn’t have a PhD. TB: Woodring wouldn’t have been there yet, was he? IB: Woodring came my last year, I think. The other person that I knew really well was Dr. Upshall because I worked in the research bureau. Charlotte Hood was his secretary and she was in charge, but Dr. Upshall taught me to give the Stanford-Binet test, and it was one of the first years when they gave every Kindergarten student a Stanford-Binet test. Anyway, when I went to teaching special education in Burlington in 1953 they were giving the kids intelligence tests and I said, “Well I have given the StanfordBinet.” But they had come out with a new test, the Wexler, and so I went back to college to learn to give the Wexler test [under Dr. Budd]. My daughter was in the first grade when I went to teaching special education in Burlington. It was the first year the Dolls were in Bellingham. They started a special education class in Burlington for all the Skagit counties. Jim Larson was our director, and there were two of us and we taught in the old elementary school, 6 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED and the room I had had at one time been the coal bin! But they fixed up the bottom part of the school because it was condemned at that time. It was an old school. TB: Did you know Sam Carver? IB: He was there when I was there, but I didn’t know him. TB: Coach Lappenbusch? IB: I knew him better. I took health education from Lappenbusch. That was the only contact – of course, he was the coach and everybody knew him. TB: Did you go to very many of the games? IB: Oh yes, we went to all the games. TB: So all of your classes would have been in Old Main. IB: Unless they had them in the gym. When I started in the summer, I took badminton at eight, tennis at nine and swimming at eleven. I had to run down to the YWCA! That’s where we took our swimming classes. By fall, it was finished (the gym). Then I got down to the serious part of my college education after lunch! TB: I was going to say! Three PE classes in the morning, that’s pretty good! How many classes did you usually have in a day? Or how many hours? IB: I took fifteen or sixteen hours. TB: All those PE classes would have just been one credit. IB: Yes. Then that first summer I took math, which was five credits, history that was five credits, and then the junior high math was three credits and the PE classes were three credits. I will say one thing: when I went to school, lots of the students went on a shoestring. I mean that they had very little. Tuition was about $30 a quarter, and if they could raise that, they went to school. A lot of us lived in the boarding houses and did our own cooking. One time at the house next to me (and I can’t remember the name) there were four girls I knew living there. The last three weeks of school, all they had to eat was cornmeal, canned milk, and jam! One girl did have some money, but she chose to eat with the rest of them and not spend her money. Students really struggled to get through school. I will say that apparently some of them could borrow from the college, but I didn’t and I didn’t know anybody that did. When I graduated in 1939, there were very few jobs. Afterward, someone told me that unless you knew somebody, had a connection with someone, or if you had borrowed money from the college, those are the ones who got the jobs. I didn’t teach my first year out. I went and took my brother’s job in the engineer’s office in Coupeville. Because I had told my folks I would teach two years before I got married, I got a chance to go to eastern Oregon because a girl that I had met in college had also taught in the school in Oregon. She got me the job. There again, a connection. Her husband was on the school board, so I went there, where I rode horseback to school. It was a one-room school in the town of Ritter, which was a population of four. But I taught out of town at the Three Mile School. There was no Ritter school at that time. TB: How many students did you have in your one room? 7 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED IB: I had fourteen to start with and then three moved away so I ended up with eleven. I had every class except fifth. TB: Wow. So is that hard or easy in a one-room classroom? IB: Well, in a way it was harder and in a way it was easier. For the students, too, because the students were always reviewing as you taught the class under them, and then looking ahead to what they were going to get the next year. It was not bad in a way, but of course now we do it differently. TB: Right. But you had to be prepared for all those classes! That was a lot. You were there two years? IB: One. TB: Just one. Where was your second year? IB: Woodland. That was a two-room school. It was up the river from Woodland at Green Mountain. That was one of the richer districts in the state because they had the money from Ariel Dam. They had half of it, and half of it went to the school across the river, and we were on the south side of the river. That was interesting. I taught the upper grades and the other lady taught the lower grades. We had a janitor, a music teacher, and a cook! TB: Wow! That was pretty lush! IB: Yes, it was. If I had known then what I know now I could have bought a lot of things, but of course, a lot of the things they use now weren’t available then anyway, but I would have done things a lot differently. That school is still operating. It is more than a two –room school now. TB: About how many students were in the class that you had? The dam probably had a lot of workers. IB: No. I think I had about twenty-five in the four classes. Not in each class, but all total. TB: Wow. So then you two must have gotten married and you came back to Washington? IB: He worked at Boeing. TB: Excellent. Where did you teach most of your career at? IB: Well, I taught at the Maple Leaf School, but the most years I taught at Sedro Woolley. I taught at Maple Leaf and it’s no longer a school in the Shoreline District. That was the year before Shoreline became a district, then I taught there the second year when it was the Shoreline District under Dr. Howard. Then we moved to Mount Vernon after Roscoe got out of the service. Then I went to Burlington to the special education school for one year and then I was out for a couple years then I went to Sedro Woolley and I finished up at Sedro Woolley. TB: Nice. That must be where Danny taught then? IB: Danny Beatty? He taught one year there and then he went to Anacortes. TB: Oh O.K., but he still gets invited back to your retired teacher’s picnic? IB: Well, it’s for all of Skagit County. TB: Oh O.K. 8 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [End of tape] 9 Isabelle Berry Edited Transcript – September 23, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Mary E. (Johnston) Bond interview--January 10, 2006
Description: Mary E. (Johnston) Bond is an alumna of WWU, Class of 1937. She also attended the Campus School.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_BondMary_20060110
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Mary E. Bond ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" c
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Mary E. Bond ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Mary E. Bond at her home in Bellingham, Washington, on January 10, 2006. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 and I’m here with Mary Bond, who went to the [Training] School and also attended Western. She did sign the Informed Consent Agreement and she knows that she’s being recorded. So our first question is how did you happen to attend the [Training] School? MB: My cousin was going to what was then the Normal School learning to be a teacher. I had been enrolled at Lincoln School in Bellingham, which was not my school district. My parents were a little leery of letting me go to Silver Beach, which was the school in my district. They felt there were too many tough children going there and so my cousin suggested that I go to the [Training] School. Now that involved two separate street car rides to get from my home, which was a block from Whatcom Falls Park, to the campus. But, I managed that very nicely and that’s how I happened to go to the [Training] School. TB: Who was your cousin? MB: Her name was Nylepha Granger. TB: What year did you first start attending? MB: Well, it would be 1923. TB: What grade were you in? MB: First. TB: Oh, so you started right away, almost. MB: Well, this cousin had taught me to read when I was four and I had my library card and was reading adamantly by the time I started school. I only stayed in the first grade a few days and then they put me in second grade. TB: Did anyone else in your family attend the [Training] School? MB: Yes; my brother did, later. TB: And what was his name? MB: His name was Con. 1 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? MB: I was there for, let’s see, I also skipped the third grade. So I was there for six years. From, did I say 1923? TB: [Yes.] MB: To 1929. TB: And you went through eighth or ninth grade, then? MB: I went through eighth grade; they didn’t have a ninth grade at that time. TB: Did your family pay any fees for your attendance at the [Training] School? MB: No. TB: Where did you live when you attended the [Training] School? MB: I lived a block from Whatcom Falls Park, a wonderful place to grow up, by the way. TB: How did you get to and from school? MB: I took the Lake Whatcom street car, which went from Silver Beach down to the center of Bellingham and circled around, then came back out. I transferred when I got downtown to what we called the 16 th and Garden street car, which went up Garden Street. TB: You took yourself to school starting in first grade? MB: Yes. TB: Pretty amazing. MB: Well, I had a little trouble at first. My mother went with me to make sure I knew how to do it. But what I had not realized was that the Lake Whatcom street car changed its pattern according to the hour or the half hour. It went around the blocks downtown in a different direction. So, I went down and waited on what I thought was the right corner to catch the car to go home, but the street car came in the opposite direction. I was totally confused. So I went over to the corner where that car had been and the next one came where I thought it would have been, but it wasn’t there anymore. Fortunately an older girl came along about that time and she straightened me out. TB: About how long did it take you to get to school then? MB: I would say about forty minutes. TB: What time did school start? MB: 9 o’clock. TB: So you left about eight. What did you do for lunch? MB: Brown bag, most of the children carried brown bags, but there was a cafeteria there and on occasion I would have soup. My mother thought I would need soup in addition. That would be five cents. She’d send me [to school] with a nickel for my bowl of soup. 2 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Oh, nice. Do you remember any favorite classmates? MB: Well, my best friend was Annabel Bolster. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? MB: I have varying memories of all of them. I suppose Bertha Crawford in the eighth grade. TB: Can you identify what was special about her? MB: Well, it was that she had a variety of interests. She wasn’t just focused in on one thing. TB: I know she’s come up before; she was a favorite teacher of a lot of people. MB: She was quite stern, but once you got used to that it was okay. TB: Do you remember any of your student teachers? MB: Yes, I remember Barney Chichester. TB: Oh, wow. So do you know what grade that was in? MB: Yes, that’s when I was in eighth grade. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? MB: Reading, always. The nice thing about the [Training] School was that we had access to all the college departments -- home economics, science, art. Our teachers would take advantage of what was available there, which made it a very rich background. TB: Did the [college] faculty, then, come in and teach your class? MB: We would go to their department and use their equipment, like the home economics department had all these stations where you practiced cooking. That was fun. We weren’t just in one room all day. TB: What kinds of learning materials did you use mostly? Regular school textbooks or other materials created by your teachers? MB: Well, as I said, we had so many more resources than the ordinary classroom would have at a regular school. We had access to the library and to all the college equipment. TB: Now, when you were there, was your own classroom just one room? MB: Yes, but we had the As and Bs, there would be two groups in one year. It was like having a mid-year graduation. TB: I don’t quite understand that, I’ve heard about that before. So in your class, it was almost like two different classes. There were two different levels that were being taught in different ways. Could you have started the year in 2B and then went over to the third grade in the middle of the year? MB: I did that. TB: What kind of grading system was in use during your attendance? MB: You know, I can’t really remember. I think it was A, B, C, D. 3 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: So letter grades? MB: Yes, letter grades. TB: Do you especially remember any creative activities, such as weaving or making things? MB: Oh, for example, in the fifth grade I remember making Roman books, which we made using paraffin. You would write in the paraffin, but it would be different symbols. You didn’t try to learn Latin, but that was the idea. TB: So what was it like for you to be observed so often by student teachers? MB: We called them spy classes. TB: Spy classes? MB: Yes and that was kind of fun; I remember one time in particular in the fifth grade. Eleanor Osborn was a stickler for punctuality; we were having a spy class that morning and it so happened that I had had a problem getting to school because of the transfer. I’d missed my transfer and I came in ten minutes late, just quaking in my shoes, here was this room full of students observing. She beckoned to me and I went over to her and she put her arm around me and spoke to me, wanting to know what the problem had been. I didn’t get into trouble. TB: Excellent. You got saved by that spy class. MB: I did, indeed. TB: Did you attend summer school at the [Training] School? MB: No. TB: What out of classroom activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime? Which did you enjoy the most? What games [were] played, any of that kind of thing? MB: Well, I got involved with the Camp Fire Girls. I think I was in seventh grade. From that point on, I was quite involved with their activities. TB: Was the Camp Fire Girls actually on campus? MB: The group that I was in was on campus. TB: Do you remember any other kind of games that you might have played, like at recess? MB: Well, there was a playground where some of the buildings are now, and the square. There were swings and things of that sort. TB: At what grade level did you enter public school? MB: Well, when I finished eighth grade I went to Whatcom High School. TB: What was it like, the transition, was it difficult? MB: No, it was fun. I was a little scared, but… 4 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: You did attend public school briefly before you went to [Training] School, right? MB: For thirteen days. My mother mentioned that from time to time. TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and the [Training] School that especially affected you. MB: Well, I think that the fact that I had exposure to so many different parts of the school, like the science lab and the home economics lab and art and all that. I think it gave me quite a bit broader background than I would have had in regular school. TB: Maybe you noticed when you went to high school that there weren’t as many different kinds of activities. MB: Well, they were different. TB: What further education did you pursue? MB: I came back to Western and graduated from Western with a BA. I went to the University of Washington and did a year of graduate work in music. I taught in the Vancouver schools for three years before I was married. My husband was getting his doctorate at Columbia University at the time. He’s Dr. Bond’s youngest son. TB: How did you actually meet him? Was he going to Western when you went there? MB: No, no, he was home for vacation and he was helping his dad. His dad did the salmon bake every summer. I happened to get there early because I hadn’t walked over from the school, I had gone home. By that time my mother had died and I was keeping house for my father. I went home and got my father dinner; then I came back on the street car and waited for the group that was hiking from the college. He was driving back and forth bringing supplies for his father. I was sitting on a pile of lumber waiting for the group from the college. He kind of noticed me. So, when we were finally at the salmon bake after everyone had been served, we were sitting around talking and he came over and sat beside me and asked me if I’d been the person who’d been sitting on that pile of lumber and I said, “Yes.” He left the next morning for Columbia University, to finish his doctorate. but he had gotten my address. But when he wrote to me he forgot whether my name was Mary or Anne, at least, that’s what he said. But he did write to me. TB: Oh, nice, nice. Now, where were the salmon bakes really at? MB: They were at what was called the Rocks, it’s over on the south side, there’s a park there now, I forget what it’s called. TB: Marine Park? MB: Marine Park, right. And it would be just below that area. They had the salmon bake there every year. TB: Can you remember a little bit about how they made the salmon? MB: Well, [Dr. Bond] was a specialist at that. As I recall, he wrapped the salmon, I don’t know if it was in seaweed or just what. First of all, he had the fire going ahead of time, so it was hot. Then he would take the coals off and bury the fish and put the coals back over. It was delicious. TB: If you later attended Western, which you did, and majored in education, did you observe or teach in the [Training] School? MB: I did student teaching with Irene Elliott in the second grade. 5 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: So what was that like? MB: That was fun because Miss Elliott was a picnic. TB: Did you student teach then all day or just parts of the class? MB: Half a day. TB: Were you responsible for everything that happened in that half day or you just did certain parts or lessons? MB: I would start out just a little bit of the time, first of all with reading poetry when the children would come in after lunch. Miss Elliott was very fond of poetry and we did a lot of A.A. Milne and that sort of thing. I really got into that. I’m doing the same thing with my great-grandchildren now. TB: Oh, nice, nice. How did your attendance at the [Training] School influence your life and/or your career? MB: I think it was a broadening experience for a child. I already loved to read, but it encouraged my love of reading. It was while I was in the eighth grade that the library was built. I had my first introduction to the children’s library there. We were quite excited about the library. In fact, we would go over and observe different phases of its development. TB: You mean [watch them] physically building it? MB: Yes, we were particularly intrigued by the doors that were covered in leather; I remember that. TB: That’s interesting, we still talk about [those] now. We say (and we don’t know where we got this idea), that they’re covered with whale skin. But we can’t find any evidence, nothing to prove that that’s what they are. It’s interesting that you [called] them leather doors. MB: We were told they were leather. TB: Are you still in touch with any of your [Training] School classmates? MB: No, I’m about the only one left. TB: Well, would you be willing to serve as a contact person for your class? MB: I think I have so many disabilities that it would be difficult. I have a hearing problem and my vision problem -- I can’t read, I can’t write. TB: Do you have any [Training] School memorabilia? MB: No, I haven’t. There was a reunion sometime back. TB: There was a big one in 1993. MB: That was the one; I met a lot of my friends then. It was fun, particularly, looking over the publication. We had what we called the Junior Viking which was our own personal newspaper. TB: Please share with us any other favorite memories of your [Training] School days or any comments about areas not covered by the questions above. 6 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MB: Well, your questions have brought back all kinds of things that were buried so far back that it’s a little hard to get them out. I enjoyed my experience there very much. TB: That’s fair. I realize I skipped over a question here. You touched on it a little bit, but actually, where was the [Training] School when you were there? MB: In Old Main. TB: You were at the south end of the building, I think, right? MB: Yes. TB: You [students] must have been on two different floors? MB: Yes. TB: Well, actually this question is, did you visit the college itself? But of course you were kind of integrated into it. Did you attend assemblies or sporting events or anything else at the college? MB: Yes, on occasion we would actually go to the assemblies. Mr. Fisher was a great one for having assemblies and he would bring in various entertainers, tenors, musicians, performers of different sorts, and speakers. When there was something that would be of particular interest to children in the [Training] School, they would be allowed to come too. We always had a Thanksgiving Festival. TB: Can you tell me a little bit more about that? MB: Well, there would be some sort of performance on stage, with people dressed up in costume. We always sang the Thanksgiving songs. We also got to do plays. I remember being Alice in Alice in Wonderland. We used the, I don’t know what they call it now, the auditorium in Old Main. We’d get to have use of the stage and all the props. TB: Did a lot of your parents, then, come to watch? MB: Oh, yes, parents would always come to see that. TB: We have a lot of pictures of different student productions. Okay, I think that’s my questions about the [Training] School, unless you can think of anything else I didn’t ask. Part II – Golden Viking Questionnaire TB: We’re going to go on and ask the Golden Viking questions, because Mrs. Bond did also attend Western as a college student. So why did you choose to attend Western? MB: My mother had had a stroke. I had a scholarship to Pullman, but it was important that I stay home to take care of my mother. In fact, I stayed out of school for one year when she was first handicapped, she was bedridden. She regained enough strength and ability to care for herself that I was able to go to school, but it was out of the question for me to go away. So Western was handy, and if it had been a school for morticians, I probably would have gone there. TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western? MB: Well, let’s see, I graduated from high school in 1933, but I stayed out of school for the following year. So, I was there in 1935 through 1937. 7 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What degrees or certificates did you receive from Western? MB: Well, I got a teaching certificate in 1937; then I did summer schools and got my BA. TB: You must have been one of the first to get your BA from Western. MB: Yes, right; at that time it was the Western Washington College of Education. TB: What other degrees or certificates did you receive elsewhere? MB: I got my orthopedic credentials at the University of California in San Francisco. TB: What is that? MB: That is the equivalent of the sixth year. It enabled me to teach in orthopedic schools in California. I had taught in an orthopedic school in Milwaukee, where my husband was assistant superintendent of schools, but I hadn’t had special training. He just assigned me to their orthopedic school and I loved it. So when he went to San Francisco State to chair their special education department, I started work for my credential there. TB: Now, what’s an orthopedic school? MB: A school for children who have physical handicaps and are unable to meet with the regular school. Many of them at that time were polio children, who required physical therapy. They would receive the physical therapy right [at] school. At Gaenslen School in Milwaukee, which was one of the first orthopedic schools in the country, we had two swimming pools. There would be regular classes, but there would be a supplementary staff of, I would say we had six physical therapists and two occupational therapists and two speech therapists. The children would be taken from the class individually for their therapy work. TB: Did you also go to the University of Washington? MB: Yes. TB: And got a music degree? MB: No, I didn’t get a degree; I took the subjects I was interested in. TB: Have any other family members attended Western? MB: Yes, all my children; I have three children; Nick, Margo, and Denny [they all] graduated. TB: What was your first job after leaving Western? MB: I taught music in the Vancouver, Washington schools. TB: How long were you down there? MB: It was just three years. TB: Then after that you got married? MB: Yes. TB: And then where did you teach? 8 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MB: Then the war came along. My husband went into the Naval Reserve and we were stationed in Washington, DC where he was the chief investigating officer for the Navy. I didn’t teach, I had two small children at that time. In fact, I didn’t go back to teaching until my children were launched. TB: Where did you live when you were going to Western? MB: I still lived out there by Whatcom Falls Park. TB: Any favorite memories of that time? MB: I was on the Viking staff and I enjoyed that greatly. TB: Oh, the newspaper. MB: Yes, Joan and Phil and Nancy were all in that group. It was called the Viking gang. We had all kinds of social things on the side. TB: You knew Ma Burnet. MB: Oh, yes. TB: I interviewed her daughter last September. She’s down in Menlo Park. End of side one. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers [as a college student] and why? I know that your father-in-law was [one of] your favorite teacher[s]. MB: I had a very bad background in mathematics. I had skipped two grades because I could read so well, but the math background was left completely alone. I worked very carefully counting, I learned to count on my fingers and come out with the right answers. I said, “Dad, I sure can count with my fingers.” He said, “Well, you always have your fingers with you.” I got the principles of mathematics from him, which I then applied when I went to Vancouver. In fact, they had me teaching arithmetic down there and they would have new cadets come and observe my class. [I also enjoyed Donald Bushell in music. He was responsible for my year of study down at the University of Washington. I had absolute pitch and scored perfect in dictation. I was also fond of Miss Sundquist in science. I was out on a field trip when my mother died and Miss Sundquist came to get me] TB: What was your main course of study? MB: Primary. TB: Just the primary grades. MB: Right. TB: What classes did you like the best or learn the most from? MB: At Western, I just said the mathematics, which was very new, was a whole new concept to me. I liked my English courses with Dr. Hicks. He was such a character. He taught me to read, I mean, meaningfully, because he would give quizzes about once a week. He would manage to pick out the meat of what our reading assignment had been. Early on, I was believing everything I read, if it was in print, it was the word of god. He taught me to be a, what’s the word, discriminating reader and to question what I read. Of course, that’s been a life long advantage. 9 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: As a college student, what extracurricular activities did you enjoy the most? MB: I was with the Camp Fire Girls, even then. TB: What kinds of things did they do at the college level, or were you involved in helping the younger… MB: Well, I was supervising at the camp, for example. They had a wonderful camp down on Samish Island. TB: And then of course, the newspaper. MB: That was number one. TB: We already talked about this, that you did student teach at the [Training] School. MB: Yes. TB: Do you have any comments about that? MB: That was fun. TB: Any other special memories of your college days? MB: Well, just off hand, I enjoyed the Rec Hours. You’ve heard about those, they were in the gym, Friday night, dancing. TB: And what about the barbeques, was there just one every summer? MB: One every summer, it was traditional. Granddad was kind of in charge of the recreation program, because he always led the hike up Mt. Baker. He did that forty times. TB: Where were you in 1939 when they had the avalanche? Is that when you were down in Vancouver? MB: Yes, I remember that because that was the first year Granddad didn’t lead the hike. I was with him when we were driving in Bellingham and he looked up and saw the mountain and he said, “I’ve never seen so much snow at this time of year.” I got a telephone call about four o’clock in the morning from Mrs. Bond. President Fisher didn’t drive and he wanted to go up to the mountain because there’d been this accident. They’d come and gotten Dad earlier, as soon as this happened. President Fisher wanted to go up, so Mrs. Bond asked if I would drive him up, which I did. TB: Wow, so what was that like? MB: It was pretty scary. We knew something terrible had happened and at that time we didn’t know exactly how many students had been lost. TB: Do you know how the word first got down to Bellingham that it had happened? MB: I think by telephone, because they called Dad as soon as it happened, to go up and help. TB: Any other thoughts about that or about Dr. Fisher? MB: Dr. Fisher had a very tragic happening while he was there. His wife had been hit by a car and injured very severely and left her in a pretty fuzzy mental state. While she recovered physically from the accident, she never completely recovered mentally. Her behavior was strange to people who didn’t know the 10 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED background. I remember, when I was at the University of Washington, the youngest Fisher boy, Chuck was there. He was taking care of his mother at that time. She was keeping house for him and Mr. Fisher at that time had [gone] east. When we lived in New York he came to visit us from time to time. I would always make butter cookies and he could sit there and empty a whole plate. TB: Going back to when you took him up there ([to] the avalanche), [do you have] any other memories of that time when you were waiting to hear or find out what was going on? MB: No, there was sort of a committee set up to try to coordinate any news that came and that’s where I left Mr. Fisher. TB: So you didn’t stay up… MB: No. TB: You came back down. MB: I remember him (Dr. Fisher) with great affection and admiration. TB: How many classes did you have from [Dr. Bond]? MB: I had, let’s see, two; first was the basics of arithmetic, which is what I should have had years before and then techniques for teaching arithmetic in the class. TB: Do you know how he got started doing the salmon bake? MB: He just had the ability to do that kind of thing and it was something that grew. TB: Do you remember hearing any other stories about how the family came out to Washington, because hadn’t they been someplace back east. MB: A lot has been done on that over at archives. In fact, my daughter in law has gotten a tremendous amount of material on him and that’s in the archives. TB: Anything else that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to comment on? MB: Well, let’s see. No, I think that’s it. TB: Well, thank you very much. 11 Mary Bond Edited Transcript – January 10th, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Joan (Hoppe) Campbell interview--September 16, 2005
Description: Joan (Hoppe) Campbell is an alumna of WWU, having attended from 1934-1937. She attended the Campus School 1922-1930, and her own children attended from 1951-1965. Her father was Victor H. Hoppe, long time professor at WWU.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOPH_CampbellJoan_20050916
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Joan Hoppe Campbell ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use&
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Joan Hoppe Campbell ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Joan (“Jan”) Hoppe Campbell at her home in Edmonds, Washington, on September 16 th, 2005, her husband Philip Campbell is present and also makes some comments. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Friday, September 16th, 2005 and I’m here with Joan, she goes by Jan, Campbell. She’s the daughter of Victor Hoppe. We’re going to do an oral history, kind of in two parts. The first thing we’ll talk about is the Campus School. She attended the Campus School. So, how did you happen to attend the Campus School? JC: Because at that point, I had no choice. If you were involved through your parents in the Campus School, you just went to Campus School. But you had to register. Some people registered their kids at birth to be sure they’d get in to Campus School. But, being a faculty kid, you were automatically admitted to Campus School. That was your school. TB: Okay, did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School and what were their names? JC: Our kids. I only have one brother and he didn’t go to Campus School. I can’t remember why he didn’t go to Campus School. Our own family, let’s see, Nancy and Ginna and Tom and Rob. They all went to Campus School. TB: Okay. What were the years and grades of your attendance? JC: I went to a public school for three years, but then during my eight years at Campus School, we spent two years back in Michigan, when my father was getting his master’s degree at the University of Michigan. So, I went spasmodically K through 8, but I missed a couple years. TB: And those must have been something like through the Twenties? JC: Oh, let’s see. I was born in 1917. Yes, it had to be. I graduated from high school in 1934. So, it had to be the late Twenties. TB: Do you remember paying any fees? Any kind of tuition, especially? JC: Did our kids pay fees (referring to Philip Campbell)? I don’t think they did. TB: Were there any fees to attend the Campus School? Tuition? PC: No. JC: I don’t have any recollection of paying fees. TB: OK. 1 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Getting in was difficult, because there were so many people who wanted to get their kids into Campus School. That’s why you had to sign up your children at birth. TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School? JC: 521 14th Street, on the south side. TB: Do you know what you did for lunch? Did the school provide lunch or did you go home for lunch or bring a sack lunch? JC: I think we carried our lunch. TB: Do you remember any favorite classmates and can you name any of them? JC: Favorite classmates at the Campus School? Let’s see, that’s a long time ago. I can’t think of anybody that I still [am in touch with]. TB: That’s okay if you can’t. JC: I’m sure I can, but right now I’m blank. TB: That’s fine. Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? JC: Well, Priscilla Kinsman was Kindergarten. Let’s see. TB: Do you remember what you liked about her? JC: She was very sweet, very loving, charming, and a very good teacher, was perfect with little kids. She wasn’t intimidating. I can’t think of anyone special in the older grades. If I had thought about this ahead of time, but it’s a long time ago. TB: That’s fine. Do you remember any of your student teachers? I know that one would be really hard. JC: That’s a tough one, yes, because we had so many. I mean, they were constantly changing, of course. TB: How did you feel about that? Did it bother you? JC: Not really, you got used to the fact that you were going to have several teachers. You were being observed and lots of observation, but that was just part of school for us. TB: Okay. What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? JC: Oh, music, usually. Well, just literature, reading… TB: Can you talk a little bit more about the music program they had there? PC: May I interject something? TB: Yes. PC: I was under student teaching out at Meridian, Orpha McPherson was the director of student teachers. Orpha McPherson [was] back when I was in grade school, so she goes way back. You wouldn’t remember her because she worked in directing the student teaching outside of the college. That name just came to me. 2 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: That’s true. Did you have student teachers? PC: Yes, we did. TB: So anything more about how the music program worked there? Did you go to a certain room or did the teacher come to you? JC: As I recall, the teacher came to us. We just sang. I can still remember a lot of the songs I learned. We had a songbook and I can still sing. Want to hear me sing a couple? TB: What were the names of them? JC: I was kidding. I do remember some of the songs I learned though. TB: OK, OK. Did you use regular textbooks, or what kind of learning materials do you remember that they might have used? JC: Yes, we had regular textbooks. TB: Do you remember what kind of grading system was in use during your attendance? JC: Good old As, Bs and Cs. TB: Do you remember any creative activities such as weaving, making things or that kind of thing that you might have done? JC: Gee, I can’t remember. We must have had some kind of art. I’m sure we had art. I never was terribly creative, so… TB: That’s fine. PC: What about physical activities? JC: We obviously had outside activities. I’m thinking of high school now, of course, it gets blended…basketball. We must have had organized games -- but not competitive. TB: Backtracking a bit, what were your classes like? Were there a lot of student teachers? You kind of alluded to the observing; were the student teachers teaching lessons or parts of lessons? JC: We almost always had somebody else in the room besides the master teacher. You got so observation wasn’t any big deal, because you were observed so much, being at the Campus School. Of course, that was the purpose of the Campus School. TB: So did you not really get away with anything then? I mean, you had all these people watching you. How could you really misbehave? JC: Some kids managed to misbehave no matter what. Not me. I was the perfect child. TB: Did you attend summer school at the Campus School? JC: No. I never went to summer school. TB: Do you remember some of the extra-curricular activities that you engaged in? What did you do at recess? Lunch time? Or what did you enjoy the most, games that you played? 3 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: We just played a lot of the old games that everybody plays. You know ball games. It wasn’t highly organized. We had a lot of free activity during recess rather than organized games, if I recall correctly. TB: OK. Do you remember visiting the college itself? JC: Campus School was in Old Main when I was there. TB: Like going to the library or attending special assemblies or…? What was that like? JC: We were always very aware we were a part of the college. We weren’t separated at all. The main building was it. That’s where everything was. TB: Did you see the college students a lot or were you kind of isolated? JC: Well, I did more because I had a father on the faculty. So I was more at home with the whole building. His office was way up on the top of Old Main, way up, third floor or whatever it was. He had a huge flight of stairs to go up and no elevator. PC: The Campus School, it’s not even there today, but it was built sometime, do you know what the time frame was? TB: 1943, I think. JC: Yes, right. TB: Well it definitely had been a wing of Old Main. JC: Yes, absolutely. TB: Then at what grade level did you enter public school? Why did you transfer? What was the transition like? JC: Well, I went to first, second and third, at Lowell School because that was just about two blocks from where we lived on 14th street. I can’t remember now. Oh, golly I can’t remember why I went to… One of those years we were back in Michigan. I skipped a grade. We had As and Bs. I mean there was 1A and 1B and 2A and 2B. That’s been a long time ago. TB: Oh, the grades. There were two grades. JC: There was 1A and 2A. TB: Okay. JC: I skipped; I think it was the third one. I skipped two half grades that ended up I was a year ahead. So, I graduated from high school when I was barely seventeen. TB: Okay. If you attended public school first, what was the transition like to Campus School for you? JC: It wasn’t that big a deal for me because I was familiar with the school. It was a little bit different being a faculty child. I can’t remember if there was any great trauma. Besides, we had been back in Michigan for a year, so I had that transition. I went to a big old elementary school back there, in Kalamazoo. TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. 4 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Well, I know I was happier with the teachers I had at Campus than I was at Lowell School. I had some older teachers that were maybe strict disciplinarians. It was as if they didn’t like kids very much -- you know -- that kind of teacher. TB: All right, and then what further education did you pursue? JC: I went to Western for three years. PC: You went to high school at Fairhaven. JC: Well, I went to high school at Fairhaven High School, yes. TB: Fairhaven High School and then you went three years at Western. JC: Three years at Western and two years at the UW [University of Washington]. TB: OK. If you later attended Western and majored in education, did you observe or student teach in the Campus School and what was that experience like? JC: I must have. I’m sure I must have done my student teaching in Campus School. I can’t even remember -- elementary. Well, it had to be in Campus School. I don’t think I taught in a public school. I can’t even remember whether we had teachers in the public schools or not. They must have student teachers, but I have no recollection of teaching in the public schools. TB: Do you have any thoughts about how your attendance at the Campus School influenced your life or career? JC: I think I probably had more music and art and literature, that sort of thing at Campus School than I probably might have gotten in the public school. TB: Are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates? JC: Am I? I don’t think I am. PC: Nancy. Nan used to go there. JC: Well, Nan, she went to Campus School, Nan Ballard. She was the one who was secretary to the… PC: Nancy Jane Smith was her name. JC: Yes, it was Nancy Smith. She was Dr. Hawk’s secretary; he was director of the Campus School. She was his secretary for several years, and she went to Campus School. PC: And she lives right down the street. JC: Well, Mary Ann Fisher, you talked to her, of course she was, yes. There were a lot of people of that vintage. PC: Most of them have passed away. JC: Yes, a lot of them have, that’s true. TB: Do you have any Campus School memorabilia? Photographs, class publications, crafts, art work or anything? 5 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Just in my head, like the songs I remember. TB: Do you just remember the names of the songs, like a title of the song? JC: Oh, dear. We did learn a lot of songs. We had a lot of music. TB: OK. That’s fine. PC: She sings a lot of them around the house here, but I don’t understand them. They’re very simple stuff. JC: A lot of it was nonsense music. You know, it didn’t have any great message, but it was a just a catchy tune and nonsense words. I don’t think kids sing things like that anymore. TB: Actually in the Twenties that was big to do that. Even some of the normal school yells were crazy. Do you have any other favorite memories of your Campus School days or any comments about questions that we’ve asked or things that you think we should ask other people? PC: Since our children went to Campus School, she’s had a very close relationships with their teachers, perhaps more so than an ordinary mother of children would have. She had a close connection with the school while we were raising our kids, all of whom went to Campus School, at least up through the sixthgrade. JC: Yes, that’s right. They went through sixth. TB: Now, how did you happen to decide to have your kids go to the Campus School? PC: It was her decision, basically. Her father was still teaching there. TB: Oh, he was teaching there? JC: Well, let’s see. That’s right, he was. He died when I was pregnant with our last son. So, three of our kids knew their grandfather. TB: Tell me a little bit more about that; so you decided to have your kids go there because you went there and had a lot of good times? JC: It was just the perfectly natural thing to do. TB: What was your experience like as a parent? JC: We enjoyed it. We had a lot of contact with…not parent-teacher meetings, because we didn’t have a parent-teacher association, but lots of occasions when parents were involved. PC: I think parents were much more involved, if I may say so, those that had children there in Campus School… JC: The classes were smaller to begin with. PC: There was a feeling of closeness there, I think, between the parent and the child, in that setting, than there might otherwise have been at a public school. The teachers were so well trained, that taught the children, and were so involved with the child individually. Their classes were small, 20 to 25, something like that. They kept the parents informed with reports on the child. Not only their ability to be a good student… 6 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Academically. PC: …their personal lives, as they saw them in the school. It was a complete report; we used to get those all the time. That was something the public school teachers didn’t have; those who had 35 kids or more in the class didn’t have that opportunity to do that much research with the child and keep the parent brought into the picture. TB: So, roughly, what span of years was that? JC: Well, they’re nine years apart, I mean from the oldest one to the youngest one. PC: 1951, when did Ginna start? Born in 1946. She started Kindergarten, did they have Kindergarten? JC: Yes, oh yes. They all went to Kindergarten, K through 6. It was only sixth-grade, then they went to… PC: Actual span of years, actual calendar years? TB: Yes. JC: Figure that one out; nine years apart. PC: I think 1951 through 1965. TB: OK. So, it sounds like your kids might not have had actual grades. Your children had the more narrative kinds of reports more than letter grades. JC: They were going toward the narrative report, yes. And you had conferences. PC: But they also had complete reports beyond that. TB: Right, and so, as a parent you really appreciated that. JC: Yes, lots of contact between teachers and parents. TB: Now, do you know, what did your children do for lunch? Did you prepare lunch for them or did they have lunch up there? JC: I think we made lunches, as I recall. They must have had a hot lunch program, but mostly our kids just brought lunch from home. TB: OK, and then we already talked about this. You didn’t pay any fees for your children? JC: We don’t have any recollection of paying fees. PC: What is the question? TB: There wasn’t any tuition -- no tuition for your children? PC: Not that I was aware of. JC: You would have been aware of it. TB: Anything else about your experience as a parent, with the Campus School, with your children? Any special memories? 7 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PC: Well, we got a chance to observe the child in a different perspective, obviously than we would in our home environment. JC: What do you mean by that? PC: They responded differently in school in a way that we appreciated more than some of the activities they engaged in at home. JC: It’s true. I remember one day Irene Elliott saying… PC: We had a daughter who was very… JC: Temperamental. PC: Dramatic, something like her grandfather. JC: Yes, she was very temperamental and emotional. PC: But at school she was… JC: She was absolute perfection. I remember Irene Elliott saying, “I can always tell if there’s something going on in the room that I should know about. I look at Ginna’s eyes. I can always tell by her big blue eyes if somebody was misbehaving, because she was sort of [a] monitor. She was absolute perfection at school.” Irene Elliott said, “Well, you don’t want her to act the way she acts at home, do you?” Well, actually that’s true, we didn’t. Anyway, she was the actress. PC: That’s the thing that was so good about it, because the average public school teacher doesn’t have the background that the teachers up at the Campus School had -- looking into the child as more than just outward appearance. They delved into their, I don’t know how to express it, more intimately than they would have been looked at in the public school. We were afforded a type of education for those children that we did not feel we could have gotten at the public school. Not because the teachers weren’t good, but they weren’t as well trained in all the aspects of teaching and bringing children up as were the Campus School teachers. They went beyond the norm with training that the public school teacher never got. JC: Well, they were master teachers. PC: In those days you could teach after two or three years of college. TB: So who are some other favorite teachers that you thought were really good teachers for your children? Like Miss Elliott? JC: Irene Elliott, yes. PC: Katherine Casanova. JC: Let’s see, Priscilla, was Priscilla Kinsman there when…? Synva Nicol, she was first-grade. Some of the men, I don’t remember. PC: You got Irene Elliott, Katherine Casanova. JC: Katherine Casanova, second-grade. PC: Who were some of the men? There were a couple of men. JC: I know. 8 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Punches? Anybody have Frank Punches? JC: No. Why can’t we remember the men’s names? TB: Mr. Mork? JC: I think so, yes. That sounds familiar. TB: I think he was fourth-grade or something like that. JC: Yes, definitely. TB: OK. JC: Campus School had sort of a family feeling. I mean, there’s a lot of continuity because most people, if they had their kids in Campus School, they sent all their kids to Campus School. I remember, Irene Elliot saying, “Your faces don’t look familiar, but your clothing certainly does.” That was when she had kids that she’d had in previous years or two. This is Irene; she had a great sense of humor. TB: That’s a really good one. I hadn’t heard that before. JC: And that’s true. Sure, our kids wore the same clothes. Our girls were only two years apart. So, I’m sure that they wore the same clothes. TB: OK, well, some of the other teachers. PC: Irene Elliot, we mentioned her name. You have Katherine Casanova. JC: The men are the ones I can’t remember, except Mork. PC: We got Mork here. I only recognize him from my knowledge of the school. Priscilla Kinsman, you got her already. Pearl Merriman, Pearl Merriman. JC: Oh, yes. Yes, Pearl Merriman! I forgot, yes. PC: Seems like I know these people… JC: Of course, we had a different relationship because we knew a lot of the faculty. I mean, we were involved in faculty activities because of my dad. You’re using up time here. TB: That’s fine. That’s just fine. PC: I’ll show you this later, if you want to see it. TB: Now, any other comments about the Campus School? JC: We often had dramatic things that we did, like for special events. I can’t remember if it involved the lower grades or whether that was just the upper grades. They weren’t exactly plays, but they were dramatizations and music and things that were appropriate for the whole school. We did that in the auditorium. The auditorium was still there. TB: Right. 9 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PC: Excuse me for interrupting again, but they had a director of the Campus School, we called it Training School back in those days. JC: Mary Rich was the director when I was there. PC: It was a lady named Mary Rich. JC: That’s what I said. PC: Who graduated from Columbia University back in New York, which is a very high quality teaching school for teachers. So, they had some top flight people in that school. JC: She was there for a long time. PC: …that added a dimension that normally would not have been available to a lot of people who had trained beyond the basics to make them a public school teacher, you see what I mean? So that’s one of the assets, if you want to call it that, for kids that needed that training that they were qualified to give. TB: OK. PC: I’d be glad to share this with you. This is one of about 500 different books we had, I put some of them away. JC: I hope not. PC: I don’t want to interject here; I’m speaking out of turn. JC: You can tell he’s a talker. TB: That’s fine. I’m not in a hurry here. But, tell me about your father. Tell me about what your father was like. JC: Well, he was unique. He was a very unique character, I’ll tell you. He had a fantastic imagination. And he made everything fun. That’s what I remember about growing up: everything was fun. He’d turn everything into fun. Nothing was inanimate to him, everything was animate. You know what I mean? Everything took on a personality. He would make up songs. He made up a lot of songs, about whatever was happening around the house, or my mother -- what she was doing or something -- very creative, very creative. Of course, he did a lot of rehearsing and he would go in and close his door and I would lie on the floor with my ear to the crack. I could spend hours lying on the floor listening to him, like the Christmas Carol. He did everything. When he went out to these speaking engagements he would take a play and do the whole thing, he’d play all the major roles. It [was] just a one man show. He did an awful lot of that for the college, public speaking that was his thing. He did speaking engagements all the time, for organizations. He loved camping. We went from Bellingham, Washington to Kalamazoo, Michigan in a Model A Ford. It took us three weeks and that was hard driving. You didn’t make a lot of time in that Model A. And it did, it literally took us three weeks. Some places we’d have to spend several nights because the weather was bad or we weren’t able to make it up the hill that led out of town. So, we’d turn around and come back and say, “Well, we’ll try again tomorrow.” If you want to think about that, I mean, that was almost a hundred years ago of course. TB: So were a lot of the roads dirt roads. 10 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: It was the Lincoln Highway, yes. Oh, yes, we went through gumbo (clay) in Wyoming and Montana. It was an adventure, it was really an adventure. We camped the whole way, put up a tent. TB: There probably weren’t campgrounds, though, were there? JC: Mostly we stayed in campgrounds. Oh, yes, there were campgrounds. Most towns had a campground, because that’s the way people traveled. That was when we were going back, when he was going to go to school, I think, as I recall. He was going to get his master’s degree, and we stayed with my grandmother in Kalamazoo. TB: Is that where your family was originally from, Michigan? JC: His family was from Ohio and my mother’s family is from Michigan, yes. And they ended up at Western. He had a brother, who taught at, was it Cheney? Yes, Eastern Washington. And he really got my father the job out here. He knew there was an opening at Western, or Bellingham Normal School, which it was then, of course. So, he came out. He and my mother had met when he was on one of his speaking engagements. I think they had mutual friends. But that was 19, oh Gosh, what was it? 1914? Must have been about 1914 that he started teaching at Western. TB: Oh, so right after he had gotten married? JC: Yes. TB: OK. Well, what else about being a faculty child then at Western? Do you have some other stories about that? JC: Well, we had a lot of social events. We always had picnics and stuff. TB: Any stories about the summer barbeque? JC: The salmon bake? TB: Yes. JC: Yes, that was always a big deal. The salmon bake was the big event, usually at Larrabee State Park, if I recall. You know how they do it, they build a fire and wrap the salmon up in seaweed, I can’t remember exactly how it was done. Did you ever go to a salmon bake (referring to Philip)? Where you bake the salmon on the beach? PC: Sure. I was in the fishing business for years. JC: No, I’m talking about when we were in school. They were still having them when we went to Western, weren’t they? PC: I may have gone by then, I don’t remember. TB: I think they had them until Dr. Bond retired in the Forties. JC: Oh, that may be, yes. TB: Bond was big behind it. JC: That’s right, he was, Elias Bond. 11 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PC: I’m trying to identify these people in a 1944 photograph, that’s not easy. I’ll show you, here’s your father here, this was taken in 1946 or 1948, I guess. This is her father, this is a friend of mine, I don’t know who this gentleman is here, and that’s a King Crab, these are large crab. TB: Oh, wow. PC: About 20 pound crab, King Crab. TB: Yes. PC: We were in the king crab fishing business. You wouldn’t recognize that guy, would you? TB: Is that you? JC: Gosh, she did. TB: What other faculty members do you remember? JC: Oh, of course, we did a lot of our socializing, everything socially we were with faculty families. TB: Do you remember Dr. Nash? JC: Yes. Well, barely. I was an infant. I have a one dollar gold piece that Dr. Nash gave me when I was born. He was president when I was born. TB: What about Dr. Fisher? What do you remember of Dr. Fisher? JC: Well, of course, that was a period of turmoil in the college, of conflict. There was a lot going on. TB: Well, even when you were a child? I mean, he was president for … JC: Yes, he was president for quite a while. TB: Did he ever come to talk to the grade school kids? JC: I don’t recall that he did. I just vaguely remember him. I don’t recall how involved he was in the Campus School. TB: Were you in the theatre program when you were at Western? JC: No, I wasn’t. I think I had one class from him. He didn’t encourage me. TB: Oh, OK. Now, I’m going to shift gears a little bit and ask you questions then about your time at Western as a college student. Why did you choose to attend Western? JC: I didn’t even consider another possibility. I’d been involved in Western for so long already that it was perfectly natural for me to go to Western. TB: Did you know you wanted to be a teacher? JC: Yes, I think I did, at that point. TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western? JC: 1934, ’35, ’36, ’37, or, whatever three years is. I graduated from high school in 1934. 12 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What degrees or certificates did you receive from Western? JC: We got some kind of diploma of course, obviously, after three years, and your certification. TB: Did you go out and teach right after that? JC: No, I didn’t. I went to the University of Washington. TB: OK. Do you remember why you thought you needed to finish your degree then and not go right out and teach? JC: No, I can’t remember. All I knew is that I wanted to get my degree. I knew I wanted to finish and get my fourth year. TB: What other degrees, if any, did you receive elsewhere? I guess you got a B.A. from the University of Washington. JC: Yes. TB: OK, anything else? JC: That’s it. That’s all. TB: Did any other family members attend Western? JC: My family members, you mean? TB: Yes, did your brother go there? JC: No, Russ didn’t go. He went to Portland State. TB: Did any of your children go there as college students? JC: Nope. TB: But your husband did. JC: Yes. TB: What was your first job after leaving Western? JC: My first job after leaving Western, my gosh, I can’t even remember. PC: Colfax. JC: No, I didn’t go to Colfax until I graduated from the University of Washington. PC: Oh, after leaving Western? Oh, she went on to the University of Washington. TB: Right. JC: I didn’t do any teaching. TB: What was your first job, I guess, as a teacher? 13 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Oh, as a teacher, would be Colfax; third-grade at Colfax. TB: Third-grade, OK. Any distinctive memories of that experience? JC: Oh, let’s see, we got engaged. TB: Were you both at Colfax? JC: No, but he was in the Spokane area, part of the time. You’re supposed to be talking, (referring to Philip). I was a freshman, you were a freshman, too, weren’t you, at the same time, 1934? PC: No. I didn’t enter Bellingham State Normal until 1933. She entered in 1934. But I’d been out of school. JC: You were out of school, yes. He worked… PC: Before I went to college. Between high school and college I had one year out to try to… JC: But we met working on the paper, the Northwest Viking. He was sports and I was our editor. TB: This is going back to your first year then, teaching at Colfax. Any other distinctive memories of this experience? The salary, the work conditions, anything else about that? JC: It was a very old school, a very old school building. It was a very supportive, congenial faculty. I mean, we had a good group. We had a lot of kids. It was a big, consolidated district. We had big classes and the kids came from miles around because an awful lot of little towns in there didn’t have schools. I don’t know, I can’t think of anything special. It was a good year. TB: You were only there one year? JC: No, three. TB: Three years. And then what did you do? JC: The next year I went to Sedro-Woolley for a year. That was when Phil was in the service. So, then after the first year, I went to join him in Florida, he was stationed in Leesburg, Florida. PC: May I interject something, again, if it’s not in order? While she was at Western, she became editor of the Western Viking, that was in college. JC: Northwest Viking. PC: Northwest Viking. I’m reading this little picture of her here and I’m reading this comment about her, it’s very short. “Proving that men are men and women make good editors, Joan Hoppe ruled the Northwest Viking with a firm but gentle hand during the past year. Bubbling wit combined with an unsuspected intellect makes her an eventful scholar, everybody’s friend, and the most popular woman on the campus. Her ambition, she insists, is to be a second Pavalova.” Pavalova, being the dancer. And here’s the picture of her, here. She was voted the most popular girl on the campus and crowned the Queen of May. M-A-Y, that kind of May, which was very distinguished, complimentary in those days. I’m sorry to be interjecting, but that tells a little bit about her background. JC: All I remember about that is they gave me a crown of roses. Instead of nice little rose buds, they were rather large cabbage roses. It was hot in there and it came into full bloom during the evening and all the petals fell off, so I was scattering petals everywhere. It was a lovely thing, really. 14 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: OK. So, where did you live when you were at Western? JC: At home. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers and why? JC: Oh my gracious … Arthur Hicks for instance, because of literature, of course. And my father, he wasn’t my teacher, but Shakespeare was his thing. And I got steeped in Shakespeare, even though I didn’t take the class from him. PC: Arthur Hicks? JC: Arthur Hicks, I mean, he was English. PC: Yes, and you had another one you liked, too. JC: Who? Ed Arntzen? PC: Ed Arntzen. JC: Ed Arntzen, what was his field? TB: Social Studies. JC: Yes, I guess it was Social Studies. I had a couple classes from him. Of course, we knew everybody on the faculty personally. So, it was sort of a different relationship. TB: They’d watched you grow up. JC: Yes, they watched me grow up is right. TB: I know that there was a Christmas party every year, right? That the faculty children went to? JC: Yes. TB: Do you have any special memories of that? JC: I can’t even remember where it was. TB: Up in Edens, I think. JC: Edens Hall, yes, I guess it was Edens Hall, yes. I can’t remember anything special about that. TB: OK. So, what was your main course of study? End of Tape one Side one TB: Which classes did you like the best and/or learn the most from? JC: Well, I think literature. Arthur Hicks was the professor I think of as being connected with literature, of course; because that was his thing, definitely. TB: Why did you like him so much? 15 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: I don’t know he just lived what he was teaching. He was so into his literature that he made everything come alive. TB: OK. PC: Are you talking about Arthur Hicks? JC: Yes. PC: I took a course from a Stanford University graduate who came to Western the same year I did. So, I got in one of his first classes. JC: When he was fresh. TB: What other extra-curricular activities did you enjoy the most? Obviously, the student newspaper. JC: Well, yes that was sort of extra-curricular and curricular, both. I turned out for, what did I turn out for? Field hockey. PC: Hiking. She was a great hiker. We used to go on hikes and things, outdoors. The crew that did the Northwest Viking newspaper, we all got together and had parties. JC: It was a really tight group, yes. PC: A really close group. In fact, several of those people who were killed during the 1939 avalanche… JC: …were on the Northwest Viking staff. PC: Up at Mount Baker, you’ve probably heard of that. TB: Yes. PC: So, we all had experience climbing, not climbing mountains… JC: Not that kind of climbing, though. PC: … Mount Baker, but we went on trips and of course, as I say, it was a pretty close-knit group. She was always the leader. TB: What about dances? Were there a lot of dances? JC: A lot of informal type dances, yes, Rec hour type. It was the Rec hour. TB: Any other special memories of your college days? JC: I don’t know. It’s just sort of a big… PC: She has lots of memories. We all do, special. JC: It’s hard to sort them out. PC: Probably meeting me. JC: Sure. It was a big event. 16 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PC: I used to be a flashy dresser. TB: Oh, you were both sharp dressers. I looked you guys up in the annuals; you were both very sharp dressers. JC: I had a camel’s hair coat that was a knock out, it came almost to my ankles, it wrapped around three times, you know. But the funniest thing happened. One day, I don’t know where I was going, but I really felt that I was really dressed to the teeth, in that camel’s hair coat. And I was going some place and I opened up my coat and a fly flew out. I have several friends who never forgot that. PC: She planted flies just to get attention! TB: OK. What about Valkyrie? You were in Valkyrie. JC: Yes. TB: What was that like, or what was that all about? JC: That was fun. I mean, you just, it was a pep club type thing. We had a lot of social events and activities. PC: Did you say Valkyrie? JC: Yes. TB: Yes. PC: I’ll see if she was there. TB: Yep, she was. I wouldn’t have made it up. PC: You got these books, too. TB: I got those books, too, I looked you guys up. JC: She got the inside information. TB: Kind of. PC: You didn’t see me in anything. I wasn’t a joiner. TB: Yes, you were there. You were in the…and you were at homecoming -- the bon fire -- but I’ll talk to you in a minute. OK, anything else in your memory? JC: He was what? TB: Well, we’ll go over that in a minute. JC: I was going to tell a funny story about that. TB: Anything else that you haven’t commented on of either Campus School, your father or of your time at the college? JC: Oh, boy. 17 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Just anything you’d like to share or have on the record. JC: Is there anything I’d like to share, honey? PC: What was the question? JC: An outstanding event? TB: I’m trying to get at anything else that was a special memory to her, of her time at the Campus School or as a college student or of her children’s time even, at Campus School or any other memories of her father? JC: Oh, I have lots of memories of my father. It’s hard to pin anything down. Oh, dear. I don’t know. PC: I wasn’t living with her at that time. JC: No, you weren’t. I can’t think of anything special. PC: She didn’t have a normal upbringing. With her father, nothing was really normal in the sense of calmness. We lived there two years after I got out of the service, because we had no place to live. We got married while I was in the service and we had no home, so I lived with the family and I got a chance to observe, in an intimate way, a lot about her father. But that’s not what you’re asking, the question, this is all incidental to what you’re here for. But he was a different kind of a person… JC: A very unforgettable person. He influenced my life an awful lot. PC: Some people might even say he at times could be considered eccentric, but not really, temperamental, yes, maybe, brilliant, no question about his brilliancy. Absolutely brilliant in terms of his profession and directing plays in the city and stepping ahead in a way that made him an outstanding citizen of the city, because of his drama and his ability to perform. So, I saw that from a different vantage point, maybe than Jan would. Then again, I was just a country hick. Pardon me, but I came to the city and grew up pretty fast, learning a little bit about the other side. I was used to working with farmers, people like that. JC: My father was a shock to him, that’s what it was. PC: … a rather demonstrative group of people. JC: Another funny thing. My dad wrote the script for the Tulip Festival, which went on for years. So I got to be [on] the float. I always got to be [on] the queen’s float. I was a page or something, that was because my dad wrote the [program]. I said I didn’t participate in any of his plays, but I did one time. It must have been when I was five years old, probably, Kindergarten or First-grade, and I was going to be a fairy in Midsummer Night’s Dream I thought, “Oh, boy, I’ll probably have a gorgeous costume.” I was the moth! My mother dyed some cheesecloth gray and that was my costume. My friends had these lovely costumes. That was a blow. But I got to be part of it. I think I even had one speaking line. TB: So, tell me a little bit more about the Tulip Parade. What kind of script was there? JC: Well, there was a pageant, is what it was. In fact, I wonder if I still have a copy of that. I have a lot of my dad’s stuff. TB: Oh, you do have some of your dad’s stuff. JC: Well, just pictures and some of it goes clear back to when he was in college, because he was doing a lot of speaking. 18 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: So do you have some of his speeches or different scripts that he used when he did his work? JC: Well, the plays. I have a lot of his play books that are all marked for direction, just his little paper back play books. What do you do with them? TB: Oh, we’d love them. How hard was it for your father to retire? JC: Well, he didn’t retire at 65. I think he taught at least … see, he died at 70, so he hadn’t been retired all that long. I think he retired at 67 and he only lived three years after that. TB: Wow. Any thoughts for him when they built the new auditorium? Did he like that or he didn’t like that? JC: Oh, yes. Of course, he did Shakespeare. Of course before that he did Shakespeare on the knoll. Is the knoll still there? TB: Yes. JC: Yes, and that was a perfect place for something like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He did several things on the knoll. Then, of course, when they built the [auditorium] I remember him doing The Merchant of Venice, not even in the stage, but in that narthex, the front part of the…with the stairway coming down, they used that instead of the stage. He played Shylock of course. He always played Shylock when they did The Merchant of Venice. TB: Now, do you know why he liked Shakespeare so much? JC: Oh, heavens. He had gotten that years before, I mean, he was just a Shakespeare buff. It must have been his own professors, he went to Denison University. He actually could have gone on the professional stage. He had an opportunity; he could have been an actor, a professional actor. But he chose to be a teacher. I just grew up with Shakespeare -- that was his love. TB: Did you know Angus Bowmer? JC: Yes. TB: Do you want to talk a little bit about their relationship? JC: He was what we called a perpetual school boy. He was in school for a long time after, he kept coming back. And of course, dad was really his mentor. He was in practically every play. During the time he was in school, he was in every play that dad did. I’m sure that’s what inspired him to start acting. TB: He credited your father with that, he wrote a book. JC: Yes, he said dad was his mentor. TB: Well, I don’t have any other questions, so if you don’t think of anything [else]? JC: If I had just sat down and [coddled] my brains I might have remembered more. It’s awfully hard. That’s been a long time. TB: Why don’t you tell me a little bit about Mabel Zoe Wilson? Or your memories of her? JC: Well, she was always a character, she and Lillian both, always characters. I don’t know I don’t have any great stories to tell about her. We felt that she was a personage and she was always treated with great 19 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED respect and she did a tremendous job with the library, absolutely tremendous job. But, beyond that, I don’t know, I thought she was really a very lovely person, very enjoyable and really a very gracious person, too. TB: Did she show a lot of interest in you as a child? JC: Well, not undo interest, but I always knew her. And as I say, I always felt that she was someone to be respected. Of course, that was my upbringing, to respect my elders anyway. She was my elder, then -quite a bit my elder. TB: What about Lillian George? JC: Well, Lillian George was a very direct, very much to the point. She’d say exactly what she believed and if that bothered you, well, that’s just tough. She was definitely a character. She loved outdoor sports and especially this place down on the Oregon Coast that she called Yachats. I’m not sure just how you spell that. Anyway, it was her favorite place, right on the ocean, and she talked a lot about Yachats. She did a lot of hiking. She was a tough old gal. But beyond that, they were always there and they were always part of the library as far as we were concerned, because they were the only librarians we knew at Western, then. TB: Did you go on to the hikes with her? JC: No, not really. TB: Was she stern? JC: She had the effect of being stern, yes she was. But we knew her a little more personally, and I thought she was a delightful person. But she was very direct, if you didn’t like what she said, well, that’s just tough. What you see is what you get. TB: That’s right, OK. Thank you very much. 20 Joan (Jan) Hoppe Campbell Edited Transcript – September 16, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: John R. Calhoun interview--August 22, 2005
Description: John "Robbie" Calhoun attended the Campus School, 1941-1950.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_CalhounJohn_20050822
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program John R. Calhoun ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program John R. Calhoun ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with John R. Calhoun on August 22, 2005 on the campus of Western Washington University. The interviewer is Carole Morris. This was a videotaped interview through Academic Technology – Video Services. CM: State your full name for the record and tell us where you currently live and what you do. JC: Well, my full name for the record is John Robinson Calhoun. I’m the senior minister of the Manhattan Beach Community Church in Manhattan Beach, California and I have been there for 35 years. CM: You lived at one time in Bellingham. Were you born here? JC: No, I was born in Chicago, Illinois and made my way through Montana and arrived in Bellingham at the age of three. My father was the minister of the First Congregational Church at Cornwall and D in Bellingham. CM: As you know, this interview is about the Campus School which was located here at what is now Western Washington University. Can you tell me how you happened to attend the Campus School and what year that was when you started? JC: Well, how I actually got into the school I’m not really quite sure, I’m sure that everybody applied and they took people from different segments of the community. I probably arrived in 1941. Probably in the fall and entered it in Kindergarten. We started in Old Main, which is across the way from Miller Hall, of course. Then sometime in 1942 we were the first Kindergarten class to come in here and actually begin our schooling in this lovely building here at Miller Hall. CM: Did you go by a different name when you were enrolled at Campus School? JC: Yes. I actually was Robbie Calhoun in those days. My mother and father intended to call me John. But when I arrived for my first day at Kindergarten in Old Main, my teacher, who was Miss Nicol at the time, asked my parents what my name was. I had been called Robbie all my life, and they wanted to have me called John in a more formal sense. The thing that happened was that Miss Nicol said, “Oh, dear, we already have four other boys in the class named John.” And I said, “That’s not my name anyway, my name’s Robbie.” And so I was Robbie Calhoun until I was twenty-eight and entered the ministry. CM: So, when you come back to Bellingham, is that how your classmates still address you? JC: Yes, everybody in Bellingham knows me as Robbie Calhoun and my secretarial staff in Manhattan Beach at the Manhattan Beach Community Church where I have been employed, when they get a call from Bellingham and someone asks for Robbie, they always say, “Someone out of your past is calling.” 1 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: How many years did you attend Campus School? JC: Well, I started in 1941 and I went through the eighth-grade, which puts it into about 1950. Part of that time was spent, the original part as I mentioned, at Old Main and then we did Kindergarten through sixthgrade right here in Miller Hall. Then we had to go back to Old Main on the top floor and do seventh and eighth-grade. It was really a demotion to leave this fancy new building and go back to the school that we had started in in Kindergarten. CM: Describe the building, since you thought it was so fancy? JC: Well, I was thinking the other day that, as we know, Pearl Harbor occurred in 1941, had this school not been built and hadn’t been in the making prior to that, I’m sure because of the war effort Miller Hall and this new Campus School (we always referred to it as Campus School), would never have been built because there probably wouldn’t have been money and material. So, we were very fortunate to come to this state of the art building. This was supposed to be the school of the future for elementary school children. I think that this is the best school that I’ve ever seen, in my recollection and I’ve visited a number of elementary schools through the years. I also taught school later on before I entered the ministry, and I never saw another school that was as nice as this one as an elementary school. This was supposed to be the school of the future. We’ve been to the moon and still kids today all over America don’t go to schools this nice. That’s an interesting subject for the Department of Education to think about. CM: What made it nice? JC: Well, this school was very unique. First of all, the new facilities, and it was a state of the art building. I’m sure whoever put it together was very creative. You had two rooms instead of one. Most grade school classes, there’s only one room like the one we’re sitting in. This is one of the downstairs rooms that we are sitting in. The lower grades were downstairs, Kindergarten through second-grade and then upstairs here in Miller Hall was third through sixth grade. When we were here, not only did we have this room, we had the room next door, which was kind of a creative arts room. We did clay and woodworking and all kinds of things. But each class had two rooms. There’s a bay window in this room and that was the library corner which was something for the future of course. The unusual part of this school was it didn’t have stairs in it. We always referred to it as the “school without stairs.” It has these rubber ramps and these ramps are still here today. We would run when we were in the upper grades, and would roar down these rubber ramps when we were supposed to be walking down them, but they were something very innovative. Nobody had seen rubber ramps before. It is interesting to notice that here in Miller Hall, all these years later (from 1941) some of the same linoleum is out there on the floors. We had a lot of things that most elementary schools didn’t have. We had a lovely auditorium, which is still here, which is now used for classrooms. I can remember being in a play there, in a Chinese drama of some kind. I was the property man. I remember, whenever they needed the river, I had to unroll a blue sheet of something. This school was all about creativity. We had a music room, and I should say a couple things about that. Mira Booth was my music teacher and we would sing everyday. Something you can’t do in schools today is that at Christmas time, we would arrive early in the morning, probably about 7:30, before school started, which was probably around 8:30. We’d go into the auditorium, they had a beautiful Christmas tree, and we would sing Christmas carols for about 45 minutes. Of course, you can’t do that, relative to church and state today. But every kid that went to Campus School, at least in my era and I’m sure before and beyond that, had the opportunity to know Christmas carols very well whether they went to church or not. We got a lot of special attention. That was probably the big thing. Every class had a master teacher. I can remember all my master teachers, of all things. Miss Nicol was my Kindergarten teacher. Miss Elliot was 2 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED my second-grade teacher. Miss Casanova, whose brother was a famous football coach at the University of Oregon, was my first-grade teacher. Miss Kinsman taught third-grade. Miss Merriman taught fourth-grade upstairs. Miss Kinsman was upstairs, too. Miss Channer taught fifth-grade. Then Miss McLeod showed up to teach sixth-grade. She was the only new one; the rest of them had been around Campus School and probably in Old Main for many years. We were fortunate to have very good master teachers. We had four student teachers every quarter, this was a teacher training college; it was a normal school originally. It was called Western Washington College of Education. We were all a part of the campus here. The Campus School was built around the notion that you needed a laboratory to bring prospective teachers into. We were the ones that worked with all of the extra teachers, so we got a lot of special attention. If you had trouble in math, or you had trouble in English or any other subjects, you got special attention. There were a lot of small groups which gave the student teachers a chance to really teach and get acquainted with the kids. We got a lot of special attention. CM: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? JC: Well, for the early part of my life -- it’s kind of a funny story -- I liked mathematics because mathematics at the lower levels was memorization, and I have a wonderful memory if nothing else. For the first two or three grades, people thought I was very bright because I could memorize everything. I could spell very well too. I was very good in mathematics because we would do subtraction and addition and my mind worked very well on that; and multiplication tables, I could outpace my classmates with nine times eight and so forth. But when we got to story problems and fractions and long division, they realized that I didn’t know very much about mathematics. I had a lot of help. My father had been a math major before he had been a minister, and after working with me he said, “It’s a good thing all you have to do is spell your name and not add it up.” I think the great opportunity for me came in the creativity of all of the programs and all of the special attention we got and the chance of self expression. I have never been afraid to speak in public and one of the reasons is that we were always up giving reports and doing spelling bees and we were in the auditorium doing plays and various kinds of activities. My favorite kinds of things to do had to do with speaking and it had to do with English. We had Spanish classes, even. We even learned to type here in the third-grade. That was an experiment at the time. I, to this day, have a 1928 Royal portable typewriter, that I use for the fun of it from time to time. I learned to type and I could type 120 words a minute by the time I got to high school. It helped me through college, but it was an experiment here at Campus School to teach us to type. The other thing that was interesting was that we had a teacher for penmanship and a period for penmanship. Her name was Miss Gragg and I can remember her standing at the blackboard and going “circle straight,” that was a d or a b depending on what you were doing. We all learned to print before we learned to write and many of my classmates were wonderful printers. I’m a pretty good printer. But, we didn’t learn to write until later years and nobody can read our handwriting, but they can read our printing, which is interesting. We had a lot of fun here because there at least were two gymnasiums and we spent a lot of time in the gymnasiums doing all kinds of activities. I remember, Miss Muffly and Ruth Weythman were two of our gym teachers and we played dodge ball and we played some volleyball and we did tumbling exercises and things. We had these lovely gyms that are located at the north of Miller Hall. I can walk around the building and see where those were. Now they’re offices or classrooms or things of that nature. Another thing that we had, that I expect was kind of innovative, was when we were in Kindergarten we used to be trooped from Old Main over to Edens Hall for lunch, but when we moved here, up on the second floor, across from the third-grade room, which was at the south end of Miller Hall, there was a state of the art cafeteria. We would work in the cafeteria, as well as eat in the cafeteria. The first gal that ran the cafeteria was a fluffy woman of good humor by the name of Mrs. Downer and we all loved her. If you got on her good side and you worked in the kitchen (and we all took turns helping in the kitchen, that was part 3 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED of our education), you got free ice cream and extra ice cream. To this day, ice cream is one of my downfalls, I learned that at Campus School as well, I suppose. CM: What kind of food did they have? JC: I remember little stuff like the corn. On Fridays, of course, we had fish, because all Catholics (I didn’t happen to be a Catholic but many of my classmates were) had to have fish. Every school in town had fish on Friday until the Catholic Church decided that wasn’t necessary anymore. We Protestants ate fish for years on Friday as a convenience to our Catholic friends. We had very good food. I don’t remember the food. I’ve traveled all over the world and I don’t remember the food I have eaten in all those places but I certainly remember the people and all the adventures. CM: Was the food provided for all students or did some bring lunch? JC: You could bring lunch. We had lunch pails. You could eat in the cafeteria and then you could have ice cream or you could buy your lunch. I remember we all had lunch buckets and we often traded sandwiches. My life was interesting in that at the age of five I started Kindergarten and I lived over in the Broadway Parks section, so I had to ride a bus to Campus School everyday and home. I always remember it was labeled Alabama, 16th and Garden. It went around over by Sunset and Cornwall. During the war we had black outs because they didn’t want the prospective Japanese invaders to see where the towns were and at night all lights were shut off into early in the morning, so I remember it was dark in the morning and I remember waiting for the bus in complete darkness as a boy of five. Then we’d come through town and some people had to transfer from one bus, it was public transportation, and then come up here on the hill. They dropped us off down at Garden Street. Then we would walk up and there were two famous Saint Bernard’s. They were the biggest Saint Bernard’s that anyone had ever seen and I haven’t seen any bigger ones since, who lived halfway between, I guess it’s High Street that runs along here, between High Street and Garden. Everyone would pet those two big Saint Bernard’s and then we’d walk up here. Outside of Miller Hall it was interesting, because, now we have Red Square and of course there’s an addition on Miller Hall here, but in those days it was just a field, and fields on both sides. The front door here, to Miller Hall, was connected to High Street in part by a board walk. We would come along that board walk, and in the winter time it got icy, so we would skate along there. In the fields on either side, we played baseball in the spring and in the fall, and we’d play football out there in the fall as well. It was nothing but fields out there and of course, they’ve added buildings and Red Square. Fraser Hall was not there. There was an old industrial arts building north of Miller Hall that is no longer there, as well. This whole facility, Miller Hall, kind of stood by itself, with Sehome Hill behind it. It was very picturesque. We were all envied because we went to this very new and beautiful school. As you look at the outside of this building, it has stood the test of time. It’s been an incredibly lovely building, and has been used by the university since 1967, when they decided that they didn’t need the school here, and I guess they needed the rooms here to expand the university. I don’t know what closed Campus School down, actually. CM: Was there a tuition charge? JC: I don’t know about that. I think there might have been. There was a tremendous mixture of kids in my class. There were about 28 in every class. Basically, I went through school with the same kids, the ones I started out in Kindergarten with were the same kids. My parents were not wealthy and many of my classmates did not come from wealthy homes in particular. Others came from some of the wealthiest 4 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED homes in Bellingham, so there was a mixture of students. But I’m sure the tuition couldn’t have been very great at all – if any. CM: Were there a lot of students who had professors for parents? JC: Yes, that was one of the perks, and I suppose, one of the drawing cards for professors to come here was their kids could go to this modern new innovative creative school where they’d get all this special attention. I think that was true. We knew the professors. I knew most of the professors by name. When I came I think the university, which was then a college, had about, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 students. Then, as the war ended, why there was a large influx of people coming back from the war who wanted to come to college and wanted to become teachers. The interesting part about being here, in addition to our school here was that we used the library over here, and there was a children’s section. I remember during the war we had air-raid drills and we used to go down into the bottom of the library. And we helped with the war effort with things like care packages and afghans. In the early grades, until you got through about second-grade, you sat on rugs rather than on chairs. Everyone sat cross-legged and we did sit in chairs on other occasions, but there basically was a rug in the front of the room and Miss Casanova in the first-grade would preside and she’d have a desk up here. Each teacher, and this is another innovation, each master teacher had their own private office and that was back in 1941. That was unusual, because most teachers in elementary schools today don’t have private offices, but each teacher had a private office that was not a part of the classroom. That was very special for the teachers. We used to refer to the kids in our class whose fathers were professors as some kind of faculty brat or something like that. But they were good kids, too, some of my lifelong friends, they’re fathers and mothers were teachers here. CM: Were the master teachers ever also faculty? JC: I don’t know that. I know that Frank Punches, who taught me in the eighth-grade (and his son is a good friend of mine, his son lives down near Port Orchard in McCormack Woods and I speak with him on a regular basis), came here and he taught the eighth-grade and later supervised all of the student teachers at Campus School, and sent them to their assignments throughout the city. Not only did student teachers draw time here with the kids at Campus School, they were sent to Washington School and Roosevelt School and other elementary schools and junior high and high schools. Of course, there was one high school, Bellingham High and then there was Whatcom and Fairhaven as junior highs in Bellingham in those days. CM: What was his son’s name? JC: His name was Jerry Punches. He became the registrar at San Luis Obispo and is married to the former director of admissions at CalPoly-San Luis Obispo. They are both now retired. As a minister, I was the one that married them and I married them at Mammoth Lakes, California. They’re still good friends of mine. That’s another aspect of Campus School; as you know, in 1993 we had a reunion here. We’d never had a reunion of Campus School kids. Everybody thought, “Well, there might be a hundred people who would show up.” Some of the people here who had some memories at least of Campus School, thought they’d get together and see what they could do. Some of the administrators here said that would be a nice alumni 5 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED event and so they started planning. Well, as it turned out, we had two big evenings and as I recall there were 350 alumni of Campus School which went back to the turn of the century and to 1967. People came from all over, places overseas. We had 350 on Friday night at a get together in the Viking Union. Then the next night we had the largest dinner up to that time ever held on the campus. Interestingly enough, that was President Morse’s first public appearance on the Western Campus. She appeared at this alumni dinner and was astounded to find this huge aggregation of people who had come back who had attended Campus School. Of course, many of them brought their spouses as well. But it was an overwhelming event and we had a lot of fun. Dr. DeLorme spoke about the structural history and I did what I’m doing pretty much now. I was the master of ceremonies and recalled the fun kinds of things that we used to do. Many teachers, of course, got their start here. And many of my classmates and many of the kids that went to the Campus School were teachers and many of them came back here and went to school. Some of them got graduate degrees and their teaching degrees here. Many of them are teaching in schools and most of them in my class have retired. But a great many teachers in former years in Bellingham and other towns went to Campus School and I think it had a good influence – a number were also administrators. But by the time we got to the third, fourth, fifth and sixth-grade, we knew what to do with student teachers. We would run them around the place. We really broke them in. I’m sure some of them, I know one in particular told me, after he had been in our sixth-grade class, he decided, on the basis of all the foolishness that went on, (that was partly our initiation of the student teachers), that teaching wasn’t for him. I can remember one event that was a real specialty of ours. When we’d get a new crop of student teachers, they were always assigned to take us on nature hikes, because we’re here in the woods and Sehome Hill behind us. One of the things a student teacher would be assigned to do by a master teacher would be to take us to the top of Sehome Hill and look at the flora and the fauna. Well, we would have a signal amongst us, as we got to be fifth and sixth-graders. When we all get up there, the signal would be heard through the woods and everybody would tear down through the brush and come back and sit in the classroom, leaving the student teacher up on the top of the hill wondering what was going on. Then someone would go tell the master teacher that there wasn’t a student teacher in the room. It was that kind of fun, but the student teachers were wonderful people, they were very kind to us and they helped us. After the Second World War, there were a lot of people that came back who’d really been through it. One of our teachers was highly revered; I believe his name was Ed Higginbottom. He had lost a leg in the war and had a wooden leg and came in here that first day, and I don’t think any of us, living in this sheltered atmosphere, had ever seen anything like that. He was an example of spirit and courage and good will. I think everybody who’d had him as a teacher would remember him. Many of the student teachers were memorable characters. Their names escape me because we had so many of them, but a number of people did their student teaching here and went on to be principals and superintendents. This was a great place. Western and Campus School had a reputation for turning out very good teachers. These lovely facilities, I’m sure, were a great help. CM: You mentioned you taught for a few years. Where did you get your teaching credentials? JC: I went to Washington State University. I was in the sports broadcasting business and I was a disc jockey and a newscaster and I did that for seven years. While I was at Washington State, I had the need to return here for some surgery. I had to go an extra year to complete my work. In those days, you could take five courses, get a teaching degree and go do your student teaching, which I did in Spokane. I taught two years of public speaking and drama in Richland, Washington. Then I taught overseas for the United States Army for a year, near Kaiserslautern, Germany, on a big tank base that Rommel used to train his tank troops on. So, I taught for three years and I also taught public speaking at a college in New England for a while. 6 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Teaching was a very honored profession. I think that’s one thing everybody came away with from Campus School, because this was a very happy place to go to school. It was a lot of fun. If I could put one word to this place, it was a lot of fun, all the time. (Of course the college students were very serious, especially the ones that came back after the war, they were older.) We got involved with the sports teams. We’d follow them. I would come up here at nights to watch Western play basketball and go to their football games over on the other side of town at Battersby Field. We would go to Carver Gym. We went swimming every Friday. We had the big college pool over there. We were all required to go swimming and some of my classmates are remarkable swimmers after that. I was below average in that area, but we had all this help teaching us to swim, too. The student teachers, who were training to be physical education teachers, got their work out there. End of Tape One, Side one Then they helped us in the gym with all these different activities along with the master teachers. You always had a lot of teachers around. One of the joys of this place for me, I can remember the first mechanical pencil I ever saw was in the college bookstore. We had access to the college bookstore, which was over in Old Main when we were in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth-grade. We would go over there and we would buy things, paper and various notebooks and things that the average kid in elementary school would never see. These mechanical pencils were very unusual in those days, and pens (I think the pencils were the first thing). The old bookstore was down at a lower level. I could find it if I had to today. In fact, I’ve walked all over this campus. It’s a great joy for all of us to come back here. CM: How many students did you think were going to Campus School at the time there were 1500 [regular students]? JC: Well, I’m guessing that you had at one time nine grades; actually ten because you had Kindergarten through Sixth-grade and then you’d have seventh, eighth and ninth. You’d average about 28 per room. You’re going to have to be the mathematician on that one because as I told you, math is not my long suit. There was Kindergarten through ninth grade, about 28 students per class. I’m pretty sure of that 28 figure. I think that was the one they aimed for. CM: Did you say you went to athletic events. Was there a section for Campus School to sit? JC: Oh, no. We were interested. We were part of the college here. I mean, you felt like Western was your home, too and the college was your home. The colors were blue and white and the Vikings were the biggest thing in town (Bellingham High School had good teams as well). Going to a Western game was a big deal. I played on the Campus School baseball team. We were the Campus Bulldogs, I think. I played a lot of basketball. There was an old gym in Old Main we had to play in for a while, but we’d play over at Carver Gymnasium and Sam Carver, was there. I remember him, as a boy. To give you an idea of how things turn out, my basketball coach in junior high was a fellow by the name of Pinky Erickson and Pinky Erickson had been a basketball star here after the war and he was also a good football player. He was my basketball coach for the Campus School. We played Meridian, Fairhaven and Whatcom. Pinky Erickson later went on, after his rather humble beginnings as a coach here at Campus School, to be a very noteworthy football coach in Everett. His son, Dennis Erickson, who grew up in Everett, went on to play football at Montana State and ended up coaching at Washington State University. He won a national championship at Miami, coached the Seattle Seahawks and up until this last year, the 7 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 49ers. He’s on a sabbatical at the moment, but that’s kind of how things progressed that go back into the Forties. There are a lot of people around town who were sports stars here who remained in Bellingham. This is a great sports town. Everybody who grew up played and watched. Western supplied the Bellingham Bells with players, especially after the war. That’s when the influx of veterans came. The stars here at Western used to walk around in these blue sweaters with this huge blue and white “W” s on the front. We as kids were very envious of that, but in later years, we had blue sweaters and we had “C”s for Campus on them, if we lettered in a certain sport in the seventh, eighth and ninth-grade. That was fun. CM: When you did your drama productions, were those in the evening for parents to come or were they for other students? JC: Usually they were in the daytime, but parents could come. They were for the whole student body. I remember also going to the auditorium. I heard Burl Ives, a great singer, over at Old Main. There were concert series that came to the college and we would go as students, usually for a daytime production, and then they’d have them in the evening. Theatre at the college was beginning to evolve as a major activity. I think the great strength of this school (though many of my friends went on to succeed mightily in technical areas) probably was in social studies, language arts, and in science. We had kind of a science lab, as I recall it too. We learned a great deal about nature. I remember watching beavers building dams. We were taken places, lots of field trips. We were always going somewhere. This was kind of a model school. Whoever put this together had in mind that this would be the school of the future and that you would have these kind of lovely rooms and each elementary school class would have two rooms instead of one and you’d have gymnasiums and so on and auditoriums and music rooms and all of the rest of this. It’s interesting, as you come into Miller Hall, if you turn right, there’s an office there and I don’t know what it’s used for today, but I looked in it yesterday when I was wondering around. Raymond Hawk was the principal. There’s a front office in that first office around the corner to your right as you come in. They had a lovely secretary there, her name was Nancy Smith. Then he had the office in the back. Whenever you got to go visit Dr. Hawk that was either a good day or a bad day, though he was a wonderfully nice human being. One kind of funny story occurred when I was the captain of the patrol in the Sixth-grade. The patrol was like crossing guards, because there was traffic on Garden and High and so on. The captain of the patrol had to be sure everyone was doing their job and the kids were crossing in the right places. Well, there were a lot of woods down below, between Garden and High Street and the campus here. There were woods to go through and some of the kids who walked to school liked to run through those back woods and they were not supposed to do that. They were supposed to go through the crossing guards. So they took the person who could run the fastest in the sixth-grade, and that happened to be me, and made him captain of the patrol because he could catch the younger ones sneaking through the woods. Well, one day, as I was running through the woods chasing a young man by the name of Phillip Van Aver (whose father was a professor here at this college and whose sister was one of my classmates). I was chasing him up the hill. I was just about to catch him when I looked down in the brush (you didn’t hurt him or anything, you just were supposed to bring him in and once they got caught, they all knew they had to go to the principal’s office), and I saw a dollar bill. I picked it up and I put it in my pocket and then I caught Mr. Van Aver and brought him to the principal’s office. (He had to serve some kind of detention I suspect.) At any rate, I forgot all about the dollar in the chase and when I got back to the classroom, I put my hand in my pocket and it wasn’t a dollar, it was a twenty dollar bill. Well, you can imagine, in the late Forties 8 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (1948 probably) when I was in the sixth-grade, twenty dollars was a lot of money. My parents, being in the ministry, we didn’t have a lot of money. I worked and mowed lawns, fifty cents a lawn. I was saving for a bike. I had saved $30.00 for this beautiful red and white Schwin bicycle that I needed. Well, all of a sudden, I had twenty dollars in my hand, which is like $150.00 today, I suppose, I don’t know. At any rate, I had this twenty dollar bill and I thought, “What should I do with it?” I decided that the only ethical thing to do (and why I was that ethical in the sixth grade, I’m not quite sure), was to go down and see Dr. Hawk, who I knew quite well because he came around and visited with the kids and knew all the kids. He was a nice man. I went in to see him and I told him the story of how I got this twenty dollar bill. He said “Well, we can’t advertise that somebody’s found a twenty dollar bill because everybody in the campus would claim it.” (It probably belonged to a college student with a family.) He said, “I’m going to put that twenty dollar bill in my desk for two weeks and if somebody says something to the administration of the college or comes in here and says they lost a twenty dollar bill, we’ll give it to them, but because you were honest,” he said, “if nobody claims it, it’s yours.” True to his word, he called me in one day and said, “Here’s your twenty dollar bill.” I went home with this twenty dollar bill and was able to buy my bicycle without working anymore for it, which didn’t please my parents that much, but I enjoyed the bicycle! CM: Did you have grades at the Campus School? Did they have report cards? JC: No. They wrote individual letters to the parents, just evaluating how you were doing in different subjects and what your strengths were, and your weaknesses. I never got any grades until I left Campus School in the eighth-grade. I went to Whatcom and that was a very unusual experience to come home with a report card. I don’t know that we were ever supposed to see what was written to our parents. I know I saw some of it, but it’s funny, I don’t think the students ever knew what grades they got. We knew how we were doing ourselves on certain subjects like spelling. I remember Miss Kinsman in the third-grade had books we kept, with all the spelling words we missed, not the ones we didn’t. We had spelling bees constantly. I happened to be a good speller only because I had a good memory. That has served me well all my life, but I can’t spell today because I’ve had secretaries who take dictation. I have to look up words that I probably spelled in the fifth-grade correctly. It’s funny what you can remember. I remember in the third-grade coming home and being so excited that I could spell October. Something about reading I would like to share. My mother, I think, probably against all theories today taught me to read when I was three or four. I used to sit in her lap and she would knit and read to me. I remember how thrilled I was to start reading. We read Dick and Jane books with Puff and Spot. You had reading groups. I was good at reading and a number of the other students were, too. We looked forward to the next book. I can remember my first real book beyond Dick and Jane and how thrilled I was because it was quite a thick book. It was a normal classroom book it was stories and so on. But we learned to read here. I think that was one of the chief emphases here at Western in the Campus School that the kids did learn to read. They would hold people back too. They did it mainly in the public schools but here at Campus School, every once in awhile, they would hold a student back (in my memory, but not many). I’ll tell you a funny story about the non-report card aspect of this. Your parents would get a statement from your teacher, and it would come in a special form and maybe it came twice a year. I don’t know how often parents got letters telling about the performance of their children. But if there was something that you weren’t up to that you were supposed to be doing better at or if you were up to something you weren’t supposed to be up to, that was in the letter. I mentioned we had a very great cross-section of young people here. A lot of the old line families, for instance, John Green was one of my classmates. John Green’s father was the president of Pacific American 9 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Fisheries, that was the biggest fish cannery in the world. He was quite wealthy. But, son John never could keep any money, he was always spending money. One of the funny things in one of those evaluations that they sent to my folks, and my father talked to me about it, was that I used to lend money to the wealthier students in my class, and there were a lot of them. They were quite wealthy and their children were wealthy and the rest of us came from middle class homes and some of the kids came from homes where I think their parents struggled mightily. (I doubt if there was any tuition, as I mentioned). To get back to the point of the evaluation, my father said that the teacher had suggested I was making far too much money lending money to some of my classmates and charging them interest and that she thought also that I might be making an inordinate amount of profit trading stamps. Now, being a minister, I would never become terribly wealthy and some of those classmates of mine, who I used to loan money to became very wealthy, in fact, John Green became a banker and I know a lot of people in the business community here who have done very well with business and were far more astute than I was. But I was evidently treading on my classmates who came from wealthy homes and they were given much more of an allowance than I was, and yet they were always out of money. The other thing we could get at the college bookstore were ice cream bars, I remember that specifically. We would go at lunch time, especially in the seventh and eighth-grade when we went back to Old Main. We were only at Campus School here at Miller Hall from Kindergarten through the sixth-grade, and then we had to go back to Old Main up on the upper floor. We had Miss Hunt for seventh-grade and Mr. Punches for eighth-grade. Then they disbanded the junior high around 1950. They didn’t disband the grade school until 1967 but they disbanded the junior high, seventh, eighth and ninth grade, when I was an eighth-grader, so I went on to Whatcom Junior High School, close to wear I lived at Broadway Park. I was the only one. There were two public junior highs here in Bellingham, Fairhaven and Whatcom. I was the only one that went to Whatcom. I knew all of those kids in my neighborhood. It was a much bigger junior high school and I played ball there and liked it. All my classmates went to Fairhaven and I ended up playing basketball and baseball against them. Before they disbanded the junior high school, I remember, we were taken to Fairhaven. They assumed everyone would go to Fairhaven and we went over there for orientation sessions, so that when the transition came for the kids that had gone to Campus School to go to Fairhaven that we would feel at home. Most of the kids that went to Campus School probably lived on the south side, too, of Bellingham, because they could walk. But there were a number from the north side. I used to ride the bus with students, so there were a number from the north side. CM: One more question about the classes, before I ask you some more about your classmates. You were talking about Dick and Jane books and other books. Did you have regular textbooks in the older grades or where they curriculums written by some the teachers since it was kind of a different kind of instruction? JC: Well, what I remember is, we spent a lot of time in the library. There was a children’s section, I think it was in the bottom of the library. There was a children’s library, with books for teaching teachers to understand what they should be teaching young people. As we got older we would use the college library. We learned to use the college library just like the college students, as we got to be sixth, seventh and eighth graders and even before. One funny incident I remember so clearly, and it has nothing to do with your question is: Miss McLeod came late. She came toward the end of my time here at Miller Hall to teach the Sixth-grade. She was very creative. She had come out of some creative background and she made us all go over to Old Main, to the old gymnasium and learn how to dance. And if you know sixth-graders, boys and girls did not want to learn how to dance. The girls did maybe, but the boys didn’t. I remember that so clearly. She would take us over there and teach us how to waltz and do all these things. That was kind of fun – at least for the girls. 10 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED A lot of the kids came from the medical community in Bellingham. There were a lot of doctor’s kids here. Well, we were talking about educational materials. In my mind, we had certain reading books in the early days and I’m sure we had arithmetic texts. But most of everything was done in the classroom. I don’t remember a lot of homework until I got to the Seventh and Eighth-grade. We spent a lot of time, as I mentioned, in the school library. I think that we read and then we learned at whatever pace you could learn. If you were slow in math, you worked along at that pace. You had all these groups, group A, B, C; it was 1, 2, 3. Reading, since that was my specialty, I was always able to continue on, and if you read well, you could read anything you wanted to. We checked out a lot of books from the children’s library and I think once you learned to read, you could read anything you wanted in a certain subject like science or social studies or history. I love history very much. I don’t know if I got that love of history here or not, but the one thing I did get here was the love of reading everything and anything, and the ability to. I think that reading was a big thing and I think math was for some and we spent a lot of time writing. I think I was an exception. I think most of my classmates are probably pretty adequate in math. But I don’t remember, until we were seventh and eighth-graders, having homework. I don’t remember having a brief case or anything like that, until we went back over to Old Main in Seventh and eighth-grade. Then I think it was more standardized because they were preparing us to go to public high school. CM: So when you got to Whatcom, was it kind of a shock for you or was that transition pretty smooth? JC: With the kids, it was wonderful, because I knew the kids and I was never afraid, I think that’s something they taught us here. We had no fear of anything, really. We dealt with adults, we were around college students, we were on a college campus. We were treated very well by our master teachers and treated very well by everybody, and respected in retrospect. So, schooling was a very happy experience. When I went to Whatcom, I had a wonderful experience there. I knew a lot of the kids because I played ball with them. It was fun to meet the girls and by that time you were interested in girls. A lot of the kids I’d met in the neighborhood parks. So, I felt at home at the school. However, the classes were a shock to me, the discipline and the structure. It was a pretty cut and dried thing. I was awful at algebra. Had it not been for my father’s ability in algebra, and the fact that the algebra teacher was a member of our church and my father was president of the Bellingham School Board, I might never have gotten through algebra. I took geometry later and had a hard time with geometry, but my father was a wizard in geometry. Again, I was lucky. The teacher was a member of my father’s church. When I graduated from Bellingham High School, my father was president of the school board. I was fortunate because I knew all the students in town – my age. I was elected president of my senior class, which was about 385 students. My father gave me my diploma. I was the first one to get it. One other thing about that that’s interesting in Campus School, there were six class speakers and four of them, out of the 385, all were from my class here at Campus School, which was interesting. CM: This is your senior year? JC: Yes, in high school. In fact, the class speakers, Terry Rogers and Roger White, went to the public schools and Jerry Punches, Catherine Stimpson, Ann Kingsbury and myself were the other class speakers and we all went through Campus School together. We did get a good education. And I think in the main, that my classmates and the ones that preceded me here at Campus School and the ones that followed me, had a pretty good time at school. I think they were well prepared to go to junior high at Fairhaven and then on to high school. CM: Would you say that they were more self motivated? 11 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Oh, I think so. We were creative and independent. We weren’t used to failing. It was a great shock to get a report card. It was a great shock to fail in algebra. I’d never failed at anything in my life in school, and I should have. They should have been failing me in math all along. I got to algebra and it might as well have been Greek. We did have some Spanish that I remember we took here and I remember thinking, “This is a foreign language.” There are people who can’t do math and you’re looking at one. But, the other classes, in junior-senior high school, there were more students in the classroom, there were probably 35, it was less personal. We were used to four student teachers. We were used to a master teacher. We were used to all this special attention and being this select little group of characters on a college campus running around. When it snowed here, we were great at throwing snowballs at the college students and each other. We were probably, from the standpoint of the college, a nuisance at certain points, because here are these little characters running all over the campus. I don’t know if that’s what led to the demise of campus school in 1967 or not. I think they wanted the room. CM: How did the college students react when you did stuff like that? Were they pretty friendly? JC: Oh, yes, the college students, they were very kind to us. Because most of them were here to get teaching degrees and most of them had to deal with us, sooner or later. It was funny, like I say, as they got into the older grades, we really ran them through there paces. We had all kinds of crazy things we’d do in classrooms, change seats and do things to confuse them of course. I remember one experience; I think the fellow’s name was Price. I’m sure, given my age and given his, he’s probably deceased by now. But I remember and I’m going to say it was in the sixth-grade, he was a student teacher. Nothing was sacred in the front of the room. You never went into the master teacher’s office, but the desk in the front of the room, you’d come up there, you’d take things off of it if the teacher would tell you to do that. Well, the student teachers would have different times where they would teach the class individually. I remember Mr. Price, and I don’t know if my classmates would back me up on this memory or not, but I have a pretty good memory. He was a very nice man and he was teaching something and when he left the classroom, somebody went up to the desk just picking up stuff or doing stuff and he had left a wine list of some kind, which was very unusual in those days. People didn’t drink wine, but there was a wine list up there. Why he had a list of wines and how he left it there, I don’t know, but the students got a hold of that, we made a big deal of it, the master teacher heard about it. I think the master teacher is the one that always went to bed with a worried look on her face every night because she had to supervise not only this group of 28 students, she had to supervise four student teachers all the time. The master teachers were very good and caring people. We liked them, I never had a teacher here I didn’t like. Miss Hunt, in the seventh-grade was kind of harsh and very outspoken, that was unusual. She was not the usual kind of sophisticated teacher we had, whatever she thought, she said. We were in contact with a lot of people. Of course, we had special classes in language and art in our class. We had a lot of good artists. Some of them made a good living in art related activities, because there were a lot of classes for art and we did a lot of painting. We did of course some finger painting in the beginning and then we went to watercolor and various things and some of my classmates excelled in that immensely. I didn’t. CM: Can you talk about some of your classmates, who they were and what they’re doing now? JC: Well, yes. Last night I had dinner with one. That’s the interesting thing, the camaraderie that has remained all through the years amongst kids who went to Campus School. It was kind of a special club of some kind. Last night I had dinner with someone I’ve known for 66 years and I met her, actually, before I came to Campus School, but we came to Campus School together. Her name in those days was Ann 12 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Kingsbury, it’s now Ann Jones. Ann Jones was a very bright student. We had some marvelously bright students who could do absolutely everything. I don’t know if I mentioned this here or before but we had drafting classes and we would go to the industrial arts building, which was to the north of Miller Hall and it was an old building, but they had drafting boards. They taught us how to do the preliminaries of entering the field of drafting, just to see if that would work with students, you see, like typing and various other skills. I remember she was wonderful at that. I used to look at what she was doing and she’d explain to me because she could see what I couldn’t see. Ann Kingsbury would be one very good example. She went on to Bellingham High School; she was a very popular student there, very bright at school. She was one of our class speakers. Her father was on the school board in the public schools here in Bellingham and he was an attorney and they lived down here on the south side below the college. CM: That was Burton? JC: Burton Kingsbury, yes. Ann Kingsbury then went off to Stanford, then came home and married a student that had gone here before, Rogan Jones. He was Rogan Jones Jr. Rogan Jones Sr. had developed the first radio station, KVOS here in Bellingham. Rogan Jones, Jr. unfortunately died of multiple sclerosis. He was two years ahead of me in school. We knew all the kids above us because we were around them all the time and looked up to them and Rogan was a particularly nice fellow. He took over the station and when he died Ann took over the station and then added an FM station, KGMI (was KVOS originally). Those were her stations for many years until she sold them. She lives down on Chuckanut and has been very active in Bellingham civic work. A typical classmate, I would say, but very bright. She herself has three children; none of them were ever able to come to Campus School because Campus School closed before her children were old enough to come up here. They would all go to Lowell School and then they would go to Sehome High School, which came to pass as the second high school in Bellingham. Jerry Punches, who I’ve mentioned, lives near Port Orchard and he’s retired. Most of my classmates, (I’m about 70, I’ll be 70 next May), and most of my classmates are retired. I’m still working, which I think is funny, but most of my classmates are retired. He was a typical bright student as well. He came in the sixth-grade and his father was the eighth-grade teacher. Jerry went on to play basketball and baseball and football at Fairhaven and baseball and basketball at Bellingham High. Then he went on to the University of Washington and was a pilot in the Navy. When he got out, I think he came back up here and finished up and later became the registrar at CalPoly-San Luis Obispo for many years and now is retired in Washington. We had a reunion, as you know, in 1993 and he was very much a part of that. I also know a lot of classmates on either side of me, just because we were around here together for so many years; you took an interest, which we almost all did. You knew families and kids in Bellingham, it wasn’t that big of a place, you knew about everybody. Leib Alexander for instance, [another classmate of mine], he was here at Campus School and then he went on to Fairhaven and then to Bellingham High. He was a very prominent dentist here in Bellingham for a number of years and also got into commercial real estate, either as the owner or part owner of the Hampton Inn out here. He’s retired down on Edgemoor today. Bill Davis, I had lunch with him and Leib the other day. That goes back 66 years, you see. When I come to town in the summers (I spend my summers here), and when I come to town we all get together and sometimes we do it in larger groups and sometimes in smaller groups. Bill Davis went on and worked for the State of Washington Department of Highways. He was one of my classmates. 13 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Catherine Stimpson (a lot of the Stimpsons went here to school), her father was a doctor. She was probably one of the brightest students ever to come through Campus School. I think she was at Rutgers or Temple as the dean of women and she went to Bryn Mawr to college. She also, I think, worked for something like the Rockefeller Foundation. We’ve had a lot of very accomplished students that came out of the class. Some of them are still in Bellingham. I’d say 75% of my classmates live in Bellingham because Bellingham is a nice place to be. I think one of the interesting surveys that one could take about Campus School is: how many students that went through Campus School got involved in education in later years? Because I think it’s a high percentage. CM: Who were some of the artists that you were talking about? JC: Well, there was a classmate of mine, a beautiful young woman, who lives in Florida, married to a prominent criminal attorney in Miami. Her name was Celia Onkels and she had two brothers, three brothers actually, that went to Campus School. She was a very good artist. She was very good at everything. She was a very good athlete. Today when we talk about girls’ athletics, if she had grown up in this era … She’s a very good tennis player and has played in tournaments nationally. She was a great swimmer. She was a very good artist, drawing and so on. There were a number of them that came through. A lot of doctors and dentists came out of here. I think probably they had wonderful eye-hand skills and their science backgrounds here from school I think were important. I think this place afforded a great launch pad and a great opportunity to begin a creative and purposeful life. In my public school, in Bellingham High School, there were countless students as well that were terribly successful who never saw Campus School in their life. So that was not necessarily the key to success, but a lot of people who came through Campus School were very successful and a lot of the kids that went to Lowell School and Columbia School and Roosevelt and Larrabee School and all the others were just as successful in their endeavors, too. I think what happened here was enhanced creativity and kind of permissiveness in some ways. They tried out all the fancy educational formulas of the day as the eras went along. I think that started back at the turn of the century. I suspect that if you studied what went on here at Campus School all those years, from the turn of the century to 1967, you’d see every innovation in education tried out on us like typing, and drafting in the sixth-grade and those kinds of things. CM: Is there anything else that you wanted to bring up that I haven’t asked you about or you haven’t mentioned? JC: Oh, I can’t think of anything. I think that the memory I have of Campus School is grateful appreciation and affection for the people that I met here and my classmates. We get together and have reunions. There was a bond here that I mentioned. I think that in retrospect, I was very lucky to come here. It was a good place. It was a fun place. You never were afraid. You were kind of like a horse in a horse race. You were given your reins; you could do as much as you could do here. You could be as creative as you wanted to be. They fostered creativity and independence. When I left Washington State University, I taught for two years and then I went overseas to teach and I had been broadcasting. Then I spent three years on my own just traveling around the world. I don’t know if that activity had anything to do with this idea that you had kind of a free life and you could do anything. You asked what you came away from Campus School with -- you felt the sky was the limit. If you wanted to become president of the United States you could become president of the United States; whatever you wanted to be, you could do anything. I think that’s part of my traveling around the world. It never occurred to me I couldn’t travel around the world. All my life I’ve had a very open perspective about life 14 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED that you could do anything. I think that probably came from Miller Hall and those early teachers and these early experiences we had and all the opportunities to do things. CM: Do you have any memorabilia left, any of your artwork or…? JC: No, probably not. I have not looked through my stuff. I’ve been at the same location in Manhattan Beach for 35 years and I have put things carefully away. I suppose somewhere, I know they’re floating around, there are campus yearbooks. Not so much from the grade school days, but from seventh, eighth and ninth-grade. I know we put one out in the eighth-grade because that was our last year. They stopped everything. I can remember seeing the pictures. I remember it was white with green print on the front. I can remember seeing the basketball and the baseball team and the different class officers and activities. We learned about politics, too, here. We learned how government ran and it was a democratic kind of a system. We had elections and things of that kind. That was also true of Bellingham High School. I will say this, Bellingham High School, in the era that I went, was a marvelous high school. It had been built just before the war. It was a state of the art high school, facility wise, certainly in the Fifties that I remember it. I used to broadcast games in a lot of schools all over the state and I’ve traveled and been in a lot of schools with my work and I think Bellingham High School was also one of the great high schools, the teachers and the caliber of the programs. I think the creativity that was here at the Campus School and Western also led to creativity at Bellingham High School and I think it was a marvelous school. CM: Maybe a little competitiveness there or is the training of the teachers…? JC: I think the training of the teachers. I don’t ever recall any competitiveness. The major competitiveness in town was between Fairhaven Junior High and Whatcom Junior High, when I was growing up. We had only one high school then, we all joined together at the high school. The nice part for me, I knew everyone at Campus School, then I met everyone at Fairhaven, it was not that big a school, maybe two, three hundred students. Whatcom was the big junior high where I went and by the time I got to high school, I pretty much knew everybody in town. CM: You know, one thing I forgot to mention, I noticed there was a summer school here, was that considered something everyone could choose to attend or not? JC: I may be wrong about the second [reason], but the first one was, that if you were having trouble in school in some way and you wanted an advantage or you just wanted an advantage in certain courses, kids would come to summer school. I never came to summer school. Why, I don’t know and why not, that was up to my parents, I’m sure. But I’m sure if you were slow in reading or you were having problems in math. (I should have come here in math, I’m sure). I think kids from the town generally might have been able to come here to summer school. That was probably to keep the teaching thing going and student teachers involved and the summer program of the college going. I’m sure they did it to help the kids, but I think mainly they probably did it to keep the college moving along. The end. 15 John R. Calhoun Edited Transcript – August 22, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Danny Beatty interview--October 12, 2005
Description: Danny Beatty is an alumni of WWU, Class of 1955. In addition he did student teaching in the Campus School.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_BeattyDanny_20051012
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Danny Beatty ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" c
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Danny Beatty ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Danny Beatty in Special Collections, Western Washington University Libraries, Bellingham, Washington, on October 12th, 2005. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Wednesday, October 12th, [2005] and I am here with Danny Beatty. We‟re about to do the oral history. We are hoping to do two parts: one is the Golden Vikings questionnaire, [two is] asking some questions about fly fishing, since he is an avid fly fisherman. My first question is why did you choose to attend Western? DB: Because of its location and the fact that I didn‟t have funds to go away. That was pretty typical in those days. TB: Now did you live at home while you were there? DB: Yes, for three years, and one year on campus. TB: So you lived at Ferndale? DB: Actually, almost in Blaine. I went to high school in Ferndale, but our home was closer to Blaine. TB: And then your dates of attendance at Western? DB: From 1951-1955 and then lots of classes afterwards clear into the Seventies. TB: What degrees or certificates did you receive from Western? DB: A BA in Education and eventually a standard general certificate for the State of Washington. TB: And then I think you have no other degrees? DB: Correct. TB: O.K. What other family members attended Western? DB: An uncle, an aunt, my brother, my daughter, cousins, first cousins and on out (meaning second cousins etc.) that lived in the area. Quite a number of us are Western grads. TB: What was your first job after leaving Western? DB: That was teaching in Anacortes School District. You were kind of interested in our contract and I brought it. If you‟d like to have a copy of it, there‟s my first teaching contract fifty years ago. 1 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Wow, that is pretty cool. Your first salary was going to be $3,500 a year. That would be excellent. So you taught at Anacortes? DB: Yes. That was for a year. In February of 1956 I got my draft notice to go into the Army. Somewhere back in the earlier Fifties, I was drafted. I forget exactly all the details, but they had exemptions for college students if you passed a test or had a certain grade point or certain criteria at that time. The Draft Board would give you a deferment. Well, I‟d run out of deferment while I was teaching, and so the superintendent got me an extension until June. Then they said absolutely no ifs, ands, or buts about it, you‟re coming in! So in June of 1956 I was sent to Fort Ord, California. TB: How long were you in the service? DB: I was active duty for two years. I had an interesting experience! Of course at first, basic training and all that was pretty standard. After I got to Germany, I didn‟t like the looks of what my unit would be doing, the fieldwork and stuff. I found out there was an Army education center at the Kaserne (German for post, fort or barracks). I went over and talked to the director and he got me special duties to teach there for all the time that I was in that unit. I was a GED teacher. At that time there were many soldiers that did not have a high school diploma. Now I think it‟s required, but then it wasn‟t. It was our job to teach GED courses and administer the tests and get them equivalent to a high school education. I did that for about six months give or take, and then I was reassigned to division headquarters and I lost that job. Division Headquarters, G-2 clerk, it wasn‟t as much fun, but it was a good job. I managed though, I guess partly because I had a degree and my tests were good. I remember the Colonel, when I interviewed for the job at Division, he was like this. I was standing at his desk and he was looking at my records and he said, “Well, this is a clerk typist type job.” I said, “I don’t type very well.” He said, “You’ll learn.” I wanted to stay with the education center, but he said, “No, you’re coming here.” You don‟t argue with colonels. The Colonel turned out to be a fine officer and easy to work for. TB: Right! Where did you live when you were at Western? (This is going back to your experiences at Western.) DB: Back to Western, yes. One year, my senior year, my friends talked me into moving into town. Actually, the house is gone but it was across the street from the library. It‟s where the Viking Union is now. On the corner was Daniel Hall and I don‟t know if we were the second house over. It wasn‟t an organized house. It was just they had apartments upstairs and downstairs and a basement apartment. It was very crowded, cheap. There was about three of us in a room and a half sort of thing. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers and why? DB: Actually in the science department, I really enjoyed all of the teachers, specifically Dr. Knapman, Miss Platt and Miss Pabst. Dr. Knapman taught chemistry. I enjoyed his classes. He did something for me that really helped me through college, and that was, I think it was my sophomore year. Before and after my Freshman year I worked at a Blaine fish cannery to earn money for the next school year. That was gone; they closed it up. I needed a job for the summer. Knapman had been contacted by the United States Department of Agriculture. They needed somebody in this area to do work in all the fruit and vegetable canneries. I applied for it and got the job. I did that then for years and years afterwards, even after I was teaching. After I was through school and into teaching, it was summer jobs when I wasn‟t going to school. It was supplemental income. It was something that was short season. I kind of appreciated that, a chance to get a job so that I could continue having funds to come to school. TB: What was he like as a teacher? Do you have any memories of him? DB: Dr. Knapman; he was just a professor that you could talk to easily. He was just a very personable man. I don‟t know, we just clicked I guess, that was part of it. He stayed there for many years, and my brother had him for classes and everybody I ever talked to thought he was a wonderful teacher. Miss Platt and Miss Pabst… did you happen to watch channel 9 last night? 2 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: No. DB: They had this E = MC2, The Story of Einstein, and it talked about women in science many years ago. Even in the Fifties it was not that common for women science professors. These were two dandies! I really liked both of them. There were lots of field trips. Ms. Platt took us out for biology class. It was a field class and we learned how to do things in sampling. I followed that process when I went to teach. It was something I could use with the students in field trips and so forth. Students liked that. TB: What about Miss Pabst? DB: Same thing. Platt was biology. I did plant and insect type, both. And then Pabst was geology and we did field trips. I used that through [out] my teaching. I thought it was very important. Kids still talk about it. My former students talk more about what we did outside the classroom. They remember more about that than what we did inside. TB: What about Mr. Walters? DB: Well, he was the band director. I was not a music major, and he just accepted me so nicely as part of the band. It was just fun. I brought you something for that, too. I hope I can find it here. That was one of our band trips (referring to some photos). Maybe I set it aside and didn‟t bring it. I have at home three band tours. At that time, we went on band tours around the state to kind of advertise Western, and the band, for a week. We would go to high schools and put on concerts. As I say, I was not a music major, but I fit in, he accepted us. This fellow was a music major, Don Sires. We were over at Port Townsend for the Rhododendron Festival. It was just a really interesting neat thing. Walters was a person that just accepted us so well, and of course our schedules and stuff, he would try to fit us in so we could be with the band. TB: What did you play? DB: Trombone. TB: O.K. Well I know he was pretty renowned for his marching band. DB: In the book that Kristie gave us at the dinner, the Western Washington University: One Hundred Years, there‟s a picture of the band in the field right behind Wilson Library, where Haggard Hall is. It forms a big „W‟. My picture isn‟t there because I‟m in one of the lines that…the trombones are all real tight and so we don‟t see individuals. But I remember that picture. TB: What was your main course of study? DB: Science and math was where I spent most of my time, plus education classes. I never thought they did me that much good, but we had to take them. TB: Any thoughts about any of those teachers? Did you have Dr. Woodring? DB: No, I didn‟t. In psychology and education classes, honestly, I don‟t remember too many of them. TB: That‟s fine. What classes did you like the best and/or learn the most from? DB: As I explained earlier, the field classes were good. The classes that helped me learn about science and math, that I could use when I went to teach, ended up being the ones I remember. TB: What extracurricular activities did you enjoy the most? 3 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: Of course band was one for three years. Even though I lived a ways away, I tried to participate in campus activities. When I went to school here, we could park right beside the library. The parking lot is now Red Square. It was between the Campus School and Old Main and the library. There was a parking lot. If we would get here early enough, we‟d park right there. I was always here by 7:30 and I‟d park right there. Right in front of that parking lot there was kind of an all-purpose room in the basement of Old Main. I don‟t know what it is now, I have no idea. It was where they held the mixers and so forth. Those were fun. TB: What about student government? You were on the Board of Control. DB: Yes, for three quarters. It overlapped into summer and I didn‟t attend summer school so didn‟t keep doing it. That‟s one full year. I think it was my junior year. Yes, I was on the Board of Control. I was the finance chairman. That was an interesting experience. Somewhere I got a certificate for my efforts on that because it was quite a job. I don‟t have any idea how student government works now but then it was kind of like a high school almost. There were only 1,200 or 1,500 students here. It‟s not a very big budget. Athletics was a big part of it. I‟m sure if you‟ve interviewed enough of us, you have heard the Chuck Lappenbusch name. He was the one that did the budget for athletics. [Sam] Carver and Lappenbusch. I remember going over to his office and sitting with him and Carver, mostly Lappenbusch, and going through the budget. He was a very interesting man. I didn‟t know him that well, I never took a class from him or anything, but that was my job. It was very interesting to be involved in that. TB: And you were the senior class president? Any thoughts about that? DB: That was a big job I guess. I even brought my Class Day Talk. I brought our Class Day Program. I don‟t know if you have these things. TB: I don‟t have that, but I would love to makes some copies of your speech and your pictures. DB: This was the vice president, Floyd Jackson. Unfortunately Floyd passed away I guess at a fairly young age; he‟s been dead for quite a few years. They moved the walk a bit. They‟ve moved the plaques out here. TB: They started going the other way then. DB: They‟ve also moved them all. They lifted it up and moved it. I went and looked at it this summer when I was here. I guess they needed to get more space. I don‟t have any idea if you are interested in any of this. TB: Oh yes. In fact, I‟ll have to show you, they just did an article on October 4 th about [Memorial Walk], just this year. I can show you. We found another picture where they‟re doing it, but it would be great to get these. DB: I thought it might be kind of interesting but I didn‟t bring it. I have a copy of what I said this summer if you are interested to put the two together. TB: Very much so. DB: You have the annual for 1955? TB: Right. DB: I have some other pictures of graduation in our senior board, the senior class board….(referring to pictures). TB: Do you have any experiences with the Campus School? DB: Yes, I did. My first student teaching as a junior was at Whatcom Junior High School. Whatcom was one of the schools Western used a lot so the cooperating teacher was very much used to having student 4 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED teachers with them. It was at the level I ended up teaching at, so that turned out to be something that was very helpful. When he finally turned the class over to me, for the amount of time I was there, it was half time. For almost a half day I had the class to myself and I had to prepare and so forth. He just walked out and there you go. I don‟t remember his name, I wish I did. Then the next year I did the full day at the Campus School. The person that was the sixth grade teacher was a member of the staff of Western from the education department. It was Stewart Van Wingerden. There were three practicum teachers; two men, myself and another fellow my age. The third person was a woman that was a bit older. She had a family. She was raising her children. The men were 21 years old. I hate to say how old she was. I would guess 35. I don‟t know, I may be way off. But she seemed older to us 21 year olds. She was very experienced with kids. We just kind of let her take over more. It was not an experience that was normal I think, not like the other one I did, the previous one. I think I ended up after a couple of weeks with a chip on my shoulder if I ever had one. I don‟t really go for that sort of thing, but I was upset with the director of the Campus School (Ray Hawk, I think) because he wouldn‟t let me go and practice with the band late in the day. I could have gone after the kids were gone and gone over and played in the band. But the Campus School administration wouldn‟t let me do that. It was kind of important to me, even though I wasn‟t a music major. He didn‟t understand that. TB: That‟s why you were not in band your senior year, because you couldn‟t be in it and do your student teaching? DB: Correct, I was doing student teaching in the fall. TB: O.K. Please share with us any special memories of your college days. DB: College was very important as it turned out. I was talking to my friend the other day about this. He came over to the house and I had the Western Washington University: One Hundred Years. He said, “If I had known that school was there, I would have been up there in a minute!” He‟s from Los Angeles, went to USC. He said, “We had counselors in high school that came and talked to us about going to college and so forth. I didn’t know much about it, but a counselor did talk to us.” Ferndale had nothing like that in high school. No one would talk to us about what we should do after school and it was never mentioned. In our family it was a given that we went to school, but we could only come here because we didn‟t have funds to go to the University of Washington or Washington State. When I did get to college and got involved in it, it was a very enjoyable experience for me. I met a lot of good people. I made a lot of good friends. I got involved with various parts of the school at that time. It was a good experience for me. I think it helped bring out my personality some. TB: Do you have any thoughts about – I‟ve heard about them – the assemblies they used to have? DB: You know, the Auditorium-Music Building was brand new that fall of 1951. The school brought in all sorts of people. Who was the jazz guy from San Francisco? They had him here. I wish I would have brought the music thing, that tour. We had the world renowned trumpeter Mendez play with our band during the time I was here. I have his signature. You can have some of this stuff some day. It‟s got Raphael Mendez. He came and we practiced with him for a number of days with the band and then we did a concert. Is that what you‟re talking about? That sort of thing? TB: Well that‟s a special memory. I just know that there used to be pretty regular assemblies. DB: Well, the Auditorium-Music Building was almost big enough to hold everybody on campus. When I started school it was 1250 and when I left it was 1500. The auditorium would hold 1,000 to 1,200 people. It‟s all been remodeled now and changed, I know. It was quite a state of the art building at that time. There was a man named David Schwab they hired just to play the organ, and he put on recitals. It was good for us students because we hadn‟t been used to that. We had been out here in the country. TB: Is there anything else I haven‟t asked you about your college career that you would like to talk about? 5 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: I had some interesting experiences. What year was it? I can‟t remember exactly. A club I belonged to needed a bus to go somewhere. They found out that if they could get one of the group to drive it, they wouldn‟t have to pay as much for the bus. Buchanan, he handled the money parts of the school, and he handled buses for some reason. I said I would drive the bus. I‟d driven everything, living on a farm. I can do anything! They had these old Navy surplus buses, they were really quite something. I said, “I’ll drive it.” I did. It worked out O.K. He called me one day and said, “I’m in desperate need of someone to drive the ski bus.” I was a little hesitant about that, driving up to Mount Baker. He said, “We’ll pay you!” I said, “O.K., I’ll do it.” So I ended up a number of Saturdays driving the ski bus. That was interesting because these buses were awful. You‟d fill up the gas tank in Bellingham or at the school, drive to Glacier, fill it up again, make the loop back to Glacier, fill it up again and come back! They had small tanks and poor mileage and terrible conditions, but we got up there. I remember one situation, one girl was quite badly injured and she had the seat across the back. She was Christian Science and she wouldn‟t let the doctors or anybody [help her]. We brought her back, [and] called somebody. It was January or February and [we didn‟t] get back to school [until] 7 o‟clock, and it was dark and we were trying to find some help for this poor person. I had a lot of interesting experiences. Another trip he talked me into doing was taking the archaeology class -- and Professor Herbert Taylor was in charge of that – we took the group and drove to near Olympia, caught a boat and went over to Squaxin Island, which is an Indian Reservation. He said, “Well, since you drove the bus, we’re going to leave it in Olympia. You’re not a member of this class, but if you’ll help us dig, if you do some work, we’ll feed you.” That was quite an experience and that‟s another part of this I do want to before I leave, find somebody in the archaeology department because I have at home a very rare artifact. Something needs to be done with it. My brother and I are not sure where to go, but this is very, very unique, and it‟s from up in the north end of the county. I do not know the archeology department. I never took their classes, but I became very interested in this and know the location of my artifact. Somebody should give somebody (before I die) the information. TB: We‟ll get that for you today. DB: Those are the kinds of things…in college, somehow I just allowed myself to be involved. Things came up and I was willing to try. TB: Why don‟t you tell me a little more about your [teaching] career? Did you teach most of your time at [Anacortes]? DB: All but one year. TB: Because you were at Sedro-Woolley weren‟t you? DB: I did teach one year there, that‟s how I knew Isabelle. We taught sixth grade at Central School. That was the year I got back from the Army. Anacortes didn‟t have a job for me because I‟d been in the service. I don‟t remember why, it just didn‟t fit for some reason. Anacortes called me back the following year and then I got back into the job I wanted and I stayed there for the next 25 years. TB: What grade level did you teach at Anacortes? DB: Mostly at the middle school or junior high school, seventh, eighth and ninth. That level was always the orphan of the school district, and depending on what shifts were being made with the school populations and buildings available, it would change from a two year school to a three year school to a two year school. Over the years it was many things. I also taught third grade for five years. TB: What are some of the significant things you saw in teaching over the years? Changes? Did you see a lot of changes in the students? 6 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: In science, it started with Sputnik but a little later in the Sixties, the National Science Foundation got involved with education. I took a number of those institutes…two or three here at Western, the University of Wyoming, I even went to Princeton one summer, one at the University of Washington. I called it the “alphabet science.” They had a long name for the ideas they were trying to formulate in the curriculum and they just went by the initials, that‟s why I called it the alphabet science curriculum. I got involved in all those things at the middle school/junior high level. What it allowed was there were government funds, we had money for equipment, we had money for improving the lab. I actually worked with programs to give the kids hands-on experiences with equipment at their level. I thought that was very good. I saw that improvement from the time I started to the time I retired. My ending years I taught in the mid-Seventies. My first wife and I divorced; I was kind of at loose ends. I thought I needed to do something different so I went and taught third grade for five years! That was a different experience. It worked out fine, I enjoyed it. The kids were great. After that time I went back to the middle school and ended up teaching mostly math then for three years. While I was teaching, I was very involved in getting kids out in various ways -- this kind of fit in more with the fishing part -- I‟d take kids on weekend outings. I did science outings on Saturdays. I even went through the bus driving training class and was able to use the school bus. We took trips; hiked Sauk Mountain, old geological trips up into the upper north parts of the Nooksack, journeys up in that area. We just were very involved in getting students out in the field. I did outdoor education classes. My focus was to get students involved in stuff that they could kind of get handson. Those are the things they remember. TB: Did you find teaching to be a rewarding career? DB: Very much so. Yes. I wrote quite a long section about that down here. My former students, I see them any day I go into town to a store or something. All sorts of businesses and as I say, the mayor of the town, I‟m not living in this town, but no matter what area I find myself, there‟s a former student there. My friend from California, he gets really a kick out of it. We go somewhere, we go out to Coronet Bay and watch the boats, and there‟s one of my former students working for the park. He has to come over and talk to me. Everywhere I go, this is my situation. TB: I bet. DB: O.K. Now you want to move on. I think I pretty well covered it, you get the picture. TB: And we will transcribe this and give you the chance to add in anything else that you would like to talk about. Okay; my first fly-fishing question is how did you get started fly-fishing? DB: While I was in the Army, one of the fellows I worked with in the office was a fly fisherman from Hood River, Oregon. He fished the Deschutes and he talked about it. He made it sound so interesting. I had been fishing prior to that; when I grew up I fished around the creeks and my dad was a salmon fisherman and we did some of that out here in the bay. I didn‟t even have a clue what fly fishing was and he made it sounds so interesting, I went to the PX and bought a fly rod and reel. I had no place to use it over there, but I did buy it, and I brought it back. Then I got to raising a family and not much involved in fishing but I did do a little. One of my good friends, a teacher, was a fly-fisher, and he helped me learn a bit about casting. We went out and he kind of helped me get started a little bit. When I really got involved was in 1974. My neighbor had been up to the lakes in Canada, had met a man that belonged to a fly-fishing club in Seattle and he thought we might start one in Anacortes so this fellow and I and this other teacher, the three of us, got together and formed the Fidalgo Fly Fishers in 1974, 1975, we formed that fly club. From then on, I just kind of focused on fly fishing. Up until then, I did all sorts of fishing. TB: What is it about fly fishing that attracts you? DB: The people, certainly. For the most part I find that people that fly fish are very interesting. There‟s kind of an art to it; the fly tying, that sort of thing. I guess it kind of evolved from those things. 7 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Can you describe a typical day on the stream, or what would be a perfect day on the stream? Either one. DB: Yes. I‟ll give you more of a typical day. I enjoy both ways, lakes and streams. What we like to do, which we‟ve done almost from the beginning, is have an RV, a trailer, and go into Canada and park the trailer, the RV, right next to the lake, unload the boat, put it in the water, and it‟s right there to use any time you want. We stay in one place for a week or ten days at times, self-contained. You go out and go fishing any time you feel like it. You can sit back and read a book, you can sit in the trailer and tie flies, you can go out and go fishing, you fix supper, you have happy hour, it‟s a total experience away from home. That‟s a typical day for me in Canada, where we like to go. The stream fishing for me right now, unfortunately, the Skagit is not in fishable shape, but to go over to the Skagit River, put my boat in, I usually try to have somebody with me. Often it‟s someone who hasn‟t been on the water before. I try to show them and teach them where the fish will normally be located. That‟s for sea-run cutthroat [trout]. They are a fall fish and they are just a wonderful thing to fish for with a fly. I have a nice boat, it‟s called a River Runner, small River Runner boat, it‟s fourteen and a half feet long. It‟s got an outboard on it, we run up and down the river and look for these pockets and places where the fish will be and spend about three or four hours out. That‟s pretty typical. I have done some of what you call typical stream fishing in Montana, the Madison River and many of those. I‟ve not done it much and it‟s great, but it is different. TB: I‟ve never asked these questions before so I‟m learning. What does it feel like after a day on the stream? DB: It kind of gives you a euphoria type feeling, especially when we are using the RV. You just feel relaxed. I have friends that get up early in the morning, get on the water and just pound it all day. I‟m not that type. I‟m more relaxed at it. I‟ll go out for little while. If the fish aren‟t biting, I‟ll come back, maybe think about tactics, different ways to fish, and go back out later. I do it in a more relaxed way. To me that‟s fun. I do even on the river. I‟ve done it the other way. I‟ve been with guys where you go out early in the morning, you stay all day, you have lunch. It‟s almost like a computer in their minds. Every fish, every swirl, every thing that happens, you‟re successful, you‟re successful. I don‟t look at it that way. That‟s just me. TB: How does it feel to take a fish? DB: To hook a fish? TB: Yes. DB: I think that‟s the initial reaction. I think the reaction of the fish taking the fly is the most important part of fishing for me. I‟m trying to remember, I killed one fish this year. Every other one was release. You want to get the fish in and then release it, but I don‟t focus on the capture or the killing. It‟s the idea of getting this fish to take the fly. That‟s the key. Once that happens, then of course the fight is great and all of those things. And size has some importance I guess but not the main importance. We are very much into capture and release. TB: What happened to the one you killed? It just got too damaged in the fight? DB: No, we wanted one to eat. It was a nice fish, about seventeen or eighteen inches, a rainbow trout. It wasn‟t a wild fish particularly; it was in a place where it was planted. Definitely if there is any indication that it is a wild fish, they definitely are release. TB: What‟s your favorite place to fish? That you are willing to share! DB: Probably Lac le Jeune in British Columbia, which is between Merritt and Kamloops, mainly because it has a wonderful campsite and it allows us to do the things we like to do. The other would be the lower 8 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Skagit. And also some in the salt water too, but I don‟t do that as much. Weather conditions…my boat isn‟t really big enough to get out in the salt water very far. But I do do that. TB: Do you have a preference for a wet or a dry fly? DB: I guess there is always something to be said about seeing your fly on the water and seeing this swirl and this “take” as they call it. There is certainly something to be said for that. Unfortunately, fish eat more underwater than they do on the surface, so your chances are better underwater. I fish the conditions. But man, you can‟t beat a Tom Thumb fly on the surface of a lake in Canada where the fish are feeding. It‟s just totally different. TB: You‟ve been very active in the organizational structure of fly fishing, what made you decide to get started in that? DB: How it started was through our local fly club in Anacortes. There‟s a lake in the Deception Pass State Park named Pass Lake. You go by it every time you go to Whidbey Island. Pass Lake, since 1940, except for a period of time in the Fifties and Sixties has been fly fishing only. The Washington Fly Fishing Club was the club that got the whole idea of fly fishing only started way back in the 1940s. They came up to Pass Lake every year and had a big outing, the whole club for a weekend and all this. When our club got going and they saw that we were a viable group, they thought we could take over being the sponsors and that sort of thing of the lake. There was the movement to reduce the limit of fish, to try and to make it more quality fishing and try to see if we could get bigger fish. In our fly club, I was the science teacher, and understanding how to do presentations and graphs, I took on the job of developing data and surveys. We went out and did surveys. We did creel census on the lake when fishers came in. We did the measurement on the fish. I did this whole histographic program of the thing and presented it to the Northwest Council of the Federation at a meeting. From there, I took it to the Department of Fish and Wildlife and wrote papers and made presentations. The president of the Northwest Council moved on to be the treasurer of the whole national organization; he asked me if I would take over as president of the Northwest Council. I did. I wasn‟t sure what I was getting into. I hadn‟t had that much experience. I had only been involved for two or three years in the fly fishing organization at most. I took that job on, and that‟s where this came from (referring to some plaques). This is 1982. Before this, I was asked by the president to be a national officer. That‟s where this came in, I became secretary from 1980-1983. Then 1983 and 1984 I became vice president for membership. The organization was going through some very difficult times. I guess it‟s my personality and just my way of dealing with things, but we made it turn around and things started to get better and we increased our membership and our financial situation got better. It just started going good again. Then I became president for two years from 1985 to 1987. It sort of all started back in the late Seventies when I did this presentation for the Department of Fish and Wildlife and it worked. Pass Lake is now total catch-and-release, quality waters, fly fishing only. It‟s got almost everything we wanted. In fact, I‟m not sure, but we may have gotten more than we wanted because sometimes now the guys are thinking maybe we could ease back a little and have a few more fish and have more chance to catch a fish. There are big fish in there and they are pretty difficult. TB: Could you tell me a little bit about the purpose and the structure of the Federation of Fly Fishers? DB: It was started in 1965 as the Federation of Fly Fishermen. It was started by some people in Eugene, Oregon, primarily when they went to the east coast and got guys like Lee Wolf, if that name rings a bell, involved. They started this federation of clubs of fly fishing. The fly fishers, one of their key things is “all fish, all waters”, which means they are not specific to trout, they include all kinds of fish, not specific to stream fishing or lake fishing, this includes salt water, everything. They are very much into the conservation efforts of our resources, wild fish. If Jack Hutchinson had any of the old audiovisual stuff that would be great because there was a film called, Dammed Forever, that the Federation did. It was about the Columbia River dam system. All we‟re hearing now is about the lower Snake Rivers dams and all the problems they are creating for salmon and steelhead. The Federation was way ahead of that in terms of the problems. There were guys in the Federation that knew the right people. They had guys like Bing Crosby 9 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED do that narration. I don‟t know what happened to these things, but I hope somebody preserved them somewhere. TB: You told some of this, but what are some of the things you are most proud of in regards to your fly fishing involvement or career? DB: All sorts of things. This is one, but that‟s local. These kids, I still see some of these kids. Mike Haley, for years after he left high school would come by to see me and tell me about all the wonderful trips he has taken to the high lakes up in the mountains. Scott Taylor, his dad was the vice principal at the high school. Scott‟s now a professional golfer. Dana Dixon is still out fly fishing whenever he gets a chance. This boy, Jeff Martin went on our outings, Jeff died in the A-boat disaster. I still know all these kids. That‟s local. Also local, I‟ve done a lot of teaching fly tying. This picture was a class. This sort of thing is kind of cool for me to have. I taught the kids and the teacher asked them to do something for them to remember it by. TB: Did you get started tying flies right away? DB: No. I tell you that at all levels of our groups getting together, fly tying is big part, demonstration of fly-tying. I went for all these years to these big shows and I would sit and watch these guys tie flies. I did some myself but as time went on I just got involved with the teaching. Last winter we taught a class at Skagit Valley College, an evening class. TB: Excellent. Well, how did you get involved in teaching others? DB: This started it. One of the teachers at the Fidalgo School, the grade school in Anacortes, was doing a unit based on the book My Side of the Mountain about a boy that kind of went out and tried to live in the wild, learned to live in nature. Part of the thing was you had to find ways to get food. Sally thought well, maybe the kids could learn that one way would be to fish and they could learn to tie flies. She called me up and she said, “Would you come up to school and do this?” I said, “Well, yes.” So I started there. I had been retired for eight years. I had time to do this. I needed a place to teach fly-tying and I went to our senior center and the director was very enthused about doing it so I did a number of classes there. After the grade school I went to the high school and did a class after school. They had several programs after school for kids that were having problems in school. They had this program right after school and they would get their homework done and get them on track. If they do that, then they try to give them a little bonus or a little extra, something more fun. One of the things she worked up was for me to come in and teach fly-tying to those that were interested. I did that. I did all sorts of things. That‟s my fly-tying. TB: Other things that you were teaching that you think are important about fly fishing that I haven‟t asked you? DB: I guess you can do this with anything you get interested in, but you can be just kind of totally involved in so many aspects of it. When I taught school, I taught fly-tying, rod building. Even now, thirty or more years later, former students come up, “You know, I still have that rod, that’s my favorite rod that I built when I was in your class.” Stuff like that. I don‟t know if that answers your question. I guess it‟s a hobby that went wild. TB: No, that‟s nice. What about, you helped students build rods, what was the first way that you built them? What kind of material did you use? DB: Fiberglass rod blanks. I think at the end we were using early graphite modules. But the early ones were fiberglass. TB: Do you have any thoughts about the future of fly fishing, how to make sure the runs continue? DB: We try to be positive. You want to be positive. Fly fishing is going to evolve gradually with materials, possibly with new rod materials. They are trying to come up with more materials that will withstand 10 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED corrosion maybe for salt water use and stuff. The concern I think is more with the resource than it is with the evolvement of how you fly fish or what you use for fly fishing. The flies that are out there, they change as people come up with materials that are put on the market, but the basic idea of tying a fly has really not changed that much. Thousands and thousands of new flies and new names, but you can just about pick any one and take it back in its history and find something very similar. I kind of get a kick out of that. I think the concern is more the resource, the fish; where they are going to live, what‟s going to be there for them. That‟s my thought. TB: Have you ever designed a fly, came up with an original fly? DB: No. The fly I tie the most, my favorite fly for use with the sea-run cutthroat, it‟s called Knudson Spider. I have the original Spider that he tied. I have two or three of them and I tie it a little different. That‟s what I mean. We kind of add our own little slight differences. I could call it something else, but it‟s still basically what Knudson came up with. Did you go down to see Jack Hutchinson? TB: No, I didn‟t. I know he has a lot of the natural materials and stuff. DB: The reason I ask is that I don‟t know who he might have mentioned, but Knutson was one of the people that he was very involved with. TB: Oh, okay, what‟s Knudson‟s first name? DB: Al Knudson. He ended up living in Marysville. He did make a few originals. TB: Do you think the philosophy of the fly tie is to replicate nature, or to have something jazzy that the fish will be attracted to. DB: Both. Sometimes it‟s the natural, and it‟s amazing how different from the natural it can be but it still triggers that response. A Tom Thumb really doesn‟t look much like a caddis on the surface of the water, but there‟s something about it that triggers a response and the fish comes for it? TB: Any other questions I haven‟t asked that you think should be asked or again, this is new, to start trying to gather fish stories. What do you think are important things to gather, pieces of information about it? DB: I think pretty much we have covered it. Right off hand I can‟t think of anything. TB: All right. Well I will say thank you very much. 11 Danny Beatty Edited Transcript – October 12, 2005 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Carol J. Diers interview--September 2, 2003
Description: Carol J. Diers, WWU faculty member, 1963-1991; Professor Emeritus of Psychology. She also attended WWU (BA, BAE 1956) and the Campus School.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_DiersCarol_20030902
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Carol J. Diers ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Carol J. Diers ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Dr. Carol J. Diers, alumna, and Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Western Washington University, at her home in Talent, Oregon. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is September 2nd, 2003 and I’m down here in Talent, Oregon with Dr. Carol Diers, a retired faculty member from Western. She just signed the informed consent agreement and we’re going to proceed with our oral history. I understand that you also went to the Campus School, so why don’t we talk about whatever your memories are of the time span you were at the Campus School? CD: I was there kindergarten, first, and second grade. I had to come in from Geneva, where we lived out on Lake Whatcom. I don’t know if it was the trip in, or what, but I didn’t do very well there. I’d had a very isolated childhood and there were lots of kids around and there were lots of teachers around because there were a lot of student teachers in every room. I somehow couldn’t get focused on who belonged where. So, I didn’t like Campus School, I didn’t get along well, and I didn’t do well, either. So, after second grade, I went into the local school out in Geneva and eventually did much better. I can remember a couple teachers’ names. I can remember Miss Rich was the principal. After school, the kids all sang a little song, “Miss Rich, Miss Rich, fell in a ditch and when she came out she was blacker than pitch.” TB: That’s good! (laughter) Okay, then, you also came back to Western as a college student. Now, had you gone somewhere else before? CD: Yes, I’d been one year at Whitworth and one year at Wheaton. TB: Okay. CD: And then I became ill my second year at Wheaton, the beginning of my junior year, and so, I came home. We lived out in the county at the time, out at Everson, and I just picked up winter quarter and then stayed until I graduated in 1956, so I was actually at Western 1954 to 1956. TB: Okay, and did you get your BA and your Bachelors in Education the same time, then? CD: Yes. I think one of them was in the winter quarter and one was in the spring quarter of 1956. TB: Then did you teach or did you immediately go to graduate school? 1 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CD: First of all, I taught one year of public school in Bellevue -- junior high. Then I went to graduate school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, then I came back to Bellevue and taught another year in junior high, and then went on to University of Washington. TB: What was your specialty in [junior] school, because I had the idea the undergraduate degree was more in sciences? CD: Yes, physical science and biological science were my majors at Western. I had already accumulated a fair amount of credits in those areas, because I was initially in pre-med. So, the simplest thing to do was stick with those, which I liked, anyway, I liked biological sciences. TB: When did you switch to psychology? CD: When I went to graduate school. TB: At the Masters or PhD level? CD: At the Masters. By then, my history as an undergraduate had been so confused by going to three different universities, so, I sort of cast about what would be the easiest for me to catch up in. I thought psychology would probably be the simplest thing for me to catch up in, in graduate school. I knew after teaching junior high -- I loved it and I liked the kids -- but it takes a lot of energy and I didn’t think I would last. So, I thought I better get busy and go on to a more relaxed, presumably, more relaxed atmosphere. TB: Wow. So, you also said you originally wanted to be in pre-med? So, what made you change from that? CD: Well, there were a number of reasons. My health was one; lack of financial support was another one - really a lack of support for going on in that direction. TB: Now, I think other members of your family, your mother, attended Western? CD: Yes, she attended and got her, I think, a teaching certificate, in about 1925 or 1926, and then in 1954 she completed the BA. TB: And who is Don Diers? CD: That’s my father. TB: Oh, okay. He went to Western, then, too? CD: Maybe he did for one quarter. Then much later he went to Edison Technical, but, he might have gone one quarter, from what I can recall hearing. TB: We have a book in Special Collections that has everybody who registered up to 1959. CD: Oh, really? TB: He was in there, as having come from Whatcom High, on 9/26/1927, but that’s all you know, you just know that they came, so, the one quarter could exactly be right. CD: That’s probably all there is to know about my father’s attendance at Western. I’m sure he had to try to make a living, and then the depression hit, so I’m sure he was taking any job he could get. TB: Where did you live most of the time, while you were at Western? 2 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CD: I lived with the Taylor’s. First I came to the dorms, at Eden’s Hall, then I went to the Taylor’s as a live-in babysitter/housecleaner, au pair. TB: Did you enjoy going to Western? CD: I enjoyed it, because faculty and students had coffee together, it was small; you got to know various people, at various levels. TB: Okay, that’s good; it was still a small school. Who were your favorite, or most influential teachers, and why? CD: The two I remember, and I’m sure there were others, are, Paul Woodring and Herb Taylor. Their styles were extremely different. TB: What was Paul Woodring like? CD: Very laid back, thoughtful, and I couldn’t tell you one thing -- I could tell you one thing I learned in this class, it was Introductory Psychology, and one day he walked in and said, “I suppose you should know something about a neuron” and he drew it on the blackboard. I was very interested in that, but that’s about the extent of his interest. And so, we went on to other things. TB: Was he there the whole time that you were there? CD: Yes, I think so, well, he might have been away at the Ford Foundation. TB: I got the idea that he came back and forth at Western, and he’d be off doing other things for awhile and would always come back. CD: He might have, part of the time, but I took at least three classes from him. TB: You said he was laid back, did he lecture, or did he expect you guys to read and kind of discuss things? CD: No, he just sort of rambled on, it seemed like, and it was all very interesting, and very learned, and… TB: Did he sit down? CD: No, not usually; in a seminar style yes, but in the other two classes, no, it was a formal lecture. And then, Herb Taylor was very energetic, very involved, always very involved in whatever lecture he was giving, and very organized. TB: Now, did you take Anthropology or was he teaching some other things back then? CD: I think Sociology is what I took from him, first, and then, at least one, maybe two, Anthropology classes. TB: Then your main course of study was in the natural sciences? CD: And physical sciences. TB: Okay, then did you happen to know the women scientist, because we had several women science teachers? 3 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CD: Yes, and I didn’t appreciate them as much as I should have because I had already by then come to share the belief that women couldn’t do things as well as men. TB: Really? CD: Yes. Probably still some long antagonism with my mother, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized these people were really good. And I just, at the time, I just sort of sneered at them. TB: Wow, that’s interesting. What other activities did you most enjoy? Everyone who was a woman was considered to be part of the Associated Women Students. I found you were also on the Kappa Delta Phi Honor Society? CD: Yes, I didn’t do much for that, or pay much attention to it. TB: And Valkrie? CD: Valkrie. TB: And you were a Valkrie? CD: Yes, a friend of mine who was already in Valkrie supported my election to Valkrie, because I had no idea what it was. Valkrie was supposed to be Scandinavian, Viking type women. TB: And they were kind of a service organization? CD: They were, although, the only service I can remember doing is carrying the flag, must have been the graduation before mine, or carrying a flag or carrying something in the graduation line. TB: Okay. CD: I don’t know what other service they did. TB: I think that was mainly it, helping at graduation and stuff. Any other outstanding memories of your college days? CD: I can’t think of any right now. TB: How about your faculty days? I have that you came from Western in 1963 from Olympic Community College. You must have been there a year? CD: Right. Two years. TB: And then, so you already had your PhD completed when you came? CD: Right. TB: You actually did that really quickly, got your masters and your PhD? CD: From UW it was. I so enjoyed graduate school at University of British Columbia, it was more in the British style. I got back to University of Washington and it was on the quarter system again, and it seemed Mickey Mouse, like I was going backwards in terms of being involved in the subject. And, so, I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. So, that’s what I did. When I got to UW, my officemate, for example had been there about nine years. UW had a reputation for having a very delayed graduation. 4 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Oh, wow, okay. CD: I just set out to get through in the two years. I came in with a Masters, and it was two years plus summers for me to get out of there (laughter). TB: Did you originally plan on coming back to Western, or coming back to the area, or did that just happen to fall into place? CD: I actually hadn’t made a lot of plans. When I graduated, it was just before the big hiring period started, so I interviewed at two or three different places then went to Olympic College for two years, and then decided I wanted to go to a four year college. Right at that point there were openings, lots of openings. TB: Did you have any thoughts coming back, having been a student there, then coming back, was it awkward to fit into your department, or did you feel a little bit like a student yourself? Or was it easy to make that transition? CD: I don’t think I had any trouble making that transition. I had never thought I would come back, because I’d always thought I would get out of town and stay out of town. But, then, I liked my experience at Western in terms of enjoying the faculty and enjoying the atmosphere, and of course it changed fairly rapidly, and the job just opened. TB: Were you feeling the energy at the time, I mean, there were a lot of new hires, was everybody fitting in, were people excited, or was there a lot of competition? CD: There was a lot of energy. There were a lot of classes to teach. I got four different classes in a quarter -- which was too much for me because I didn’t know enough to do that. But, there was that kind of pressure, but exciting. Every year there were more allocations, the state gave more money, I felt like we kept going ahead. It was an exciting time. TB: What was it like? You were a single woman, did you feel accepted? CD: At that time, I thought I was treated very well. I was asked to be on committees, I was asked to be the chairman of committees, I was…I didn’t think I was feeling any kind of discrimination. TB: There wasn’t any gender discrimination -- you didn’t feel any gender discrimination? CD: No, not at that time, although, much later, when there was a lot of women’s lib activity, and when Mary Robinson was made Dean of…what was she Dean of? TB: I think she was the Dean of Women. CD: No, I don’t… Well, maybe she was. TB: She was definitely human resources, but… CD: Yes, because, then there was money put into trying to search out women who had been discriminated against. And, I’m not just sure when this was, but I resented that -- that somebody was being paid more than I was to come in at this date and say, if you need any help in terms of your position in the department, then contact me. And I thought, this is only thirty or forty years too late, as far as [I’m concerned]. And I wrote her a nasty memo, I’m sorry, I did, in a way. It had to do with, “if I do feel discriminated against, I’ll hire a lawyer.” I was really pissed off at the whole thing (laughter). And then, somebody could make me chairman of some search committee, or something or other, and say he was doing it in part because there was concern for women not having these positions. Well, I’d already had those positions. I was chairman of the search committee for a new librarian, the Tenure and Promotion Committee, and other things. I had 5 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED already done it! Now, you come and say you’re going to do it because I’m a woman. I thought I had the positions because I was capable of doing it, not because I was a woman. So, there were lots of feelings about that. TB: They almost created what they were trying to stop. I mean it created more the sense of discrimination, or that you weren’t the same as a man, because now it was the popular thing … CD: Yes, it didn’t work right for me (laughter). TB: Did you hear how the other women felt? I mean, at the time that you came there were actually three women in your department, Evelyn Mason, and another person also. CD: Barbara Etzel, and she left shortly after that, I think. And Pete Mason was there. Pete Mason was in clinical, and to me, that’s different than being in experimental or academic. But, she, I believe she had had a practice, but she was very quickly was absorbed into the main stream academic. TB: Why don’t you tell me a little bit more about what kind of work you did at Western, both your teaching and your research? You just described it as being experimental, but...? CD: Right. In terms of publication, I did some publication, but I hadn’t come in with the idea that I would need to rack up stacks of articles. And, of course, eventually that was necessary so the Tenure and Promotion Committee could count the number of articles when they were reviewing you for Tenure and Promotion. Research became much more important, and my research tended to fall on what a graduate student might want to do. Or, I was just slow at it. Although, I preferred that setting to the community college setting, where it was just about impossible to do research. I certainly, preferred the research pressure. TB: Did you work a lot with graduate students, then, kind of, doing…? CD: Several, yes. Several graduate students. We worked with them and their thesis in whatever area they were interested in. The one, animal research study, the armadillos, turned out to be a flaming disaster (laughter)! Actually, after the fire, the next year, we got some more. The real disaster was we would get these pregnant females and they would eat their young. So, we finally tried to take them away. With one litter, Flora and I shared caring for them, getting up in the night and feeding four little armadillos, and trying to keep them alive. But, they got pneumonia -- the way I got pneumonia -- they got pneumonia in Bellingham. It wasn’t for them. The reason we wanted them was because they have four identical young. They’re genetically identical. What a great research animal for Psychology. You’ve got heredity controlled. TB: And then, you were trying to see the kind of behavior that could be trained -- fascinating. What about, I guess I’m thinking collectively about faculty. How did the faculty work in your department? Did they get along really well, or how did that go? And also, then, campus life, in terms of attitude about faculty governance, and who runs the university, stuff like that? In the sixties when you came came, were the faculty directing things, or did the president have a stronger role…do you know what I’m trying to say? CD: Partly, I don’t know. It seems to me the faculty had a lot to say and a lot of power to determine policy. Certainly, the nature of courses, what was taught, that kind of thing. And the faculty seemed very enthusiastic. I think much later I had an impression that the faculty became more removed. As things get larger, it’s more difficult to have a large body of beings dictating, you almost inevitably start focusing on one or two: a dean, a president, some individuals who have to be responsible to make decisions. But, when I was first there, too, the Psychology Department, for example, would meet together as a group, have parties, do things together, which made a very pleasant working atmosphere. And, the last few years, you couldn’t get that department together. Half of them would go off somewhere else, it just didn’t work anymore. 6 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Were there any bad feelings, was it cliquish or was it just because it had gotten bigger? CD: Individuals, I think, had grudges against others, and so on. But part of it was just size – a different atmosphere – a university atmosphere rather than a small college atmosphere. TB: Any other thoughts about, when you came? Was Jarrett still president or was Bunke? CD: Jarrett. TB: Any thoughts about Jarrett? CD: I’m in email contact with him. TB: So, you obviously personally liked him? CD: Yes. He represented something. I don’t think he was very effective in getting things done, somebody else had to do that, but he represented a change, to a focus on humanities and general education -- the college was no longer being run by the Education Department, but by academics who were interested in broader arts and sciences. But, I don’t think he enjoyed being an administrator, and indeed, at Berkley he went back to philosophy and he’s been doing a lot of Jungian philosophy. TB: So, back for a minute, do you have any thoughts about Haggard as a student? Were you aware of him very much, did he have some a strong presence, or…? CD: Yes, he had great powers in some ways; he did such things as announcing no one would walk on the lawn. And no one did. It’s true, he could do that, and later presidents couldn’t ever do that. TB: Would he still have school assemblies when you were a student? CD: There could have been, but I just ignored them. TB: And what about Bunke? CD: I can’t remember a lot about Bunke. Well, the feeling I have is not extremely positive, but I just can’t remember. TB: And then, it must have been Flora, after Bunke? CD: Yes, is that right? TB: He was interim for a while, and then he becomes the regular. CD: He was president during a very difficult time. He was a great biology lecturer. TB: You wouldn’t have had him as a student, right? CD: No, but he was really a good lecturer. And, then, when he became president, he was in for a lot of trouble. I think a lot of stress and strain, and he stuck it out. TB: What did you think of students in the sixties, the student action? CD: I loved it. The students were so confrontational that classes were exciting, because students were involved. They didn’t mind objecting to something you said or asking for more evidence, or that kind of 7 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED thing, which really makes a classroom effective. And then, later, it seems to me students got much more interested in grades and became apathetic in a way, compared to the late sixties, early seventies. TB: Did you find the students in the sixties, were they well prepared for classes, I mean, had they done their reading and done the things that were expected, and then asking questions? Or were they asking questions before they had… CD: I think they prepared, a number of them prepared. There were of course those who were eating mushrooms and smoking marijuana and they never quite got it together (laughter). When I directed the Honors Program, it was a time when students were very involved and there were more students on the Board than faculty. And we didn’t emphasize grade point average. Of course, you would expect an honors student to have a decent grade point average, but honors students would be encouraged to take classes out of their area, for example, and not have to worry about lowering their grade point average so that they would be dropped from the program. And I think there’s now much more emphasis on grade point, which I don’t like. TB: Tell me a little bit more about the Honors Program. Did you start the Honors program, or had it already started, and then you became director? CD: Oh, no, it was well going when I was directing it. Henry Adams and Sam Kelly both had a lot to do with that. TB: Then, as director, did you have an influence on the directions that it took, or was it kind of set, or what was the role? I don’t know how that really works. CD: Well, I of course chaired the Board. There was a Board of faculty and students who would review suggestions for requirements for the Honors Program. Individual students would propose majors for themselves, that would likely be a combination from several departments, and this Board would review that and okay them or not. If the Board okayed them, that was fine. Then they went ahead and fulfilled their proposal. One quarter, the students themselves conducted a class and didn’t want any faculty involved at all. That passed, and they invited me one time. I couldn’t believe the amount of work they were requiring each other to do. It was a lot of work. TB: Really, then, they were grading each other? CD: Yes. TB: Wow. CD: I’m sure they did more work than they would have if any faculty member had been teaching that same course. So, there were those kinds of things that were exciting, and working -- working out well. TB: Yes. Well, any other thoughts on…gender? I think that I picked up that when you first came, you were just treated like a regular person, I don’t know how else to define it, and actually, when the women’s movement came, it changed things. CD: Right, and I was treated more like a woman than a faculty member, by some. TB: Any other thoughts on campus politics? CD: I was never very involved in…as a student I was somewhat involved in campus politics and as a faculty member, of course, you’re inevitably involved in some, but I never wanted to be very involved in politics or power exchanges. Occasionally I was. 8 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Well, how about telling us a little bit about Herb Taylor, now, he was very involved in campus politics. CD: Well, he was involved in campus politics, and since he was very involved when Jarrett came, he was very involved in getting the Humanities Program, through. A lot of it was academically oriented in the sense of academic structure. He came in ’51 from the University of Chicago. He would have come to a place that was, my impression, pretty much run by the Education Department. TB: That’s interesting that he came from the University of Chicago, because University of Chicago is also the Great Books place where Jarrett had served, so he and Jarrett probably did hit it off. CD: I’ve retained my membership in the American Psychological Society, and there’s a newsletter, which is about all I read of psychology these days. My first graduate student, Tony Tinsley, was listed in there, and I contacted him by email because I had directed his thesis, and it was the first Master’s degree in the Psychology Departmen (which, I didn’t really pay attention to at the time, but somebody pointed that out to me later). He responded by saying how much he had enjoyed Western and where he had been, various academic positions and what he had been doing, very briefly. For most of the letter, he talked about Herb Taylor’s lecturing abilities. He said, no matter where he had been, all the places he had been, all the positions he’d had, all the experiences he had in higher education, he had never had a better lecturer. TB: I’ve heard other stories about Herb Taylor going out, right out into the classroom, and he’d grab somebody’s head… CD: Some of the stories just were bogus stories, obviously some fantastic kind of stories that never happened. I suppose it means -- he certainly had an ability to grip an audience, and they thought wild things were happening, whether they were or not. TB: That’s probably true. Then, how did you guys, well, obviously, you had known him when you were a college student, and then, you went off to school, then how did get back together? CD: I came back to Western, to teach. I came back in ’63, and ’73 we got married. He divorced ’72, seventy something anyway. I was back ten years. TB: So it was just by being on campus? CD: Not entirely. We had maintained contact following my graduation in 1956. TB: We talked about this a little bit, but, did you feel bad at all -- well, you didn’t really ever feel that you were not treated well as a single woman. That’s kind of what you said. CD: Right. TB: So, actually marrying him wouldn’t have changed anything, necessarily? CD: No, I don’t think in that regard it did. No, it was later when I felt discriminated against was when people announced, “We’re offering you this because you’re a woman.” TB: That’s true, you were one of the beginning pioneers, and this is what you get. Do you have any thoughts about your teaching days that you would like on the record, anything that you consider to be special achievements, or anything about your career? CD: I can’t think of anything in particular right now. TB: What are your best memories of Western, then? 9 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CD: The fellowship with faculty and students. I love teaching, I like preparing lectures. It’s fun to organize material and I enjoyed teaching Introductory Psychology because I like keeping in touch with all areas to some extent, as much as you can, which is not a lot, but you can, it was stimulating for me to teach Introductory Psychology. TB: You were a really dynamic teacher, also. CD: Sometimes. Sometimes I had really good teacher ratings and sometimes I didn’t. I got tired, I guess. TB: What are your worst memories, or do you have any worst memories? CD: I don’t know. TB: That’s okay if you don’t have any. What do you think Western’s strengths were when you were there teaching? CD: The enthusiasm of the faculty, and the competence -- very competent faculty. TB: Do you have any thoughts of what the weaknesses were of Western during that time? CD: No, I don’t. TB: Okay, well, how about your retirement? You retired, I think, in 1991? CD: Yes. I retired, the same year my husband died. Actually, we were starting on a trip, in 1991, and I had already put in for retirement, because we wanted to travel more than we had been. Then, we got a start for Hawaii, we’d been going around the world, and he died. And, so I came back, and Elich said I didn’t have to retire if I didn’t want to, I could keep teaching, but I just did. I didn’t think I’d be able to…I did teach another quarter, in a fog. Then, after I retired, I taught for two more quarters. I could have taught more, but I didn’t. I was finding I liked retirement, then. TB: What kind of things did you pursue, maybe, that you hadn’t had a chance to pursue before? CD: Well, I traveled a fair amount, and, for about four years I had a place in southern California, in the desert, that I would go to in the winter. Here, there’s all kind of reading groups and plays and performances to go to, and there’s just a lot going on. TB: How’d you pick Talent? CD: I picked Ashland, actually -- I’m five miles from Ashland -- because of the climate, and because of all the activities. And, it’s turned out to be a good choice. TB: When did you move here? CD: In 1998. I’ve been here five years. TB: Had you maintained a place in Bellingham, then, until 1998? CD: Yes, I lived in the same house in Bellingham for about 32 years. TB: Oh, okay. And then, it sounds like you have kind of stayed connected with your academic interests, your reading the newsletter … CD: Some, not a lot, but some. 10 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: And some of your students? CD: Occasionally, even down here, occasionally I run into a student. TB: Nice, and then former faculty if you’re keeping in touch with Jarrett? CD: Right, and Evelyn Mason and the Lippman’s, and Henry Adams. TB: And, he’s in Bellingham, isn’t he? CD: Yes, he’s in Bellingham. TB: Oh, okay. TB: All right, well, thank you very much. 11 Carol Diers Edited Transcript – September 2, 2003 Campus History Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Barbara (Barker) Congdon interview--October 16, 2005
Description: Barbara (Barker) Congdon is a alumna of WWU, Class of 1963 (BAE) and 1970 (MEd). She attended the Campus School as a student during the summers of 1953, 1954, and did her student teaching there in 1962.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_CongdonBarbara_20051016
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Barbara Congdon ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Barbara Congdon ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Barbara Congdon at her home in Wenatchee, Washington, on October 16th, 2005. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Sunday October 16th, 2005, I am Tamara Belts and I am here with Barbara Barker Congdon. She‟s both an alumna of the Campus School and an alumna of Western, and she student taught at the Campus School. I have three forms to go over with her here of potential questions. She has just signed the Informed Consent Agreement and so we are about to proceed. Part one is the Campus School alumni questionnaire and our first question is how did you happen to attend the Campus School? BC: My mother was going back to school to get her BA. She had a two year certificate from Montana. In about 1945 [they] needed teachers [so badly] she was able to teach with an emergency certificate. To continue to teach, she had to get a BA so she went to summer school at Western. She took my brother and me with her. I don‟t know that we were involved in the planning; we just all of a sudden were spending our summer in Bellingham. We were there for two summers in a row. TB: What was your brother‟s name? BC: Keith Barker. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? BC: I think we were there the summer of 1953 and the summer of 1954, so it was between my seventh and eighth and eighth and ninth grades. It was junior high time. I graduated high school in 1959 so I think that‟s about when it was. TB: Do you know what kind of fees that you might have paid to attend Campus School? BC: I don‟t have any idea at all. I assumed they needed us to practice on. I know that my mother paid for a special recreation program in the afternoon. TB: Where did you live in the summer while you were going to Campus School? BC: We lived at two places. One was the corner of Garden Street and I believe Chestnut, towards the college from Holly. It was a great big rooming house that was on the corner. I think that was the first summer. We had a kitchen that we shared with the other people that were there. I think there were a few students but also people like my Mom, older students coming back to school. The other year we lived on Forest Street near Sycamore, down where it starts to curve to go towards Fairhaven. It was a small house 1 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED that maybe had two families. The second year a friend of my mother‟s, Mrs. Gibson and her daughter Virginia, went along with us TB: How did you get to and from school? And then please share any favorite memories of that experience. BC: We must have driven. I mean, that‟s almost a mile down to the Garden Street place, and the other too. I don‟t think we rode the bus, so we must have driven back and forth. I think we had a Nash Rambler at that time! I remember the Campus School, but also I really remember the things that happened during those summers. I remember that we planned and decorated the Campus School gym for a dance and that was a big deal. In junior high in Poulsbo the senior high and a junior high were all together in one building, so junior high kids didn‟t have anything other than all school sock dances after football games. As you went in the front door the gym was on the left. It had these floors that were made out of wooden blocks that were all laid on end to form the floor. It was very different and was kind of a hard, funny floor. I remember the smell of the Campus School and the smell of the gymnasium. Maybe I‟m a person that remembers smells. I seem to remember that the classes were grouped by grades: fifth/sixth for my brother and seventy/eighth for me. I remember feeling that the teachers were practicing on us. I don‟t think that I remember particularly being aware that they were being graded or that they were being observed. I remember there were a lot of them. We may have had six or seven, but I remember it wasn‟t just one teacher. And if there were a lead teacher, I don‟t remember. I have no memories of any of the personalities of the people, but I remember that there were a few there. One of the really exciting things for my brother and me was eating lunch in Edens Hall. When school got over (it must have been 11:30 or 12 because we just went to school mornings), we would walk over to Edens Hall and meet my mother. We got to eat lunch at Edens Hall every weekday! This was big time! I also remember the smell there, that downstairs cafeteria. I can remember seeing all these little dishes filled with Jell-O cubes and tapioca. You know what? It just dawned on me. I‟ve got some little pressed glass dessert dishes in the cupboard over there and I think that‟s why I have those. Isn‟t that funny? I had never thought of that before, but I just saw those dishes and they called my name. I now collect clear glassware. Isn‟t that a hoot? Lunch was cafeteria style so we could choose what we wanted to eat. Eating out was a big deal because we only went out to eat two places: a Chinese Restaurant in Bremerton and at the Port Gamble fancy hotel for Mother‟s Day. I think I remember my Mom giving us money to pay each time. I don‟t remember that we had a ticket. After lunch we went to recreation. It was designed for students with children. This was a great idea as it gave her study time without worrying about us. One of the really cool things was swimming in the swimming pool. I lived on the bay and I had the salt water right in front of my house. I had swum in a lake but I had never been in a swimming pool. That was a big deal, the chlorine you know, and this great big indoor swimming pool in the PE building. I remember the tile all around and the swimming suits. Has anybody told you about the swimming suits? Oh my god. They were the worst. They had two styles; were dark gray, some kind of wool and they were ugly! Everyone had to wear those suits in the pool. It had something to do with keeping the pool clean I guess. You were always hoping you would get the good suits, not the bad suits! That was the trauma of recreational swimming! 2 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Also recreation took us on field trips. I remember Dr. Flora took us to the tide pools out at Larrabee State Park. He made quite an impression in junior high, needless to say, quite an impression. When I went to Western, the first time, he was a biology teacher and I took his class on biology for elementary kids; great teacher, especially for non science types. He was the college president when I did my graduate degree! Recreation was fun. I think maybe they took us up to Canada, maybe on a bus. I don‟t remember what we did but I remember going up there to Stanley Park. We went over to Lummi Island Reservation. That‟s who made this skirt. Are the Lummi Island weavers still in existence? What ever happened to them? Do you know about them? TB: I don‟t, no. BC: Well this was a big economic enterprise for Lummis. If you had one of these skirts, you were with it. They weren‟t cheap either I don‟t think. I remember my mother and maybe some other woman and my brother and I going over and watching them weave. They were all set up and they had a window and you could watch. We picked out our skirts. This one was my mothers and I have one that‟s dark green with some kind of Indian dolls all around the bottom. The skirts and the weaving were quite well known. TB: I actually now just realized I think my mother had one of those. BC: Do you? TB: Yes. I‟ve seen that before, we‟re from Bellingham. BC: See here? This was around the top. I was thinking the other day that I should take the skirt off the waistband (unless somebody else wants to preserve it) and use it as a tablecloth or a throw. I‟m sure I‟ll never wear it again and it‟s just hanging in my closet. Look at the lines from the old hems. They show where the styles and skirt lengths changed. My mother took it up and she took it down. She probably wore it to school for teaching. TB: I am familiar with the basketry; I think they do a lot of basketry but I hadn‟t heard about that, although like I said, I‟ve seen that before. BC: Well it was very important. And look at the quality; it‟s pretty darn good here. They were known for weaving a fine product. Evidently all the women that went to summer school at Western went out and treated themselves at the end of summer. So now I have two skirts. I remember another thing. Some evenings we went out to eat. It was just us, our family – a cafeteria that was downtown. I would say maybe across from the Leopold. I want to say Maxwell‟s TB: Manning‟s? BC: I bet it was Manning‟s. BC: How‟s that for memory? TB: Yah! 3 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: That was a big deal for us (you notice all the food things here!): to go down town and go through the cafeteria, instead of cooking. I remember roast beef, a scoop of mashed potatoes with gravy over the top and weird mixed green vegetables. But back to Campus School; I took classes that were special to me. One was wood shop. For a girl to take wood shop at any time, let alone in the seventh or eighth grade just didn‟t happen. And I made this tray! I noticed today it says on the back “B.B.” Barbara Barker. I must have cut it out, sanded it and stained it and it‟s been put away forever. It was in my stuff I got from my mother. I said, “Oh, I don’t believe this!” Anyway, that‟s my tray. The other great class was typing, another thing that was totally unheard of for junior high kids. You didn‟t do that until you were probably tenth grade maybe or eleventh grade. I think we had those big black Underwoods with the clackity keys. I can remember it was touch-typing and RT, FG, VB, EDC. I remember walking across campus moving my fingers and saying those letters to myself. When I went back home in eighth grade, I was handing in typed reports. That was really important. That‟s what kids do now, it means nothing. But I really learned how to type properly. I think they even did dictation that we typed as we heard it, just like my high school typing class. I think that was really probably one of the more significant things I got out of there. That was cool. TB: That‟s been mentioned before. BC: Has it? TB: Yes, the typing. BC: Isn‟t that a kick? We must have had those old black Underwoods. TB: For some of the kids that were regularly in Campus School though, they apparently felt like they never learned to write cursive. BC: Oh, really? TB: They printed. They typed. But they apparently all have really bad cursive handwriting or distinctive because they never really learned how to do that. BC: I remember handwriting in grade school, but I don‟t remember anything at the Campus School, any kind of instruction anyway. I do remember the typing and that was a wonderful leg up. I have papers my mother saved from high school. I‟m blown away by the quality and the lack of errors. I must have really gone over them and retyped them. A major job, but it certainly didn‟t hurt me academically. It was great fun. I don‟t remember very many kids. I remember this one guy whose name was Jack who I just thought was absolutely the coolest blonde haired guy. His dad was the principal from Puyallup. He came back the next year and oh how happy I was. Other than that, that‟s probably the only person that I remember. I have some black and white photos of the dance. As I‟m going through stuff, I will dig them out and put them aside and at least let you look and see if there is something that you might want to use for your exhibit. I will keep my eye out for that kind of thing. The other major memory I have is of a writing contest; much to my surprise I won the darn thing. I have the prize that I got, and I have what I wrote. If I had known about the upcoming exhibit when I was going through my things I would have put them aside. In fact, the story may have been when my mother and 4 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED brother and I were out on Lummi Island visiting the weavers. We were driving along the water and we stopped because we saw this Indian guy down on the beach and I think he was carving. So I went down and I talked to him. Well doggone if it wasn‟t one of the Hillaires who are leaders of the Lummi tribe. He told me this story, this Indian legend, and I wrote the doggone thing down, handed it in, and I won! TB: Oh, terrific! BC: Is that a hoot? I still have the story I wrote and the prize, a small ceramic pin of a crab. That‟s another thing related to summer school that just astounds me, but everything was just right…my mother knew enough to stop, he happened to be there, and to be who it was, a Hillaire, an old man who probably died long ago. TB: That‟s wonderful. BC: So anyway, that‟s the other thing that I have that you might be able to use. I think that was a good ego thing … to think, I won. I don‟t remember it being a major amount of effort, but now that I look back on it, it wasn‟t bad! TB: Well you had the foresight to gather that person‟s story if that wasn‟t your assignment. BC: We just went to see what he was doing, and once I got home my mother, being a great teacher, probably said, “You know, that contest, I bet that Indian’s story might be a really good thing for you to write about.” Maybe I came up with it, who knows. Anyway, I did it -- that was the good part. TB: Now where was the lunchroom? I‟ve heard people talk about it but was it in the basement? BC: On the main floor, ground level, of Eden‟s Hall. You know where the stairs are? I went in there not too long ago and it was totally changed, but you know the big steps up? As you‟re looking at the building, you would have gone in the right side at the bottom of the stairs. There was a door that went in there. TB: So you wouldn‟t have gone up the stairs? BC: No, we did not go up the stairs. We went in flat and it was pretty much a third to a half of the bottom of the building. I lived in Eden‟s Hall when I was a freshman and a sophomore. That would have been 1959 and 1960 and they were still feeding people there. As a matter of fact, that‟s where I met and got to know Mike Phelps. He worked in the kitchen there. Kids came from on campus and off campus. There were three meals a day. TB: I know a lot of faculty ate there, too, the single women and occasionally some unmarried men. BC: That was it; that‟s where we ate. TB: How about any favorite classmates? BC: I only remember Jack. I was only there for two consecutive summer quarters. TB: You didn‟t remember any of your teachers really? BC: I do have a remembrance of Frank Punches as I recognized him when I was in the [education] department at Western. I think Punches must have been in our classroom at some point. 5 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I remember Dr. Flora from the field trips to Larrabee Beach with the recreation program. I think the kids who ran it were students who were in PE or maybe education. During those years most college students were adults like my Mom and older students, very few “college kids.” TB: Like the summer PE teachers? They may have been hired to run the program as a summer job. BC: Yes! TB: So it‟s almost like an extension of their training. BC: Exactly. TB: Who did you sense were your classmates in that school? It sounds like somebody from Puyallup High School… BC: I got the feeling that in the summer, they were all just like me. Their parents were all going to school. I don‟t have any recollection of any Bellingham kids. TB: How about any of your favorite subjects or classroom activities? BC: Well, typing. TB: Do you remember what kind of learning materials that you used mostly? BC: I don‟t remember any textbooks, but I remember knowing that what was happening educationally was very different from what was happening in my school. And not just because of typing and wood shop, I just had that feeling that it was different and that it was innovative and that it was good. TB: Cool. BC: I don‟t remember working hard. I remember it as being … I don‟t know if I would say “fun,” but I would definitely say pleasant. It was not like going to school. I had no complaints. It was great. TB: Students during the regular year say the same thing, how much fun they were having all the time. What about the grading system? Do you have any sense of that? BC: Not a clue. All I remember is getting that prize for writing. That‟s it. TB: Do you especially remember any creative activities such as weaving, making things, anything else? BC: No. Sometimes I think about what I did in college in the same building and I get confused. I remember doing an artwork thing, but that was in an art for the elementary class. It must have been upstairs in that building, No, I don‟t remember anything else. I remember the dance, making decorations for the dance. TB: Now who all came to the dance? Was it just a dance? Was it just your classmates that were there? BC: Yes. TB: Was that maybe the end of the quarter thing? 6 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: Probably. I‟m sure they were teaching us leadership skills, to plan and work in committees. After learning those skills I went off to high school and did those things. I guess I didn‟t realize someone had taught them to me. I also was active in 4-H as a kid. I‟m sure all these experiences helped me be Girls Club president in High School. TB: I think you talked about this a little bit, but what was it like for you to be observed so often by student teachers? BC: Didn‟t miss a beat. I didn‟t have any sense that we were being observed, just that the teachers were practicing on us. TB: It didn‟t bother you at all that you didn‟t know for sure who the master teacher was? BC: No, not a bit. I mean, they were my teachers. I don‟t remember any threat of grading. I don‟t remember any discipline problems. I don‟t remember being worried about my grade. I think that for me it was kind of a lark. Maybe because it wasn‟t really my school; it didn‟t count. But I do think that it might have been different for my brother Keith who was two years behind me. He had some academic problems, mainly in reading. He‟s a wonderful writer, and I think maybe he got a little bit of extra academic help. I remember he had a unit on astronomy. Even I remember learning things about it, learning how to remember the planets in order: Men Very Easily Make Jars Serve Useful Needs Promptly. I never forgot it! Isn‟t that a hoot! And it was in his class but it made such an impression on me; that was a very innovative way to learn something. Mnemonic devices! That‟s what I was teaching my study skills students at the college! This is how you remember things! TB: Any sense that there was like a theme for the quarter or anything when you were there? BC: There may have been for Keith‟s class because of the astronomy. It‟s interesting you bring that up. That may have been the reason I think about it as an innovative place. Learning built around a theme would lead to that wonderful integrated learning, I don‟t remember distinctively in my class, but I have the feeling, and remember I said I thought that things were innovative; I think you may be right. TB: I just picked that up from other people. BC: Yes, well that‟s probably it, it makes sense. TB: What out-of-class activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess? What did you enjoy most? Do you remember any games that you played? It sounds like summer school was only half a day then. BC: Oh yes, we went to lunch and that was it for the day. I do remember some games with balls in the Campus School gym. We may have had PE outside. I do kind of remember that a little. There was something going on in PE now that you mention it that was maybe a little more interesting or a little more than what we were doing at home. The out of class activities were in the afternoon recreation program. TB: Did you do any nature walks or anything up on Sehome Hill? BC: Not that I remember. TB: Did you visit the college itself? The college library, attend assemblies or sporting events or anything else at the college when you were at the Campus School? 7 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: We probably went to the library when my mother was studying and probably went in the downstairs. Maybe that‟s why I‟ve always loved libraries who knows? TB: That‟s actually where our office is, Special Collections is in the old children‟s section. BC: Yes! I remember that; and going over to the gym. TB: Did you play in the gym (main gym)? BC: No, if we played in the gym, we played in the gym in the Campus School. I think there were two gyms. When you went in the main door, I think there was a gym on both sides of the hall, but I mainly remember the one that was left and it was cold and I remember those basketball hoops inside and the tiny windows protected with woven wire and the floor. TB: I‟ve heard about it and I can‟t imagine it. BC: Well they took four by fours; they set them on end so you could see the growth rings. There were just all these blocks. I‟m wondering if they were leftover from a mill or something. It seems that they were fir, so they must have been this deep or something, and that was the floor. Isn‟t that funny? TB: Yes, people remember it. BC: We went out to Lakewood a couple times too. I may have gone with the recreation program and probably also with my mother. We went out in the afternoon maybe a couple times and just enjoyed it. A lake was special, I remember the muddy bottom. TB: Did you go canoeing? BC: I don‟t remember. Boating wouldn‟t have been a big deal because I had my own boat at home. It was probably more innovative to go to a lake and [go] swimming. I think the difference between public school and Campus School was the classes I got to take that I would have never had the opportunity to take at home. Also, the teaching techniques, but I only realize that now. TB: And what further education did you pursue? BC: Well, I got a BA in music education in 1963. Then I went off to California to teach a couple years and got married. My husband started school down there and then we moved back to Bellingham so he could finish his BA in education, and I got an MA in early childhood education. There was never any doubt of where I was going to go to college. TB: Oh, really? BC: Yes. TB: Because of your own summer experiences there? BC: Yes, I slid right in. I never considered going anywhere else. Maybe I thought about the University of Washington for two seconds. I was assigned to Eden‟s Hall. Heck, I knew Eden‟s Hall. I don‟t remember any concern about going away to school. I don‟t remember any fears. I just remember eager anticipation to go to college. I didn‟t miss a beat. 8 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: You said you didn‟t have any fear. That‟s another thing a lot of Campus School kids said, they weren‟t afraid of anything, they weren‟t afraid to try anything. BC: Yes! TB: You only had two summers there, but that‟s interesting! BC: I came from a small high school, and so the Campus School experience gave me opportunities that I wouldn‟t have had. I had never been in a lab until I went to Western and took physical science. I never knew, I had never heard about Newton. I had no science background. Girls didn‟t take those classes. Maybe one girl in my whole high school took a lab class or took chemistry. So when I took physical science twice I got a D both times! I never knew what a Bunsen burner was! I had never been in a lab; I had never done a lab experiment. For a kid from a small high school, Campus School was a wonderful opportunity to be able to do that. You know, I didn‟t ride a bus; we were out in the country. But I had my own boat and motor. I‟d put it in the bay and go down to Poulsbo and see my friends. It was a little different. I was in 4-H. It was just a whole different ballgame. TB: Well, are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates? BC: No. TB: But you do have Campus School memorabilia? BC: Yes. TB: A tray that you made, your award, and the paper that you wrote. BC: Yes. My brother may have some things. TB: So we may contact you about these items? BC: Absolutely. TB: Any other favorite memories of your Campus School days or any other comments that I haven‟t asked you about your time? BC: I just feel very lucky and special that I was able to go. TB: Can you describe more what the smells were? BC: I don‟t know; I‟m a person who remembers smells. I can‟t really tell you what it is, but if I smelled it again I would know it in a minute, absolutely. I would know I was in Campus School and I would know I was in the bottom of Edens Hall. And I definitely know the chlorine smell from the pool because it was heavy duty chlorine! TB: Do you have any thoughts about the ramps that were in Campus School? A lot of people remember them. You were in high school so it might not be the same. 9 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: The ramps! Oh yes, absolutely! I had forgotten all about them! Our classroom was on the second floor. The ramps were extremely cool because there were no stairs! I would have never remembered if you hadn‟t said something! They were wide and I think there was a banister about 3 feet high. TB: And they were rubber. BC: And they were rubber, black rubber. You bet I remember those! Isn‟t that funny? We would run down, stamping our feel and it would echo. TB: A lot of people like to tell the story of how fun it was to tear down there as fast as they could when there was no teacher around. BC: The other thing that I remember and I was going to tell you about that, there was a teacher - and I can find what her name was - when I was in my teacher training and we observed in the Campus School, there was a first grade teacher. TB: Miss Casanova? BC: Yes! Miss Casanova, I remember observing her teaching, this Master Teacher, and she had notes. Five by eight cards in her hand as she was teaching. I thought that was the coolest thing because I thought its okay! TB: Oh, to have notes handy. BC: It was a significant thing. For somebody as great as she made it okay to use notes. And it was something I did. I felt comfortable using notes when I taught. You don‟t have to know it all. That was cool. TB: Now the second questionnaire is the Campus School Teacher/Student Teacher questions. How did you come to be a teacher/student teacher in the Campus School? BC: I applied, and I got it. I was very happy about that. This was winter quarter 1962. The first student teaching was supposed to be a half-day in the levels you weren‟t preparing for or in one‟s minor. We taught half day and took 8 credits. Everybody wanted to stay in Bellingham. It was a real coup to be able to student teach in town. I didn‟t have a car so I would have had to arrange transportation or move. The kids who were far away had travel time, they had all that stuff. That‟s how I happened to end up there. TB: If you were a student teacher (which you were), what degrees or certificates were you studying for? BC: BA in elementary education. My minor was elementary music. I was trained to be a music teacher in the elementary schools. That was kind of my specialty. TB: What were the years and grades that you student taught at the Campus School? BC: It was half days; I think it was mornings but I couldn‟t tell you that for sure. It was winter quarter 1962. The reason that I remember that is because I was a skier and I was teaching skiing at Mount Baker on the weekends. I took two classes. I had under a two point for the quarter! I think that was the second time that I had taken the physical science class that I got a D! A 1.8 grade point hat was the low point in my academic career. TB: Did any other family members teach at the Campus School? 10 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: No. TB: So your mother, when she was back there doing her degree, she didn‟t need to do any teaching? BC: She had already been teaching. She was just getting her coursework so she could get her BA. TB: To the best of your recollection, please describe a typical school day. BC: You know, I can‟t really tell you much about it other than I worked with Mrs. Hinds and we were floaters. We went into each class at this time several days a week. The only person that I really have many memories of is Evelyn. I don‟t remember the kids, I don‟t remember the teachers, I don‟t remember the other student teachers because it was just the two of us and we just did our thing. TB: So you went into the classroom and not had the classroom come to where you were? BC: Yes, we went into the classroom. We played our autoharps. That‟s how I learned to be an ace on the autoharp. I can put it on my hip, walk around the classroom and play. I remember I bought my own in the College Bookstore and I still have it. Because my piano skills were definitely lacking, this and a guitar were my instruments for teaching. TB: What are some of the things that you did with the kids? What was the music program like? BC: We did listening, we did singing, and we did rhythms. I think we did some music history, composers and those kinds of things. We taught the kids to do some very simple rhythms and actual music writing, to write a little song or something. TB: Wasn‟t that innovative actually to have the students doing compositions? BC: Probably, but it was pretty basic. We might have done a little bit of symphonic form but it wasn‟t a major part, it was something we did once in a while. I remember I was quite impressed by all the rhythm equipment, classical records, and record player on a cart that we pushed around. I do remember rhythm band for the younger ones. The kids would do cymbals and sticks. The cymbals would play this part and the sticks would do their part; that kind of stuff. The things we taught are what a good in-classroom music teacher still does. We did themed songs for the seasons, holidays, those kinds of things. And of course it was different for sixth graders from first graders. I remember it being fun. I don‟t remember I worked too hard. TB: To the best of your recollection, please describe a typical school week including such things as regular assemblies, music... but probably you were floating around. BC: Yes. Now that you say assemblies – we may have done some group things with the class or with singing maybe in the auditorium. I know when I went to California I certainly didn‟t miss a beat. I would lead the whole grade school singing in the auditorium, so I must have learned to do it somewhere. TB: You said winter quarter – you probably wouldn‟t remember this but do you have any memory of Christmas? A lot of people tell the story as students in the Christmas season, they would come in early before school and Mrs. Hinds would play Christmas carols and they would all sing. This was in the Forties and Fifties and especially if the parents were professors they would bring their kids and everybody sang. BC: I was aware that the students were the children of the professors, but I don‟t remember anything specific. When I taught in Bellingham, which I did, down at Franklin School, I had the Spanel kids. Harriet 11 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED and Les were good friends of mine. And Dr. and Mrs. Seal, Michael Seal, those were my Kindergarteners. But I don‟t remember anyone from Campus School. TB: Were there any music programs in the auditorium when all the kids got together other than the Christmas carols? BC: Maybe, but I was there winter quarter. TB: Do you remember, was there a dress code for you as a teacher in the Campus School? BC: I don‟t remember a thing, no. But I‟ll tell you, Mrs. Hinds was dressed to the nines, always. TB: Still always is! BC: I saw her a couple of years ago and I introduced myself. I don‟t think she remembered me, but I saw her and knew who it was immediately. Mrs. Hinds and a teacher I had from the home economic department were always beautifully dressed; something I observed and thought, “When I teach I am going to dress well.” My mother was always beautifully dressed. When I was at the college, kids would say, “You never come dressed the same twice in the whole quarter!” I‟d say, “You got it!” I knew that how the teacher looked had a lot to do with my learning. I‟m a very visual person and if a professor had some God-awful thing on, I didn‟t remember a thing they said. I remember a history teacher at Western. I still haven‟t forgotten the brown suits and the orange and brown wide ties. I was so grossed-out by what that man was wearing! I never learned a thing, and I blame how he dressed on half of it. I was so visual and I was just so appalled! Too bad I didn‟t realize what I was doing to myself. TB: Well Mrs. Hinds would have been wonderful then because she was always dressing up. BC: Oh, right, and high heels and jewelry and makeup! I don‟t know how I kept up. I just remember that she wore lots of vivid blues. I don‟t remember much else. TB: Is there any other part of the curriculum that you particularly remember? BC: Not really, no, that was my first student teaching. TB: And you did your whole day in the public schools? BC: The next year I did a full day at Happy Valley School out towards Fairhaven, a first/second combination class. I got Bellingham both times, talk about lucky! TB: While you were student teaching at the Campus School was there any momentous local, national, or international events? I realized you just missed the Kennedy assassination. BC: I don‟t remember anything. Kennedy was my first year of teaching in California. That was stunning, I‟ve never forgotten about that. So are you talking about when I was in college then? TB: Something at the Campus School. BC: Campus School? No. TB: And the only thing you taught in Campus School was music? 12 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: Yes. TB: As a student teacher, did you take your classes to visit areas of the college for special events? Did you take them over to the auditorium? Did you ever show them the big organ over there? BC: I don‟t remember any field trips, but I certainly remember the big organ from my first day of orientation when the gray-haired music professor in his black academic robe sat down and played the most phenomenal music I had ever heard: Bach. Coming from a small town, oh my god! What is this? I just never got over it. It was the greatest thing ever! It certainly got this freshman‟s attention. TB: Well I‟m going to ask you that one later when we get to the Western part! Do you remember any other involvement with the students‟ parents, do you remember faculty meetings? BC: I don‟t think I went to faculty meetings. TB: Any other thoughts about the administrative structure of the Campus School? Was Ray Hawk principal when you were there? BC: The name sounds a little familiar. TB: By the time you got there, weren‟t they already thinking about closing the school down? BC: I think so, or it maybe didn‟t happen too long after, yes. TB: 1967 it closed. BC: I thought that was such a shame. What a resource the college education department and the children of Bellingham lost. If you‟re going to be a teaching institution, my god, you‟ve got a school right there in front of you with innovative curriculum and master teachers like Miss Nicol and Miss Casanova. Interesting they were both single. TB: Well why don‟t you actually tell that story about Miss Casanova now. BC: During some of my education classes, we would go in and observe in different classrooms. She was the one, „the‟ lady. She was the master. I remember observing her on several occasions when she was teaching and she would have a five by eight or a three by five note card with the important things on it that she was going to cover. I was just so impressed and it made me know that it was okay to do that. And I did it teaching elementary as well as college. You can‟t know everything and you don‟t want to leave out anything. But when you‟re 21 years old, I think you think you have to know everything. I‟m sure that idea probably helped me when I first started teaching. TB: Any more thoughts on student teaching at the Campus School? BC: I can‟t think of anything in particular. TB: Okay; part three, Golden Vikings. BC: I threw that paper out! Lisa said, “I wonder if you’re a Golden Viking.” I said, “I hope not!” TB: Every summer they have a reunion, and we send out this questionnaire. I just wanted to make sure I got you now. How did you choose to come to Western then as a college student? 13 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: Because I had gone to Campus School. There was no doubt that I was going to be a teacher, so there really was no doubt of where I was going to go. TB: How did you know you were going to be a teacher? BC: Oh, I know how I knew I was going to be a teacher! In 1959 I had three options: I could be a nurse and I hated blood; I could be a secretary and I thought I would be bored to death, and the other option was teaching. My mother was an elementary teacher. TB: Those were the options to women at that time? BC: That was it. Those were the only three, unless I got married and didn‟t go to school. But there was never any doubt in my mind that I was going to go to college. It was always talked about in my family, “When you go to college.” I had friends who were smarter than I was whose parents said, “Well if you want to go…” and they ended up not going or not finishing and they are still living in Poulsbo. At my house you just did it. It was just part of the drill. I went along with it! TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western? BC: 1959 through 1963 and then 1969 through 1971 I think. I‟m a little iffy on that end date, but I know I left there in 1971 with my MA. TB: I have you as getting your masters in 1970. BC: Yes, it probably is. You may be right because my husband got his BA in 1971. We left and went to Moses Lake in 1971 so I may have had my Masters for a year. While my husband was going to school, I was teaching half time, supporting the family and one child, working on my MA half time, TB: So you got a Masters in education? BC: Early childhood education. TB: Oh, early childhood education! And then somehow you have a music endorsement. BC: Education major with a minor in elementary music, yes. TB: Have any other family members attended Western? BC: Mother, that‟s it. TB: What was your first job after leaving Western and any distinctive memories of this experience? BC: I went to California. California schools came to campus and recruited like crazy. California needed teachers very badly. I interviewed in one or two places and I got hired at Los Gatos School District down near San Jose. It was a wonderful place to be. Twenty one years old, right out of school, in sunny California, things were happening, in fact, I went to Stanford for the JFK memorial service. I remember thinking that I was better trained than the people I was teaching with who went to San Jose State. I was paid I think $3,500 my first year of teaching and it was about a thousand dollars more than the kids who were hiring in Washington. 14 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: But what was the cost of living really high down there? BC: Somewhat higher. I think I paid $300 a month for an apartment and I shared it with another teacher, so one hundred and a half. When I went down there, my principal Rex Willis from Mountain Home, Idaho, was probably thirty five years old. People were all young. All these cute young women, the principals used to laugh about who had the best looking staff. I taught with Brooke Coors, from Coors Brewery. I taught with a girl from the University of Texas, Hook ‘em Horns you know, who brought her great big long horns to school. There were people from all over the country, and that was cool. I went into a brand new school. The new school wasn‟t ready for the fall so we double-shifted. The first quarter I taught I didn‟t go to school until 11:30 in the morning. I had a swimming pool right out my door and I‟d go out and sit and have my coffee and read the paper before I went to school. I never liked teaching early after that! At the college, you never saw me teaching eight o‟clock classes. I‟d say nine, if you‟re lucky. It was usually ten. That first year spoiled me forever! After several months we moved into a brand new school building with an innovative design. It was very fun, a very fun place to be. TB: Please share any information about your subsequent career. BC: I went on and taught second grade for a couple years but I got bored with that. I thought if I do Dick and Jane one more time I‟m going to throw up! So I moved to Kindergarten, which I wasn‟t trained to do, but because I was a music teacher it was a perfect match for me. I loved teaching Kindergarten, it was great. I got married to Louie Congdon, we had our son Roark, and we moved to Western after my husband finished two years at community college in Campbell, California. Louie got accepted to Western. I made an appointment with the Bellingham School District, went in for an interview and was hired. Evidently I assumed that I would not have a problem getting a job. Can‟t imagine what we would have lived on if I hadn‟t, but I didn‟t seem worried. I have never applied for a job I didn‟t get, but I didn‟t have to apply for too many. I taught at Franklin School down at the bottom of Indian Street near Lakeway Drive. It‟s gone now, they tore it down. I have a couple of pieces of memorabilia from Franklin School. I have a child‟s chair and a teaching aid, a sample box of chocolate beans, butter, etc. from Ghirridelli Chocolates. I taught there and my husband, because he was a college student, was hired as the recess duty guy. This was good as we needed the money. We lived at the corner of State and Cedar Street. Do you know where the armory is? About half a block up from the armory, right on the corner where Cedar starts up to the campus. We bought the house and lived there. We used my husband‟s student loan for the down payment. We figured it was school expenses. That was the first of many houses we bought and sold. I taught at the old district office building north of downtown for Gary Karlberg and then at Franklin for a guy named Ed Brown. I went to Sunnyland School and taught Kindergarten half days with Julie Fleetwood. Do you know Julie Fleetwood? TB: Yes. BC: I ran into Julie Fleetwood at an opening at the Bellingham Museum where my husband‟s daughter, Lisa Van Doren, is a curator. I just couldn‟t believe Julie was there. It was a hoot! We team taught. One of us taught in the morning and one taught in the afternoon because at that time I was working on my masters. I thought if I‟m going to be here in Bellingham I might as well get my masters instead of just my fifth year. It was the best thing I ever did. TB: And you were teaching Kindergarten, right? 15 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: I was teaching Kindergarten, yes. So I taught half day, went to school half day. I got walking pneumonia the quarter I had to take my orals. I got out of that one! I picked up a few extra days to prepare. Thank god! My husband graduated and took an industrial arts job in Moses Lake. I retired, had my son Ian and wasn‟t going to teach anymore. Big Bend Community College received a grant for a parent educat local teacher‟s wife with MA in Early Childhood just moved into town! I got hired part-time to start the program. I had never done parent education in my life. And the cool part is, they just said, “Here’s the money, design and start the program.” I didn‟t have a clue. I got hired to do it, and jumped in. I thought I have this opportunity, I‟m going to set this up to be the most educationally sound program I can think of. Later I found a book on parent coop preschools and I couldn‟t have set it up more ideally than I did. I thought well, sometime during that training or when I was sitting on the floor in the stacks at the Library reading those early childhood journals, it went in my brain and it just parked up there – part of that great basic educational training that I got from Western. I knew I didn‟t want to stay in Moses Lake for the rest of my life. After several years I came here to Wenatchee to run the Early Childhood/Parent Co-op Program at Wenatchee Valley College. I got divorced, raised my two boys, and taught here at the college for about nineteen years. When the college dropped that program, I coordinated Telecourses, and helped run the telecast system for the college. Later I worked in the college ski program as assistant director and helped run ski areas. Who knew when I was teaching skiing at Mount Baker that I‟d ever turn that avocation into a real job? The college then closed the ski program, so I ended up teaching study skills, adult basic education, administered the program for a year and then I retired. That was it. TB: Wow. So they had a ski management program? BC: Yes, a two-year technical degree program in ski instruction and, ski area management. It was great. We had kids come from Sweden; we had kids come from all over. It was a phenomenal program. It was very fun. I never thought that some day I would lose my job or they would close the program and they‟d find something else for me to do. I think again that good basic educational training that I had said, “You know how to teach and you know how to learn, you can do this.” I just said, “Sure, I can do this.” I was like the ad for Mikey and the cereal, “Let’s let Mikey try it!” It was like, “Let BC teach it!” TB: Excellent. BC: Thanks to Western, my educational training was excellent. TB: Oh good. Now tell us about your experiences at Western. When you were at Western, where did you live? BC: My first quarter at Western there was no room in the dorm. I was very disappointed. We lived in a house with Mrs. Patterson and her family. I think it was called Heritage House. She fed us downstairs at a long table on the main floor by the kitchen. I lived with a friend Doreen Finseth from high school, Linda Marple, Sandy, and two girls from Hawaii, Michelle Quaintence and Dorothy Felton. There were so many girls, nine maybe, that we took the door off the one bathroom. It was a big old blue house and at night we could hear rats chewing. They eventually ate through the wall. That was the first two quarters and then I went to the dorm. They tore the house down when they built the Viking Union. When there was an opening in the spring I moved to Eden‟s Hall. I lived in the top right hand corner room. TB: North or South? 16 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: The old one, I never lived in the new building. The top corner had windows on both sides and it looked out at Old Main and down towards the Bay. I remember it had hardwood floors and a sink in our room which was very cool. All of the old rooms had sinks I think. You had to go down the hall for the potty and shower. I remember we had to wash the wooden floors at the end of the year when we moved out. I had grown up with a house with wooden floors and I knew you never put water on hard wood floors! I worked as a proctor. Do you know what a proctor is? TB: Somebody who presides or watches. BC: That was my part time job. I worked at the front desk and guys would come and say, „I’m here to see Jane.” I would say into a speaker, “Jane, you have a guest,” and it would go, hopefully, into the right hall on the right floor upstairs. The girl would answer and then they would come down. Because the speakers were in the hall, you‟d open up your door if you thought you were going to have somebody visiting. Sometimes the couples would sit there, but usually they were going on a date. Eleven o‟clock each school night, and later on the weekends, was lights off. They locked the door at curfew and nobody could get in. You had to write the girls up if they were late. They‟d try pushing girls in the lower windows, especially on the weekends. My job at eleven o‟clock on school nights – I probably did this one or two nights a week as it was my part time job – would be to open every single door. I had a flashlight and I would shine it on every bed to make sure everybody was in their bed. Sometimes we would wait for the proctor and as soon as they left, we would turn on the lights and study again or whatever. I think this was usually only if we had a test, we were all pretty good about hitting the hay. TB: Oh, they weren‟t even supposed to be studying after eleven o‟clock? BC: No. Lights were out. A cool place to study was in the luggage closet. Down at the end of the hall was a luggage closet and everybody put their empty suitcases in there. It was a good place to go study because you could sit on the floor. It was kind of quiet and two or three people could study together for a test. That‟s what I did. Other than that, where‟d I live after that? Oh, the big deal was we moved out and we moved down on Garden Street. TB: You also lived in Higginson at some point I think when it was brand new. BC: Yes! I lived in Higginson when it was brand new and that was very fun. It was very innovative for two rooms to share their own bath and central dressing area. I remember we lived on the fifth floor. I remember water fights. We used to take our square plastic waste paper baskets and we‟d fill them with water and you‟d go whoosh -- over the rail. Well Dean Mac came to break up one water fight, and guess who threw a bucket on him from the fifth floor! You‟d run through the room, dripping water and go whoosh! Oh, and I remember going across the street to Gus‟s for hamburgers. I think my junior year I moved out with four other girls and we lived down on Garden Street in a house. TB: Can you tell me a little bit more about what dorm life was like then? Did you have a housemother? BC: Yes, we had a housemother. She had gray hair, I can‟t remember her name. The rumor was that she had been a stripper or something. TB: Really? BC: Fifi LeFou or something. TB: We can probably find it. 17 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: Oh yes, you could find who was the housemother at that time. But I don‟t know if her name sounded like a stripper… One of the major rules for girls at that time was no pants on campus during weekdays and only before dinner on the weekends! I can remember having a nine o‟clock class and getting up and putting on a pair of loafers and socks and rolling my jeans up and putting a long coat and going to my nine o‟clock class. I can also remember my first quarter, I took social dance at eight o‟clock in the morning two days a week in the coldest gym you have ever been in your life. It was in the bottom of Old Main and I‟ve never forgotten it. Talk about a place to learn social dance! That‟s where I met my friend Craig McGowan from Seattle, who ended up a wonderful biology teacher at Garfield. He won the state Golden Apple award as well as other recognitions, he‟s a dear. We ate in the basement of Eden‟s Hall. Then the Viking Union was built and we started eating over there. I had a friend whose name was Carol Brown and she used to run the catering and sometimes I would wait tables for extra money. Well I didn‟t have any experience doing that. Sometimes we would serve the Board of Trustees. If there was food left, we got to eat it. They often served Cornish game hen upside down on a half of a pineapple with wild rice inside. I don‟t think I had ever had fresh pineapple or game hen. I know I never had wild rice. I had never had asparagus that wasn‟t canned. We usually had cheesecake for dessert. Funny things. Some were really big banquets, but if you were chosen to do the Board of Trustees it was a big deal. TB: Do you know Ralph Munro? BC: I don‟t know him personally but he was a big gun at the school when I was there. I knew who he was. TB: He also worked for Saga and we have a picture of him serving, he did the Board of Trustees or some dinner with the President. BC: Saga food services! Yes, he may have; Saga was run for a couple years by a nice blonde-haired crewcut guy that was just a dear. And again my friend Mike Phelps and some of the Canadian rugby players worked for him. TB: His name has come up before. BC: Steve, maybe? But anyway, a heck of a guy, just a really nice, young guy. Yes, so we all ate at Saga. I remember skiing and the ski bus. A lot of my life, the whole winter revolved around skiing. I lived, breathed and skied, and that was it. In fact, one of the reasons I went to Western was because I could ski, pretty one dimensional when I look back. TB: Yes, it was interesting because I did find you in the annual under skiing. Even though you were a music major, I only found you in the concert choir! BC: You‟re right! Yes, I did a little skiing. That‟s why I can‟t get up and down the stairs anymore at my house. TB: Who are your favorite or most influential teachers and why? BC: Oh man! I remember Dr. Easterbrook. TB: He‟s still there! 18 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: Oh really? Well if you ever see him, you have to tell him this! It must have been one of those science for the elementary school classes. He put us in a boat and took us out to the San Juan Islands. It was some guy‟s fishing boat. We went to Fossil Bay. I remember Easterbrook found a sea urchin. He cut up the sea urchin, put it on Triscuits, and we ate it. Isn‟t this funny? This is the kind of stuff kids remember, field trips! I remember laying in a sleeping bag at night and looking up at the stars and talking about the stars. But the thing I remember the most is he brought us coffee in our sleeping bags in the morning! I have never forgotten it and my husband, dear sweetheart, knows that‟s the way to my heart! I love my coffee in bed in the morning! I got to know Dr. Neuzil and his family. He was the ski club advisor. My friend Mike Phelps was very good buddies with Dr. Neuzil. Also I had a very dear, sweet student teaching supervisor, Mabel Hodges I think, when I was at Happy Valley. She had part of her stomach removed and was quite ill (I wonder if she had cancer). Even though she couldn‟t eat, she used to bake these wonderful goodies to bring us when we had afternoon seminars. She was a wonderful woman. The thing I remember most about her was that she was flexible. She would say we were going to have something due on a specific date. Sometimes kids said “Yeah but I’ve got a test,” and she said, “Oh, well that’s okay. Let’s choose another day.” It wasn‟t a big deal to make a change as long as she reached her goal. So you have a test that day? Let‟s do it the next day. Who cares? You know? I tried to use that in my teaching. TB: Did you have Bearnice Skeen? BC: Oh, Dr. Skeen. She was a dear and was my early childhood advisor. That would have been in my masters program, she was a wonderful woman. TB: When you were in music did you have Regier? BC: Bernard Regier I sang for him my freshman year, but I was never terribly impressed with him. I was a music major. I‟m a singer; I played the violin the guitar, and the autoharp. I was destined to teach music to kids. I was never destined to do music theory because I didn‟t know how to play the piano. I took music theory the first quarter of school and I thought I was going to die because we had to write music. We had to follow all these rules of composition. I‟d follow the rules but I couldn‟t play the piano to see how my composition sounded. I wasn‟t smart enough to go to someone who played the piano and say, “Would you play this for me?” As soon as I heard it I would have said, “Oh, that’s got to be changed.” I struggled through that class and immediately changed to a music minor from major so I didn‟t have to take any more theory classes. I‟ll tell you a story about my music education requirements which I probably shouldn‟t tell but I‟ll tell anyway. There was a requirement at Western that you had to be able to play The Star Spangled Banner to get your degree in music. What a stupid requirement! My god! I just couldn‟t do it! I‟d get to “rocket‟s red glare” and just fold. So, I never took the test. Nobody ever found out! Lucky for me they didn‟t have computers to track everything then. What would have happened if I‟d gone in unable to ever pass that darn test? I could have stayed at Western for five years and never learned to play The Star Spangled Banner! And did it matter? No! I was an excellent teacher and it had nothing to do with whether or not I could play The Star Spangled Banner. That‟s how I got my minor! 19 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I used to tell this story to my students in my study skills class, “Don’t point out the things that you can’t do.” Before I started my first year of teaching, my mother gave me two bits of advice. One was, “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.” The other was, “Get to know and be nice to the secretaries, janitors and the cooks.” Great advice. TB: What was your main course of study? BC: Music and education. My music was my minor and education was my major. TB: What classes did you like the best or learn the most from? BC: Often I did not like the theory classes, but I did love the application classes. Art for the elementary school, science for the elementary school: the practical stuff that I was going to use. I think those classes were why I felt well prepared when I started to teach. I did have one history teacher that was wonderful; he maybe taught Washington State History. TB: Murray? BC: Yes! If they had all been like him I would have loved history. His son was my age, too. The theory classes were difficult…but the others I did like. They probably saved my grade point. TB: Okay, well we know one of the extracurricular classes you enjoyed the most was ski club. Anything else you especially enjoyed? What about dances? The water fights? BC: [Laughter]. Are you going to say, “You won’t believe this woman!” The water fight incident was just something that happened once. My life pretty much revolved around skiing and people that were skiers. I remember one year when I was teaching skiing I skied from the first weekend of October through May fifth. I never missed a weekend because I was working up there! That was how I earned my money. I had skied a little bit in high school. As a freshman I took skiing as a PE credit. I remember the ski school director, Greg Newton asking me at the end of the ski class, “Would you be interested in teaching skiing next year?” Well, I was, “What?” I was just astounded. I ended up teaching skiing my sophomore, junior and senior year, and then when I went back for my MA. That was pretty good duty; I got a pass and I was going to ski anyway. I made some money; it was fine. And a funny thing, Greg Newton‟s ex-wife was one of my students here at WVC. TB: Oh, in Wenatchee? BC: Yes, Pat Newton. We found that out, we just absolutely hooted, thought it was funnier than all get out. So I studied and I skied and that was pretty much it. The first year I taught the ski school was run by Franz Gabl, an Austrian who had silver medalled in the Olympics. His wife made great mulled wine. I have the recipe. TB: Do you have any other special memories of your first college days? BC: You mean when I first got there? TB: Your bachelor‟s degree. 20 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: As I said, the first day when we went in and heard Dr. Schaub play the organ. There was always this story that his hair was so white because he‟d had an unhappy love affair or something. Did you ever hear that? TB: I‟ve heard stories. BC: Something like that, yes. I had never heard anything like that organ in my life! I was just astounded and I think it was at orientation on one of the first days we were on campus. I have always been crazy about Bach and organ ever since, so it took. The other thing that I think was really important, I‟d say probably one of the more important classes that I took at school (and I think every college should require it), covered using the library. I had to take it from some guy who was a librarian… TB: Oh, Herb Hearsey. BC: Yes. I had to take an introduction to the library class. Do you know about that class? TB: I think so. I‟ve heard that people had to take classes from Herb Hearsey. BC: We had to learn about a library resources and how to do research. It wasn‟t taught at my high school: how to do research, how to look up books. Probably the most useful class I took in college. I have used the skills the rest of my life. If I had to do it over again, I may have gone into research. I‟m doing genealogy now and just love it. TB: Excellent. BC: Yes. It was a half a quarter, a couple afternoons a week. Everybody had to take it, it was required. It was absolutely the best. Other special memories were going to a lot of lectures. I heard Linus Pauling talk. I saw Satchmo play in the gym. I saw Hal Holbrook as Mark Train, Vincent Price, Count Basie and some opera stars that are now famous. The only reason I went was because I got extra credit or was assigned by my instructors. Good for those teachers. I didn‟t know who those people were, it would have never entered my mind to go. I did the same thing when I was teaching at WVC, “So-and-so is coming; you’re going, getting extra credit.” You have to force kids into doing those things because they don‟t know enough to do it themselves. TB: When you first came to Western, there was a major change in the curriculum underway and there was a new president, Dr. Jarrett, who really did push the humanities program. There was a lot of building going on, which is why Linus Pauling came for the dedication of Haggard Hall. BC: Oh, is that why? He spoke about sickle cell anemia. TB: Yes, 1959, 1960 he came for the dedication and did make a big speech for that. The Ridgeway dorms got built. Higginson Hall was built. Did you have any sense as a student that this was an exciting time? BC: Oh, absolutely; I loved the sculpture at the library, the Rainforest? I‟d never seen anything like that. Still, I just thought it was great! I loved it! I still love it. TB: That‟s right; the library was being renovated when you were there for the first time. BC: It was. Haggard Hall is the science building, right? 21 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: It was. BC: If you don‟t think that was something: to go in there for the first time and have class with all those concrete walls… TB: Tell me more about that, what was that like? BC: It was like, oh my god, what is this? TB: Did you like it, or you didn‟t like it? BC: I don‟t know that I was crazy about it, but I didn‟t hate it. I think that my interest in architecture and design is because of the Western campus. I remember all the hexagonals at the Viking Union. They were in the sidewalk, the furniture, they even used them in the design of the Klipsun that year. TB: Is that a negative reaction? BC: Positive. I like the look now. It set me up for, “This is how things are supposed to look;” absolutely, an unintended outcome, but absolutely. Well, look at the metal on my fireplace. What does that look like? Doesn‟t that look like Haggard Hall? Probably, I mean, it could fit right in there. It‟s gray, it‟s metal, and it‟s sculptural. TB: Just trying to get a sense of what it was like (people‟s perceptions). People in the end, before they renovated Haggard were against Thiry, the one who designed Haggard. He was the same one who designed Higginson Hall as well. BC: And I took a class in my masters program in the home [economics] department on Scandinavian design. TB: From Dr Ramsland? BC: No, it wasn‟t Ramsland. It was a woman; I think it was Dr. Larrabee. I remember Ramsland because my college roommate was in home economics. Dr Ramsland started that wonderful chair collection that is now in the college art gallery. I think my interest in architecture and design is the main non-academic thing that I got at Western, and is significant in my life. TB: What were some of the things you noticed when you came back the second time to get your masters? Anybody else who was a favorite or inspirational teacher? BC: Well, Dr. Skeen definitely because of my masters. Roberta Bouverat was always kind of there but she was never one of my favorites. She was kind of Dr. Skeen‟s protégé. But she was kind of…but look at who she was up against. Dr. Skeen was just such a peach; she was just a dear, and such a master teacher. During that time I was teaching half day, I was going to school half day, taking evening classes, taking afternoon classes, supporting the family. Because I was doing other things, I wasn‟t as much a part of the masters program as the kids who were going full time. I had other stuff I had to do. They had more camaraderie, incidental learning and probably more fun, too. TB: You were just trying to survive. 22 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BC: Yes, I was trying to survive, exactly. One person I met in those classes was Barbara Merriman (Barbara Snow). She has run early childhood programs and worked for Whatcom Community College; she was vocational dean out there. We are still in contact and have been friends for years and years. She was a Home and Family Life Coordinator around the state when I was the same here in Wenatchee. When I was teaching during grad school, I got to know the faculty community as parents of my students. I met Harriet and Les Spanel, the Seals, Abel the math teacher. There was a family with a darling little boy, Steven. He was killed up in Alaska a couple years ago. His dad was an architect in town. They were neighbors of Spanels TB: Well, is there anything else that I haven‟t asked you that you would like to comment on? BC: When my husband was at Western, he was in the technology department, so were Dr. Hill and Rod Slemmons. We did some socializing with Rod and Kif Slemmons, so at that time I got into a different area of what was happening at the college. Louie was a PE minor. If I could take Wenatchee‟s weather and put it in Bellingham, I would live there in a minute. It‟s close to Vancouver, close to Seattle, the water is there, the San Juans, the mountains, this is as close as I can get. I‟m just missing the intellectual, arts…I would be going to things on campus all the time. TB: So there‟s nothing else for the record? BC: I don‟t think so. TB: Okay; I will say thank you very much. BC: You are very welcome. 23 Barbara Congdon Edited Transcript – October 16, 2005 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Jack Carver interview--January 30, 2006
Description: Jack Carver attended the Campus School from 1923 to 1932 (Kindergarten through eighth grade). He attended Western Washington University, 1936-1938.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_CarverJack_20060130
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Jack Carver ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" cr
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Jack Carver ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Jack Carver at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, on January 30, 2006. The interviewer is Carole Morris. CM: This is January 30th, 2006 and I’m Carole Morris interviewing Jack Carver on the Campus School Memories Project which is a Western Washington University project. So, Jack, can you tell me your full name? JC: My full name? Originally it was John Coston Carver, after my dad, Coston, but I always went by Jack, except in the service I [went by] John. Anyway, I went by Jack in grade school when I was going to Normal Training School. It was sort of a down graded city school, I suppose, because it was special. It was a student teacher project. We enjoyed the whole thing as far as I can remember. This has been quite a while ago when I went up there, 1923 to 1932. I went Kindergarten through the eighth grade. CM: How did you happen to attend the school, Jack? JC: We lived about two blocks from the Normal School down at 710 Garden and it was an easy walk up to school and my uncle, Sam Carver, he was a teacher up there at the Normal. I don’t know if he had an influence or not, but anyway, we participated by going to the Normal Training School. My sister, Jean, who was a year behind me, also went to the Training School. We would walk up the two or three blocks to school everyday. It was an easy walk. We came home for lunch everyday. Lots of times after school, I would stop at a little grocery store at about 611 High Street called Cook’s Grocery and always get a little bit of candy there. I had a sweet tooth, I suppose, that’s developed over the years. It was always a fun time going to the Normal Training School. The school itself, I thought was Bellingham State Normal School, wasn’t an official name, I don’t believe, Bellingham State Normal, but we called it that. Blue and white colors, I always enjoyed it around that school, big time. CM: What did your Uncle Sam teach, Jack? JC: Oh, he wasn’t a grade school teacher, he was in the college, but he did teach us kids in the gym. We called it the men’s gym because it was used by the men and we’d go down there probably every day for gym class and run around. I don’t remember quite what he had us doing, but he did teach us. CM: Were the boys separate from the girls in gym class? JC: No, I think we all went down together. CM: So was it called Training School the whole time you were there? JC: Yes. Normal Training School. CM: Do you know if your family paid any fees for you to attend? 1 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: I don’t think they paid anything, no. I don’t recall they did. CM: Did anyone else from your family go besides your sister Jean? JC: There’s only two of us that were there, no other kids in the family. CM: Did you have other brothers and sisters? JC: No. CM: Do you remember any favorite classmates? JC: Oh, as I got older I certainly did. I was thinking about that the other day. Vivian Clarke, she was an early flame, perhaps, at least I remember walking home with her at lunch time fairly often, I think. She lived a little ways from where we did. I was in a younger class at that time, but somehow… CM: Is Clarke her married name? JC: No, that was her name then. There was Jack Whitmore, whose dad was an attorney in town. I still correspond with him, he lives down in Arizona. Jack Most, Billy Jim Dee, he even ran for governor of Idaho about ten, fifteen years ago, but he didn’t win. CM: Are these people still around? JC: No, they’ve gone. Howard Murray, Lorraine Ellis, now, she’s still alive, and Jean Wellington, she’s in Bellingham, doing fine. Margaret Jane Bruff, she was a school librarian in Arlington. I think she’s still down there. Bill Gardiner, he’s deceased, but he was a county assistant prosecutor for a while. Let’s see, I think I’ll mention that Lorraine Ellis deal again, if I may. I think this was in the eighth grade, I was a young guy. We were in a play together, an eighth grade play I guess. I had to kiss her. Somehow I kept that memory for all these years. I don’t suppose she ever did, but anyway, I did, because it was a something an eighth grader was remembering. I can’t remember the name of the play now; maybe it was too exciting for me. CM: So did you put on a lot of plays? JC: We would put on a few plays. It was part of the curriculum, I suppose, in the eighth grade, getting us to be a little more mature in front of people and trying to memorize things. Bertha Crawford was our eighth grade teacher and she was a good white haired lady who kept us on the straight and narrow pretty well. Probably she was one of those influential teachers, along with Priscilla Kinsman. Now, she taught kindergarten, I remember and those years when I was starting. Of course, Miss Merriman in the fourth grade, I can’t remember some of those other main teachers, but they were the pioneers in Training School teachers. There were about four or five of them that stayed there forever it seemed like. CM: Who was your favorite, did you have a favorite? JC: I suppose, since I was older, you could say it was Bertha Crawford. CM: Why? JC: Maybe because I remember her mostly. CM: You said she kept you on the straight and narrow, was that something that she thought you needed? 2 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: Well, she tried to keep most of us on the straight and narrow and I imagine she did. Changing that back a few years, Mildred Moffett, she was I think our second grade teacher. She was also one that I have a good memory about. CM: What about student teachers, do you remember any of them? JC: I don’t remember the student teachers. CM: At all? JC: No. CM: You don’t remember them observing you? JC: Well, I do remember them coming in as a class and observing, yes. They’d always sit in the back of the room in chairs and they kept quiet and probably took some notes on the good and the bad. CM: Did you just get used to them being there? JC: Yes. They came in regularly, really, I suppose, as part of their schooling. CM: It didn’t bother you? JC: It didn’t bother me. I was a less talkative person than some, so it didn’t bother me as much as it might have. CM: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? JC: Well, for a while there, I enjoyed art with Miss Plympton. I think we went down to the college classroom where she had us participate every week or every couple days or so. I remember making a boat out of soap. I had it for a while, but I think it got lost in the shuffle. Let’s see, I remember one student teacher, Mr. Tagenfeldt. He had us working on a little house on the outside of Old Main, which was our home up there. On the south side of Old Main was where all the grade school kids had their classes. I think there were two floors of us. This little house was out on the side hill there. I think we used nails and hammers to work out there for a while, but this is in the latter grades, maybe the seventh and eighth, when we could handle a hammer a little better, and a saw. I don’t know what happened to the house. I suppose it’s gone now. It was enjoyable at that time to get outside and do a little something. CM: Did the students build the whole house? JC: I don’t think the students built the whole house. I think we did a little work inside. CM: So maybe he was going to be a shop teacher or something? JC: He might have, yes, that could very well be. CM: What other classes did you enjoy or activities? JC: I always liked P.E., where you get to run around a little bit. CM: That was with your uncle? JC: Yes. 3 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: Sam. CM: Did you study math or English or anything like that? JC: Oh, yes. We had regular schooling of course, learning math and writing and history. I think I liked history a little bit, too. Which is what you have right here, right now, a little bit of history. CM: Do you remember anything about those particular topics? Did you feel like you got a good background in math…? JC: I think I remember, every week we got a Weekly Messenger, I believe it was called. It had the news of the world on it. We read that, probably discussed it. I think that started about the fifth grade. It was an interesting habit to get into, reading something about world events. CM: Do you think that might have influenced your news career? JC: I don’t know, it could have. Of course, my dad was in the Herald, too, so that was an influence also. CM: What other kinds of things did you use in class, like textbooks? Do you remember any specific books? JC: No, I do not. CM: Did you use Dick and Jane? JC: No, I don’t remember the details of those books, sorry. CM: What kind of grading system did they use, or did have grades? Do you remember anything about that? JC: I know we had the letter grades later on. I don’t know if we had it early or how early it was. CM: Did you have regular morning rituals when your teacher came in? Did you say the Pledge of Allegiance or anything like that? Do you remember any of that stuff? JC: No, I’m not sure on that right now. This has been 75 years ago and I just don’t quite remember those little early morning get-togethers. CM: Did you ever attend summer school? JC: No, I don’t remember summer school. CM: What out of classroom activities did you engage in, say at recess? You said you went home at lunch. Do you remember games you played or anything you enjoyed doing? JC: I remember there was a huge sandbox outside of Old Main, down near the tennis courts at that time, which was also south of Old Main. Then there was Waldo Field where the college played their football and baseball. CM: You said you were on the football team? JC: We had a football team. I remember in the eighth grade we had a good football team, played with some of the city schools. We played at Waldo Field a number of times. I have a picture here of our team in the eighth grade, about 12 kids I think, somewhere in there. 4 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: Who coached that, Jack? JC: Who coached it? We had a coach named Scottie Skotheim [Sivert Skotheim]. S-[K]-O-T-H-E-I-M. I don’t know if he was a student teacher or what, but he was our football coach. CM: So did you have practice during the school day or was it after school? JC: This was an after school project. CM: So you had to decide to be on the team and practice. JC: We practiced after school, yes. I had a paper route, too. That was about the eighth grade. But I had to juggle my time. CM: Were there other teams? JC: We had Roeder and Lowell. CM: No, at the Training School, did they have other teams besides football? JC: Oh, I think we had basketball and baseball. I remember playing baseball, first base. I had a mitt for a long time, but then I threw it out. I know; I should have saved a lot of this stuff, because we had annuals, also. I had quite a few of them, but in moving, they went down the drain, recycled, and I regret it all now of course. I should have saved a few of them. CM: What did the girls do, do you remember if they were [on] any sports teams? JC: I don’t think girls had much organized sports at that time. CM: Were there any track teams or anything like that? JC: I don’t remember participating in grade school track. CM: What about recess? Did people go out on recess and play in a certain area? JC: Yes, we had a recess in the gym in the winter, of course. Also, in the spring we would go outside I remember. I don’t know if we had certain games or who led us. I suppose it’s [those] student teachers, who kept us going. CM: What gym, Jack? JC: There was also another big gym for the college, besides the men’s gym, which was in the middle of Old Main. The big gym, where dances and so on [were held] for the college kids, that was in the south end of the gym, where the performing arts stage is right now. CM: In Old Main? JC: In Old Main. CM: The little theatre down there. JC: That was a larger gym, yes. 5 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: Did you go around the college itself, besides Old Main? Did you go to the library or were there other buildings that you went when you were in the Training School? JC: I think, unless we had a class, we didn’t go down into the college area. I think we were on our best behavior and stayed away from that. Miss Mary Rich, who was our grade school principal, had an office there in our area and I don’t think she liked any of us going down into the college part. One other thing, Miss Mead, she was the nurse. I think her dad or somebody was the governor. She was dispensing thyroid pills every week I believe it was, she’d come along in a cart and we’d all have to get a thyroid pill. For some reason they didn’t want us to get thyroid problems. CM: Interesting. How much of Old Main was there? Was it like it is now? JC: Old Main was the same up south north; there was a different set up for rooms of course. We played in the hallway down in the basement a lot, too. There was a hallway where the air vents and all that was located. Anyway, we had a couple little rooms down there that we could use. CM: Down below where the gyms were? JC: Where the big gym [was], there [was] a hallway at the foot of the stairs there. CM: The same level as the big gym? JC: Yes. CM: So your classrooms were above there? JC: Yes, classrooms above. CM: So did you take up just part of those two floors above? JC: Yes, starting with the Kindergarten and ending with eighth, I think we were one room for each grade. There were just about enough students each grade to make one room. CM: Did the teachers have offices by your classroom? JC: They had a desk that I recall, in the room. CM: They didn’t have separate offices? JC: Maybe Bertha did, a little cubby hole office off of our eighth grade room, maybe a few of the others might have had that also, I’m not sure. CM: You went from there to ninth grade. Did you want to say anything else about any of that, Jack? JC: Ninth grade to Fairhaven High School, for four years, after that I came back to Western for a couple years. CM: When did you graduate from Fairhaven High School? JC: 1936. We were the last class at Fairhaven, as it burned down New Year’s Eve, ’35, ’36. CM: So you went to Western in 1936-37. JC: 1936 to 1938. 6 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: So was that a good transition from Campus School to Fairhaven? JC: I might have been scared stiff, I don’t know, going to a tough old south side school. But, from our protected Campus School or Training School, then going into the city public schools, it was a little different set up. I think it worked out OK. CM: Is that because you were going with your friends that you already knew? JC: Well, of course, Training School kids could come from all over town, and they did. All of them didn’t go to Fairhaven, probably less than half went to Fairhaven from the Training School. I think most of them lived on the other side of town. CM: Did they have 25 students, or were there fewer than that, Jack, at Training School? JC: At Training? I would say no more than 25. CM: Would there be less than that? JC: Not many less, no. We had a good round group there. CM: So maybe twelve kids went on to Fairhaven, you think. JC: I could pick them out if I looked through the list. CM: We’ll try to get you a list. JC: OK. CM: Do you remember any real differences, besides the fact it was bigger. You said they were tougher. JC: Well they were all the south siders, they were fisherman family kids. As I look back, I can see that they were a more aggressive group than what we were coming out of Training School. CM: Had to take care of themselves, pretty much? JC: Maybe; I wouldn’t say that we were sheltered, particularly, but it just seemed like a different atmosphere. CM: Had you played that team when you were in football? Did they have any teams in their school that you played? Was there a middle school there that was with the high school, or was that somewhere else? JC: There was no middle school. We went right from eighth grade to ninth in the high school. CM: Was there a Fairhaven middle school at the time? JC: No. That might have started, I’m not sure, after Fairhaven burned. I’ve forgotten when that started. CM: So you really didn’t know any of these kids from before, playing sports or anything. Do you remember anything about the difference in curriculum from the Training School going to public school? JC: We had a set up of classes, of course, in high school. It was quite different from spending your whole day in one grade room, almost, except for maybe art or P.E. But then you go to high school and you change rooms somewhat often. 7 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: Do you think you were well prepared from Training School? Did you have a good background in the subjects you were studying in high school? JC: I suppose they taught us how to study a little bit. We weren’t down in the dungeons studying, I mean, we were capable of studying, especially if your folks got after you. CM: Did you learn to type in Training School, Jack? JC: No, I took typing when I went to Western, with Miss Lovegren. CM: So they didn’t teach you in Training School how to type? JC: No. I took a learning class in college. CM: Did you learn how to do long hand writing, script writing, in Training School or printing? JC: That’s a good question. We had a teacher, Miss Gragg; Miss Gragg, yes. She was a penmanship teacher and we did have a special class in penmanship. I had forgotten that until you asked. Georgia Gragg was her name and her relatives are still around her. Let’s see, that’d be Bob Miller, the realtor. Georgia Gragg was an aunt, I believe, of his. Anyway, she did a continuous job of trying to teach us penmanship. CM: So it helped? JC: It must have helped a little. CM: So after you went to Western a couple years, where did you go after that? JC: I went down to UW for a couple more years. CM: You graduated there? JC: I did not get a degree. I had probably about twenty credits less than a degree. I went down there about two years. CM: Then you came back and started working at the Herald? JC: No, I came back in the summer and worked at Western, putting out the summer school paper. I was the sports editor for the summer school paper; I think it was only one summer. CM: What year was that Jack? JC: That would have been 1940, probably. Those years, right in there, I’m a little hazy on what I was doing. CM: Were you taking photos at Western at that time? JC: No. CM: It was later that you took those. JC: I didn’t take photos until I started work at the Herald. CM: So what were you studying at Western and the U? 8 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JC: I think I was not studying teaching. In ’36-’37, I was just probably taking classes. CM: General requirements? JC: General classes. I remember from Dr. Bond, calculus, I think I liked that class. He was a good teacher. Journalism from Mrs. Ruth Burnet. I always enjoyed doing things at Western. I got a little bit in class politics. CM: Like what? JC: Vice president of the sophomore class, but that was no big deal. CM: Do you think that going to Training School helped give you courage to run for office? JC: It gave me a love for Western, I know that. I’ve always liked anything that had to do with Western or Normal at that time, and now. I’m just starting a scholarship at Western now. But anyway, it’s all plus. CM: You’re starting a scholarship there? JC: Yes. CM: In your name? JC: For Sam. CM: Oh, that’s good. JC: Finally getting a scholarship under Sam’s name. CM: What’s it for Jack? JC: It’s for athletics, especially football, basketball or golf, which Sam taught. So that’s just something that needed to be done. I have a lot of support so far. CM: That’s great, Jack, it really is. So, after 1940 when you worked on the summer school paper, what did you do? JC: I took some classes at the old Sehome grade school on High Street, classes in making things for Boeing and I went down to the Boeing company in 1941 and worked there on planes that were going to England as I recall. This was just prior to the war, of course. Then when the war started, I was living with Roger Mullen out at the University District. Roger was later a principal here in Bellingham for several grade schools, but he and I lived together down there on the UW campus while I worked at Boeing and he was going to the university. CM: Was he from Bellingham? JC: Yes. CM: So then you went into the service after that? JC: I went into the service in January of 1942, in the Army Air Corp. When I got out in October of 1945, I started work at the Herald. That’s when Ben Sefrit told me to take the camera and learn something about it. We did and went from there. 9 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CM: So you took a lot of photos up at Western, I know that. Was that your first assignment, sports photos or something? JC: Not especially, no. CM: You just liked it. JC: I just kept Western in mind, of course, I always liked it. CM: I know in your collection of work that you have from the Herald you have several Campus School photos. JC: Yes. CM: So you would just drop in and take photos? JC: Well, if I heard of something going on, or the teacher or even the principal might have called and said, “We have this going on, if you’d like to come up.” I never said no to something on campus. There’s always a picture possibility up there. CM: Did you think the Campus School had changed since the Training School? JC: Well, they had that new building of course. It was all modern. They had a director, several of them, I guess. It probably was quite a bit different. More upscale than when we were back in the early ’30s, ’20s. A lot has advanced since then. CM: Did you see similarities from when you were there? JC: I didn’t sit in the class very much; I went there with a purpose in mind. So I did not view the general classes as they were going forward. CM: I know you know some of the students who were student teaching in those pictures and in the classroom. Wasn’t one of them George Boynton’s daughter? JC: George Boynton was a Herald reporter and editor, but his daughter, Stacy, was a student up there. CM: A student at Western or the Campus School? JC: Campus School, this was in the Sixties. I don’t know what year, I’ve forgotten now. CM: She’s in one of your photos. JC: She was in a couple of photos. As always, when I knew somebody I’d try to get them to do something. CM: So you can identify a lot of those people in those photos. JC: Some of them, some of them. CM: OK, you mentioned several of your classmates you’re still in touch with. Did you make a list of those, Jack? JC: I can’t tell you four. I have a picture here of the eighth grade Normal Training School math class, taught by Jack Schaefer. He just passed away about a year ago, but there are four people in here that I know of that are still around and living. Ethel Kent, she lives in Bellingham. Gladys Axling lives in 10 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Portland. Jack Whitmore lives in Arizona, then there’s me. I think the rest of them are not around anymore. CM: What about the football picture, is there anyone in there that you know of? JC: Well, that’s about the same group, most all of them are gone except for me. I don’t know of any others that are still around, really. I’ve outlasted most all of them, I believe. CM: Would you be willing to help us call the people that you know so we can get them involved in the reunion and the exhibit? JC: Oh, yes. I know Jean Wellington-McCloud, she’s interested in this. She was wondering how much she could remember also, same as my sister who lives in Enumclaw. She was interested in trying to remember things also. CM: OK, well, we’ll get them some questionnaires and get their addresses and stuff from you. So is there anything else you wanted to share, Jack? JC: I think you have covered most everything that I have a memory on and it’s just a great thing that you’re doing to resurrect these memories from Normal Training School and Campus School. I think Campus School itself started, when? CM: [1899]. JC: Well, I mean, the present word “Campus School.” CM: Oh, I’m not sure when that started. JC: It was when they built the Campus School, I think. CM: That was in, [1943]. JC: Anyway, we’re caught up on this part of it. CM: OK, thank you Jack. 11 Jack Carver Edited Transcript – January 30, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Brian Griffin interview--April 6, 2006
Description: Brian Griffin attended the Campus School from 1938 to 1948.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_GriffinBrian_20060406
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Brian Griffin ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Brian Griffin ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Brian Griffin on April 6, 2006, at this home in Bellingham, Washington. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Thursday April 6th, 2006, and I am here with Mr. Brian Griffin who is an alumnus of Western’s Campus School and also a Bellingham leader involved in many activities. He did sign our Informed Consent Agreement. My first question is how did your parents end up in Bellingham? BG: My parents came to Bellingham in 1929. My father was an employee of Northwestern Mutual Fire Insurance Company in Seattle, now the Unigard Insurance Company (it has evolved to that). He was sent to Bellingham as the district manager, meaning he managed two or three other agents. They sold property and casualty insurance, auto liability and fire insurance; personal and commercial. Interestingly enough, one of the agents that he recruited was Helge Johanson whose son comes into the story quite a few years later. At any rate, my parents lived on Garden Street right where 16 th comes down to Garden. The house is of course still there. That’s where they lived when I was born in 1932. My sister Marilyn had been born in Everett. She was three when I was born. Marilyn is now Marilyn Griffin Gunning, a resident of Bellingham and a graduate of the Campus School. TB: Excellent. Any comments about how your father got into insurance? BG: As I recall, it was during the Depression and he had enrolled at the University of Washington in engineering. I think he concluded that engineering was not in his future and he got a job. While he was in school he was driving motor cars, trolleys, in Seattle. At any rate, I don’t really know how he came to interview for the job. He was a tall, good-looking guy and well-spoken and he fit in the insurance business pretty well; conscientious. He got a job working in Seattle at first. He worked there for several years with Northwestern Mutual and then they sent him to Everett as the district manager there. He was there for three or four years and then he was sent up here. TB: You have been very involved in community activities. Was your father before you and if so, what were some of the issues that he worked on? BG: Yes, he was. I think that’s something that maybe you learn [from] your parents’ footsteps. My father was the president of the Chamber of Commerce the year when the Mobile Refinery came to Ferndale. He was the president 1 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED of the Samish Council of Campfire Girls at one point. He was involved with the Chamber when the Mount Baker Recreation Company, to become a factor in the skiing industry in the Northwest, decided that they needed to have a chairlift. They sold a lot of stock in the community to be able to raise the money to afford that chairlift, the first chairlift. It’s still there. My father and Helge Johanson sold that stock. That was kind of their mission. He was always very proud of that. In those days, buying stock in a chairlift at Mount Baker was really a gift to the community; it wasn’t an investment for anybody. Everybody who bought stock figured this would be good for the community and we’ll just never see that money again. The good side of the story is that I have inherited my father’s stock (he bought a little, too). Every year I get a nice little check from the Mount Baker Recreation Company. That must have been fifty, forty five years ago. TB: What did your mother do? Did she work outside the home, volunteer, [or] what kind of community activities was she involved in? BG: In those days, very few women worked outside the home. She did not but she was in PEO (I never did know what that meant), a women’s organization. She was active with the museum. She was one of the first formers of the docents’ group. They raised money and helped the museum a lot. She was an active person and plenty active at home, I can assure you; a wonderful gal. Let me tell you a little bit about her background. Her father, Arthur Clemens Miller, was the first cigar maker in the Territory of Washington. He passed away about 1956 at 100. He had a pioneer cigar shop. In those days, cigars were all handmade. The tobacco came around on a sailing ship around the Horn. He had a shop with four, five, six men who rolled the tobacco, licking it to keep it moist and get it to stick together. Then they put them in cigar molds and put them in a press overnight. The next morning, the finished cigars were ready to go into the box. He was a capable business man and during the Alaska Gold Rush he did pretty well by selling cigars to the taverns and saloons on First Avenue. My grandmother was a German immigrant. Her maiden name was Bielenburg and she came to Seattle with her father and mother and five sisters and one brother. The brother went to San Francisco and I never met him. The Belinburg girls melded into the large German community in Seattle down around Pioneer Square. In fact, when they first came they lived on the second floor of the Merchant’s Café building, which is still there. It is reputed to be the oldest ongoing restaurant on the West Coast. It’s right on Pioneer Square. They lived upstairs there for I don’t know how long. One by one the daughters married Seattle people. All of the sisters but my grandmother, whose name was Sophia married Germans. My grandmother married Arthur Miller. At any rate, there are lots of old German yarns and it is kind of interesting because one of the sisters married a part-owner of the Merchant’s Café. He was a prize fighter; a man with a notable athletic history. He was kind of a celebrity apparently in early-day Seattle. I do have to tell you this story though; it’s really kind of fun. My grandfather, as you might imagine, had a million great stories. I think one of the best: He had just received a shipment of tobacco from a sailing ship. It was in one of the warehouses in the Port of Seattle on the dock when the Seattle fire started. In order to protect his merchandise, he hired a horse and wagon and two men and bought a tent before the hardware store burned down. They went to the docks, one man driving the wagon, the other man with a shotgun, protecting the goods. They loaded up the tobacco and they took it up into Pioneer Square to Prefontaine Square, which is a little triangular park in front of the old courthouse. It’s just uphill from Pioneer Square. There he set up the tent and one guy stood guard and the other guy 2 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED threw buckets of water on the tent. Seattle burned down around it, but he saved his tobacco leaves! It’s kind of a fun story. TB: That’s a great story! Any other comments about your family’s involvement in the community or any other family legends that you might wish to share? BG: I just assumed as I grew up that if you lived in a community, you worked in it, you gave back to it. I’ve always tried to do that. In our business we tried to develop that expectation among partners and people who came into the business. That was kind of what you did. It has just kind of happened. It’s just what you do. There aren’t any local legends. Most legends are way back in time. TB: You grew up during the Depression. Do you have any particular thoughts or memories of that experience? BG: You know, other than my father and mother reminding us to always turn off the lights and once in a while giving us a little economic lecture, we lived pretty well. I don’t recall any economic impoverishment. My father always had a job. He was self-employed. I guess people still had to buy insurance in those days although perhaps a connection there is that people of that generation didn’t want to borrow money. They weren’t comfortable with mortgages. My parents rented until they could afford to buy a house. The house they bought cost them $6,000, which I suppose was a lot of money. It might be as much as two years’ wages or something like that. That’s an interesting sign of the times. I’ve had many people tell me that was a common experience. You didn’t borrow money unless you really had to and that came out of problems with the Depression and maybe a tradition that began long before. TB: What were some of the significant events that happened during your growing up years? I’m thinking of Pearl Harbor, World War II. What do you remember about those events? Where were you when you first heard about Pearl Harbor and any other thing that you remember about how the community responded to those events? BG: I have strong memories of Pearl Harbor. Immediately after Pearl Harbor the Army, expecting an invasion at Bellingham (if you can imagine) set up machine gun nests all around Edgemoor, all along the waterfront. Of course in Edgemoor there weren’t any houses in those days except way up on the high ridge on what’s now Briar Road I think. There was even a machine gun nest in the hillside uphill from Garden Street just below Morey Avenue. That was a great thrill for us kids because we would ride our bikes two or three blocks up to the machine gun nest and bring comic books to the soldiers who were terribly bored. They weren’t getting any action, I can assure you. That was a big event. My father was a little too old to be drafted. He was in that perfect sandwich age when he was too young for the First World War and too old for the Second World War. Many of my contemporaries’ fathers were air raid wardens. I thought it was pretty neat that he had a tin helmet and a badge or an armband that designated him as an air raid warden. And he was even issued (thrill of thrills!) a gas mask. Part of his job was to go out every evening at dark and walk the neighborhood, whatever his area was, and make sure no lights were showing. Everybody had to put up air raid blinds to keep any light from shining out the 3 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED windows. I remember we put up tar paper on our basement windows. We tacked it all around. That was there for years in the window wells. I guess the only other memory of the early part of the war was that aircraft watching was a big thing. In several areas around Bellingham towers were built so that people could get up (I guess above the light) and sit in the towers with binoculars and watch for those Japanese airplanes. We children had little playing cards that identified all the Japanese and German planes. I can remember looking at the rising sun on the zeros. I guess another memory is that there were scrap campaigns. I would wander the neighborhood with my little red wagon knocking on doors seeing if people had any scrap metal to be turned in to the war effort. The results of my gathering were all thrown into the garage in the alley behind. My folks had a double garage and one car, so I had one garage pretty well filled with scrap at one point. Kind of crazy! I remember the big steam whistle, ‘Big Oly,’ on the mill down on the waterfront blowing at the end of the war. It blew and blew and blew and we knew the war was over. TB: That’s pretty cool. Growing up in Bellingham, what were some of the special or fun things to do as a family? What were some of the special or fun things the neighborhood children did (games that you played, places that you visited)? BG: I think in junior high school and high school we went to the movies a lot when we were old enough to get out by ourselves. In 1941 my folks went to San Juan Island and for not very much money (with another family) bought twelve acres over there. It was just brush but there was a lot of beach, a lot of waterfront. My folks spent the rest of their life going there on weekends and I spent most of my childhood going to San Juan Island on Friday night on the ferry and doing what you do over there – fish for salmon and hack back the brush. That was a wonderful family event. Like all kids of that era, we obviously didn’t have television to watch. Well maybe that isn’t so obvious to a lot of people that might be hearing this. I didn’t watch television until I was a college student. We did other things. In the evenings, all of the children in the neighborhood would gather out on the street and we would play kick-the-can and run-and-chase kind of games. We used to make rubber-guns. You would take a piece of wood and make a gun-like object and then take rubber inner tubes from tires and stretch them back over the barrel of this gun and hold the end with a clothespin that was taped down and maybe also wrapped with rubber to make it resistant to opening. They were lots of fun because you would shoot at people. Kids’ games. We had a lot of fun. It was great growing up. I see the parents [today] leaving their kids at grade schools and picking them up again and being so cautious of all the perils that await little kids these days it seems. I don’t know if it’s as real as it is imagined, but we were expected home for lunch and then home for dinner and I don’t think my mother knew where we were the rest of the time! Once in a while she would say, “Never take candy from a stranger, Brian.” And that’s the only sex-predator education I ever got! I didn’t even know why I wasn’t supposed to take candy from a stranger! Those were innocent days I guess. TB: Anything else about growing up in Bellingham that was special or something that was not pleasant? Did you feel any limitations in growing up here? 4 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BG: Bellingham was a smelly old mill town, but it was a town filled with good people and it always had community spirit. You couldn’t get to the waterfront; it was all industrial. It simply wasn’t a part. There was no public access to the waterfront when I was a kid. The mill smelled terribly. It got better over the years but even the last year I was here it smelled pretty bad at times. It used to be quite a bit worse. That’s what we grew up with. We used to complain, but nobody ever thought it shouldn’t be I guess. There were always the islands and the mountains. I skied as a kid in high school and took the school bus as they do now. They took to the mountain on the bus. It was a good place to grow up. TB: Excellent. Now we are going to talk about your Campus School experience. How did you happen to attend the Campus School? BG: I have no idea. My folks just sent me there. I would guess that they thought I was going to get a superior education there. It may have been partly a social thing because most of the kids that went to the Campus School in that era were the children of business people and doctors and lawyers and a few college professors. There weren’t very many college professors. I don’t think I had a college professor’s child in any of my classes but there were in other classes, other years. At any rate, it was also fairly close to where we lived. It was walkable. My parents lived on Garden Street and then up on 17th and finally they bought a house on 15th and Garden, which I suppose is about a mile and a half from the campus. I always walked to school. TB: Did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School? BG: My sister Marilyn who was three years ahead of me. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance? BG: I started there in Kindergarten with Synva Nicol. I finished the ninth grade there. I must have started in 1937 or 1938. TB: 1938 is what you said before. BG: I must have taken the time to figure that out! TB: You did start when the primary grades were in what we call Old Main now. Do you have any special memories of that place? BG: You know, I have hardly any memory of that. I have a strong memory of moving into the new building and I have a strong memory of going to the seventh, eighth and ninth grades in Old Main. Moving into the new building was a great thrill and it’s funny what sticks in your mind about those things. I remember being really fascinated by the rubber padding on the… they weren’t stairs… TB: They were ramps. 5 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BG: Yes! That was a very modern, new thing then. Ramps! Oh, look at this. No steps! Then they had those don’thurt-yourself rubber pads. Somehow that struck me as a very cool thing. I also have a great memory of the spine of the sandstone ridge. When they built the science building, they had to blast down a big sandstone ridge that probably went right to the library. I can remember with fascination how we would watch them. They would drill the holes in the ridge and then they would cover where the dynamite was with big mounds of fir branches to deaden the explosion. When they set them off, of course all the kids thought that was wonderful. The branches would jump in the air. That was pretty dramatic. I also have a fun memory much later of being in Old Main. I must have been in the eighth or ninth grade; we had caught a baby crow on San Juan Island. My sister and I raised that crow and she became wonderfully tame. We called her Beulah, which isn’t socially or politically correct I suppose, but in those days it was alright. Beulah would sit on your wrist and walk up your arm and sit on your shoulder. Every morning at home she would peck on the window until I would get up at the crack of dawn and open the window and go back to bed and Beulah would fly in and sit on the end of my bed. Crows are fascinating pets. When we went back to school, we had to leave Beulah. She wasn’t getting the attention she was used to so she began to stray. One day when I was in junior high school we were playing football on what was then a field. It was just beside the old gym with a swimming pool in it. We were playing touch football down there and I heard Beulah. Crows have distinctive voices and I recognized that was Beulah. She was way up in the trees at the top of the hill. I said to my companions, “There’s Beulah! I hear my crow!” They said, “Oh, sure.” I hollered, “Beulah! Beulah!” This crow launched itself from the top of the tree and came down. I put my wrist up. I was in the middle of a football huddle and Beulah landed on my wrist. She had found me. That was of course a big hit and a big thrill for me! When we went back to class there came a tap tap tap on the window. Believe it or not, Beulah saw that I had gone into that building and she was flying around tapping on the windows to find me. We opened the window and Beulah came in the classroom. That was a fun story. I wonder if any of my classmates remember that story. TB: They do! I was going to ask you about that because that was told back to us. End of tape one, side one TB: Anything else about when the new school was being built? Some people have talked about the landscaping or going out and picking up rocks or something to help. BG: I don’t remember that. I do remember that what is now Red Square was rocks and mud. My memory is telling me that there was a wooden duck walk sidewalk in the early years across that mud. There must have been a road out there somewhere. We had to walk across a wooden walk and then eventually it was grass and then eventually we used to play baseball out there in what is now Red Square. TB: Any thoughts about going back to Old Main for your junior high years? BG: No, nothing jumps at me. 6 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School? How did you get to and from school? Please share any favorite memories of this experience. BG: I initially lived on 17th Street just across from the Welsh twins, one of which you will [probably interview]. TB: I interviewed her. BG: Alright. We used to walk the trail that is now Highland Drive. That was a wooded trail that, as Highland Drive does, goes right into the campus. Then when my parents moved to 15th and Garden, I used to walk up Garden Street. I have a couple memories of each of those walks. From 17 th Street, I’m sure I was walking with someone else. I don’t remember who it might have been. We came across a mountain beaver in the trail. I haven’t seen one in years and years. I don’t know what their scientific name is. I think they might be getting a little hard to find. They are a little rodent that digs in the ground and nests in the ground. That was kind of an exciting thing. We captured a mountain beaver and I think took it to school. Then I have kind of an amusing memory of walking Garden Street. Once you got down to Garden Street from the campus, Garden Street gently slopes all the way to my home at 15 th and Garden. In those days everybody smoked; the men smoked anyway. Many of them lit their pipes and cigarettes with stick matches. You could always find a stick match in the gutter. Since most of the school year was rainy weather, the water would run nicely down the gutters. I would find a stick match, put it in the gutter, and watch it all the way down and help it around the obstacles. Sometimes it would take me hours to get home, so my mother had people stationed along the way! She would call one of her friends midway and say, “Has Brian passed by yet?” And there I was, floating those stick matches. Kids! It was fun. TB: That’s wonderful. Do you remember your lunch? What did you do for lunch? BG: It seems to me we had lunch in the lunchroom in Miller Hall. I think there was a lunchroom there. I don’t have a very strong memory of that. Was there a lunchroom there? TB: I think so. I think the older kids may have gone to a lunchroom and the younger kids ate in their room. I’ve heard that and then I also heard that maybe one day a week you went to a lunch room. We have pictures of them in a classroom obviously with lunch being brought in to them; there’s a soup bowl or something. I haven’t completely caught it. BG: I’m sorry; I just don’t remember that very well. But I surely remember the naps that we had to take in the early classes. Each classroom had little boxes that contained your rug. Everybody had to bring a little scatter rug to sleep on. I think that might have been not the practice in the public schools because I kind of recall being kidded about that or thinking that I didn’t think that was very smooth because my acquaintances in public schools didn’t do that. TB: Did you have desks all the way through or did that come later? BG: I don’t remember desks. We had desks in junior high school in Old Main. I think we just sat around big tables in grade school in the Campus School. 7 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Do you remember any favorite classmates (particularly any special stories or relationships about them)? BG: I think we were all quite close and all quite friendly, so I remember a lot of favorite classmates. Of course, the way that goes, for a couple of years you would be a great buddy with somebody and then you might have a fallingout. Relationships would change. Did you mention that you talked to Donald Turcotte? TB: He responded to the electronic version, yes. BG: Did he tell you what his real name is? He was famous because he had lots of names. His name is (and I don’t know why I’ve always remembered this but I bet everyone has) Donald Lawson Phillip Alec Turcotte. That was pretty impressive. Nobody else had more that three names! TB: He just put ‘Donald L. Turcotte’ on his response. BG: Donald Lawson Phillip Alec. I haven’t known anyone since who has had that many names! TB: That’s great. Who were or most influential teachers and then can you flush that out a little bit more, like why they were your favorite teacher? BG: Teachers are such an important part of a child’s life. Actually, some of those teachers had a second go at the Griffin family because both of our daughters went to the Campus School much, much later. Synva Nicol taught all of us! That’s got to be some sort of a record! I remember Miss Nicol; in later years I heard that she had a reputation for being a disciplinarian and a task master but I remember her with great warmth, being supportive emotionally and a very pleasant person. I think everyone’s favorite teacher might have been Priscilla Kinsman. She just had a wonderful personality and she was a handsome, impressive woman in every respect. She also was very friendly and outgoing. Irene Elliot; and Katharine Casanova, a wonderful lady. TB: So Irene Elliot wasn’t a little bit stern? BG: I don’t remember that. I just remember them all as being very nice people that I enjoyed and liked. There was a teacher in the seventh or eighth grade whose name I don’t recall. TB: Leslie Hunt, I bet. BG: Yes! She was kind of tough. But maybe if you are teaching kids in the seventh or eighth grade you have to be tough! She was alright too. Eventually I thought she was fine. TB: Good. BG: Leslie Hunt, I didn’t remember. TB: I think that is right, isn’t it? I’ve heard that. 8 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BG: You must have heard stories about Miss Gragg. TB: Yes! And actually tell me about that. I forgot to put that note down. I wanted to ask you about learning to type and handwriting. BG: I don’t remember that she was teaching us to type. She was the handwriting teacher. TB: Right. BG: Oh my, she had a tough job. She was quite a bit older I think. Kids weren’t very excited about learning handwriting, I don’t think. I think she had discipline problems with us and she didn’t quite know how to deal with it. I can remember those repetitive circular motions that she had us do; we all hated it I think. TB: Did you learn cursive writing or just to print? BG: The agonies were with cursive writing. I just couldn’t do it. I, to this day, print in a kind of illegible long scrawl. I just never could coordinate despite that I have pretty good hand coordination in lots of things. I just can’t get my brain to do cursive writing continually. I somehow, somewhere along the way started printing. TB: Did you learn typing when you were there? BG: I learned typing. It was in Old Main and it must have been in junior high school. That was really valuable. I wasn’t a very good typist, but I got my brain programmed to the finger board and I was able to type and when I went into the Army I was in the counterintelligence corps and I had to write reports all the time. My typing got pretty good then. Now I type rather well, so thanks to the Campus School. I’m not sure that they were that great in all areas, however. If you interview Ann Hanson, I predict she will talk about her math problems. Ann ended up being a German teacher, you know. She and I had a similar issue I think. I did not naturally come to math, apparently, not having one of those minds. I didn’t learn math very well at all and I bluffed my way through Campus School avoiding math. I essentially bluffed my way through high school avoiding math and I was an English major in college and I avoided math. I graduated from college and believe it or not, I didn’t know the multiplication tables. I’ve since learned them. I have a theory about the Campus School, and that is that they encouraged creativity and they encouraged people to do what they were good at and get quite good at it, but they didn’t discipline you to do what you didn’t want to do. I think that was maybe a failing. Maybe that was modern experimental education in the day. On the other hand, (well, how do you know what to credit what you are to?) I somewhere developed a major chunk of creativity. It’s been a wonderful part of my life and it remains that way. I think that the Campus School fostered creativity. If you had any in the beginning, they built it for you and increased it. I can remember some of the rewards for creative thinking in writing and that sort of thing. I remember Leslie Hunt, about that year, when I dreamt up 9 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED some crazy imaginative story and whoever it was heaped praise on me and made me feel like that was really wonderful and encouraged that kind of activity. Maybe to support what I just said, Donald Turcotte, who was always brighter than most of us, had a significant career in science. I’m sure that he was always great in math. Peter Onkels, who was a brilliant kid and unfortunately died in the Navy landing a jet plane on a carrier, was a gifted mathematician. There were lots of kids who were excellent in math. I was not one of them. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities and what were your least favorite subjects or classroom activities? BG: Math was surely my least favorite. I always enjoyed reading and speaking and that sort of thing. Those kinds of things were of particular interest. And here we are sitting in my woodworking shop. I remember with clarity (it must have been in junior high, I don’t remember what years) we had quite a few introductions to Kasper Aagaard and the college workshop. Kasper Aagaard, has that name come up? TB: Just I think from you, you mentioned him. BG: Kasper Aagaard must have been the college woodworking teacher. They had a wonderful shop just to the north of Miller Hall. I remember being fascinated by everything I saw in there. He was kind of a rough old Scandinavian carpenter I’m sure, but a nice guy. He taught us rudimentary things. We learned to saw things and make sawdust and glue things. That no doubt had an influence because I didn’t have any of the influence at home. I’ve been a woodworker all my life. TB: Did the girls do that same woodworking or did they go to home economics and learn cooking and sewing or something? BG: I don’t remember. TB: When you talk about the creativity, did they in any way try to shape what the end project was supposed to be or did they just kind of turn you loose and let you work on whatever you imagined? BG: I think the latter. Like all children and all grade schools, you fuss around with clay and bring home squished-up ducks and pots that you paint and your mother keeps until you are old and gray! I just don’t recall. One other memory I have is I was in a school play and that made a big impression on me; I really enjoyed that, I’m not sure why. They had lots of creative things going on. TB: Any other comments about the learning materials that you might have used? Did you use regular school textbooks, materials created by your teachers? BG: I have no idea. 10 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: What kind of grading system was in use during your attendance (letter grades or narrative reports)? BG: They were written reports. I don’t think there were letter grades. Were there ever? TB: I think early in the beginning they had letter grades and it sounds like it evolved to narrative reports. BG: My mother kept a few of those. Most of them weren’t very good. They were always written comments. I just don’t think there was a letter involved. TB: It fits with your era. I don’t know that anybody else has said that. Do you remember any creative activities such as weaving and making things? We’ve already sort of talked about that. BG: I remember weaving now that you mention it. I don’t remember much about it but there were looms and we did weave. I think maybe we tried to make baskets. That was a long time ago! TB: What was it like for you to be observed so often by student teachers? Did you take advantage of them or play tricks? BG: I’m sure we must have, but it seemed so natural to us. We always enjoyed our student teachers and we always were interested in who we were going to get. How often do you get them, quarterly? We were always worried about getting a good one or a bad one! I think we ended up loving most of them. No doubt we initiated some tricks, but I have a memory generally of affection for student teachers. Maybe they were a little more lenient than the classroom teacher. TB: Do you have any recollection of what was a good student teacher versus what was a bad one? Is it just good humor? BG: Probably whether they were pleasant and friendly and let you get away with things once in a while. I do have a very strong memory of a student teacher who may have saved my life. After the War, there was a student teacher who was teaching swimming to the entire school. He must have been a PE major. He was powerfully built; he seemed like an old man to me but he wasn’t thirty, probably twenty five. I don’t remember his name, but he had great broad shoulders. He’d been a Navy Frog Man. Of course, the boys all thought he was very impressive for that reason. He’d tell us Frog Man stories. He taught us the elementary backstroke. He insisted that we learn the elementary backstroke well and told us, ‘One day this may save your life. This is the stroke that we used when they dumped us off of PT boats two miles off of a Japanese-held island and we swam to the shore and did our work and swam back to be picked up.’ It’s the only stroke that you can sustain for a long period and it’s a strong stroke. I learned it very well and one day in fact when I was in the Army we were going to Korea where I was in the counterintelligence corps and we had a half a day layover in Hawaii. A bunch of us rented a car and went to Waikiki Beach and bought swimming suits and went swimming. I got caught in a sideways current sweeping down the beach and out. I was swimming the crawl stroke and I got tired and thought I would put my feet down. I thought I was close enough maybe to touch because I had been a little while previously. I couldn’t touch any longer and I remember a moment of panic and I remembered that student teacher teaching me that stroke. I rolled over on my 11 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED back and with that powerful stroke, I swam to shore. I’ve always credited him. Maybe I wouldn’t have drowned, but I was in trouble. TB: What year do you think you learned to swim or learned that? BG: I think that must have been in the seventh or eighth grade. I don’t know when we started going to the pool, but we were very young. I remember the little child experiences of being naked in front of peers for the first time and being embarrassed about that. Isn’t that funny how that comes back? TB: Do you remember anything about the swimsuits? I’ve actually heard people talk about them. BG: Oh yes! They were all college-issue and they were black cotton. TB: When you were a really little boy, didn’t you have to wear a girl suit? Some people have said that. BG: Yes! I think you are right! I had forgotten about that until just this moment. Thank you, that’s a fun memory. We were very embarrassed about that! We didn’t think that was very good. TB: I can’t imagine that either! What out-of-classroom activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime? What did you do enjoy the most? What games did you play? BG: In the new Campus School we used to go to the gym and there was some sort of a game where you threw balls at each other. TB: Bombardment? BG: Bombardment! There you go. But I don’t have much of a memory of that. TB: Did you visit the college itself, the college library, attend assemblies or sporting events or anything else at the college when you were at the Campus School? BG: We went to the library. We were taught the Dewey Decimal System at I don’t know what age, but I was always impressed with the library. That’s still a beautiful building; it has a certain majesty. We did go to Old Main for something. TB: Assemblies I think would have been there. They had the auditorium. BG: That could be. I don’t remember much about that. TB: At what grade level did you enter the public school and what was the transition like for you? BG: The anticipation of the transition was terrible. I remember being very nervous, very frightened of that experience, going to high school. I graduated from the ninth grade and off we went to the high school. And of course 12 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Campus School kids were considered to be “sissies”. There was a social stigma attached. I’ve lived in the South Hill all my life and when I was a kid, everybody below 14th Street was a Yugoslavian fisherman’s kid. They were kind of tough. Most of us were pretty nervous about going below 14 th Street for fear that people like Pete Elich would beat us up! You know Pete? TB: Yes. BG: Consequently he has become a great friend. At any rate, we used to take a bit of ribbing when we would interact with kids from public schools. I can’t speak for others, but I think it’s fair to say we were all pretty nervous about going to Bellingham High School, but it turned out fine. Most of us did very well. Most of us were leaders in the school and most of us were excellent students. I don’t know whether the Campus School can take the credit or whether their families can take the credit. One of the girls in the class I believe was editor of the paper. I was the student body president my senior year. Campus School didn’t hurt us any at all in that respect. TB: Did you have any sense that you immediately just naturally gravitated to those positions of leadership? BG: I think anybody in high school that finds themselves in positions of leadership probably does naturally gravitate to it. I never had any intention of it. Well, my sister was the vice president of the student body in her year, three years earlier. I don’t know how those things happened. End of tape one, side two It’s an interesting comment that [Campus School kids] stuck together. I think it’s fair to say that we were all good friends and most of us had been together since Kindergarten. Maybe there was some sort of a mutual support team going there. You also need to remember that with the exception of about two representatives of lower economic units, every kid in the Campus School came from a background of (generally speaking) solid families, middle class or above economic background, and in many cases college-educated parents. Most of us had advantages that the average kid didn’t have. It has often interested me that some of those kids that I got to know in high school who didn’t have advantages prior to coming went off into the world and did great things. They matured and they developed later. It wasn’t that the raw material was any different; they just didn’t have the same boost that we did. TB: How did your attendance at the Campus School influence your life and/or career? BG: I think it’s impossible to equate. I don’t know. I have never known whether I got a good education or a poor one up there. I really don’t. How do you judge? I guess maybe by what you brought to the Campus School. The things that have always been of assistance to me in my life have been some degree of sociability and communicative skills. Did I come to the Campus School with those or did they put them in? Who knows? I don’t know how to answer your question. TB: That’s fine. We talked a little bit about this off the tape, but I know you worked with Larry Johanson who is also a Campus School alumni. Your father worked with Jack Payne’s father and Jack also attended the Campus School. Were there a lot of those kinds of close relationships or is it because they were obviously the business leaders anyway? 13 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BG: No, the Campus School connection had no business relationships as a result of it. TB: No little fraternity development. BG: No, just coincidence. You know, how many children were there in a class at the Campus School? Twenty or thirty? TB: Probably about twenty five or something. BG: Bellingham had a population of 30,000 forever. I don’t know how many business people and professional people there were of a community of 30,000, but a reasonably good percentage of the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers and business people went to the Campus School. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was 25%. It’s natural that some of those connections come back together in later years but they didn’t have anything to do with Campus School loyalty to my knowledge. TB: Do you at all remember (this is something else that one of your classmates mentioned) starting the college’s bonfire? It must have been for Homecoming. Your class managed to sneak-start it the day before the college would have started it? BG: I plead innocence! TB: Ok! That’s the only other story. BG: Now I have to ask, who told you that? TB: I’ll have to look in the notes. I got it from someone but I don’t remember offhand. This is now getting into the next section: Your college career and your retirement experiences or post-career work. You attended Whitman College, why did you choose to attend there? BG: My sister was sent to Whitman College and why she was sent there I don’t know, but somewhere along the line my parents must have assumed that was a good place to go. It seemed okay to me. It wasn’t a great selection process. TB: What were your years of attendance there? Did you go there right after high school? BG: Yes; I was there from 1950 to 1954. TB: What was your first job after leaving Whitman? Do you have any distinctive memories of that experience? Please share any information about your subsequent careers. BG: Well I was drafted. The Korean War was on while I was in college. My college exemption kept me out of it. I volunteered for the draft just to get it over with and was sent off to Fort Ord. I chose to not go to [OCS]. I had an 14 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED opportunity to do that but that meant an extra year and I was engaged so I didn’t do that. I just threw myself on the mercies of the Army system and I got very fortunate. I was selected to go to [Army] Counter-Intelligence Corps training and sent to Baltimore, Maryland to the intelligence school. Then I was sent to Korea. I got to Korea about ten days after they quit shooting. The timing could not have been better. I was assigned to the Inchon Field Office and I had a marvelous experience. There were two officers and a regular Army sergeant and nine or ten college boys who had followed the same path that I had. I inherited five informants, so I had Korean informants to work with and my own interpreter and my own Jeep. And we lived not in military housing. First we lived in an old Methodist missionary’s house for the first part of my stay there and then we moved into the harbor area and moved into the lovely villa overlooking Inchon Harbor, formerly occupied by the Japanese governor of Inchon. Our rank was classified, although I was an E-2, meaning just about at the very bottom. We wore little brass USs, so everyone thought we were officers. We could go to the officers’ club. The only problem was we couldn’t afford to buy a beer because we weren’t getting paid enough! At any rate, I spent eighteen months in Korea and it was an excellent experience. Then I came back and Marya and I were engaged. I got married and all of a sudden I had to earn a living. My father’s business had gotten to the point where he needed some help, so I went into the insurance business with him. Thirty five years later, at age fifty eight, I [decided I had] done that and retired. TB: But you have only partially retired. You have been involved in community activities. I believe you were involved in Boulevard Park and then most recently the Centennial Stone, the public market and others. What can you tell me about these projects? What motivated you to get involved? What were your favorites and did they turn out as you hoped? BG: I’ve really been involved from the beginning in community activities. I guess I told you that I was the student body president of the high school class, and that does something to you. I was involved with the Campfire Girls as my father had been before me; I was the president of the Samish Council for two years. I was on the board at the ‘Y’ [YMCA] and all of those kinds of things. I was on a Chamber of Commerce committee. Thirty years ago I was on the Civic Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Commerce. Bellingham’s downtown was facing a parking problem. There had been rumblings about needing to do something about parking. I was asked by Nick Lidstone, who was a retired admiral and who was the Executive Director of the Chamber, to take on the chairmanship of the Civic Affairs Committee. I had been unimpressed with the activities of the Civic Affairs Committee, so I told him I was not interested because the committee never did anything. It was just spinning its wheels. He said, ‘Alright, kid. What needs to be done?’ I said, ‘Well, we need to build a parking garage in this town. I’ll take the chairmanship if you’ll agree that we don’t do any of the rest of that nonsense that it has done for years but we’ll only work on the parking garage.’ He said, ‘Alright.’ So I literally, with the help of two other businessmen downtown, am responsible for the parkade. It was an amazing experience because we had a mayor, Reg Williams, who was against it. We had the assistance of Bill McDonald and Jack Mallahan who were on the City Council and Ron Jepson who was the city’s Assistant 15 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Public Works Director. He was a big help. I enlisted the help of Al Levin and Joe Hilton of Hilton’s Shoe Store. The five or six of us convinced the city to pass a bond issue and knock down the buildings that the parkade is built on. That was dramatic! We established the local improvement district. We were able to convince a majority of the property owners in the area to sign a long term debt to help finance that. I think I raised $100,000 dollars in cash which, thirty years ago, was a ton of money. We built the parkade. It was an amazing experience. That was my first adventure in public projects. I learned to work with the city. I learned the power of that position. With the city’s legal and financial assets, if you can convince them to do something in the public good, that’s a huge opportunity, a huge lever, to make things happen. At any rate, later on because of that, because of my successful stewardship of that thing, one day I got a phone call from a woman who was a member of the YWCA Eco-Action group. It was a small committee of women; Anne Rose was one of them. She was a City Council person later. At any rate, they had heard that some local business people were planning on building condominiums along the boulevard, along the road in that narrow strip between the railroad and the boulevard itself, which would block the view. They wanted to stop that. They asked me to meet with them to give them some advice on how you work with the city. They thought maybe I had some secrets. I met with them and I shared their concern; they sounded the alarm for me as well. Coincidentally, about that time, the Rotary Club of Bellingham had always had fireside meetings where they would split up the membership and go to the homes of members, fifteen or twenty at a home, and discuss issues. The topic of the fireside that ensured shortly after meeting with those women was what kind of projects the Rotary Club should take on for the future. I proposed in my home to the fifteen or twenty men that were there that the Rotary Club should take on the Boulevard Park issue. Discussion generated the fact that we knew who those business people were, who had options on that land, and who planned to build those few blocking buildings. Some of them were Rotarians. Everyone agreed this was something we ought to do. The report went back to the main club. The entire club took on that as a project. We should save the view and the boulevard. We were in a unique position to do something. Jim Fickel, who was a dentist in town and is now deceased, was the appointed chairman. The Rotary group began to work on that. The idea was to buy an option from those people and present it to the city and then motivate the city to buy the land and preserve it. Then one day when this was all cooking away in my brain I drove down there and I stopped along the road and looked down over the side and watched the log trucks dumping logs down on what we now call Boulevard Park. It just hit me like a ton of bricks; ‘My god! We’ve got to get that too!’ There’s our opportunity to get (finally!) waterfront access! I wrote a formal letter to the Chairman of the Rotary Club committee and to the president I guess, pointing out the opportunity and the need to do this. They all said, ‘Hey, that’s great. Let’s do it.’ So the Rotary Club essentially pieced together the land and got options on it all. With its influence, they didn’t spend much money, but they knew who to talk to and they had friends. In fact, one of the pieces was owned by Foss Tug & Barge (one of the pieces of the waterfront down below). Roy Jorgenson had been a former Rotarian when he was heading the cement plant and now he was the President of Crowley Maritime, which had just bought Foss Tug & Barge. They didn’t need it, they didn’t want it and they gave it to the city. Those kinds of connections made it all happen. But it took years to put it all together (seven years actually). That’s a long story but I feel very good about at least not doing the work but having some of the vision to see how Boulevard Park happened. I feel a little parental about it. 16 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Then when Trillium wanted to build what is now Bellis Fair, I got upset about what was going to happen to the downtown. In league with Ken Hertz, the mayor, we put together a significant effort to build a mall in the downtown. We had land options; we had a developer ready to go. The city bought the railroad property on Railroad Avenue from the Burlington Northern who had abandoned it about that time. I spent two years working on that and as part of that project we put together a local improvement district. The city hired a landscape architect and we put together a local improvement district of property owners to pay for the bollards, street trees, and all new sidewalks; kind of as part of the effort to bring the downtown up to the point where it wouldn’t be destroyed. There was a great political scrap over building a parking garage. The developer that we had lined up wouldn’t build a mall (it was going to go from the old Penney’s building on Cornwall all the way back up to State and two blocks that way, over Railroad Avenue – it was a big public private partnership kind of thing, very ambitious). But he wouldn’t do it unless the city would build a parking garage – a big one. There was a big political scrap led by the typical Bellingham conservative element. It was taken to a vote of the people as an initiative and by a very narrow margin, the people voted no. The initiative was ‘the city of Bellingham should not be allowed to build parking garages’ – and it passed by a tiny little margin. The moment that passed, I quit. The developer went home. It was over. They had Trillium build and put together the Bellis Fair and the downtown business district took a real hit. It went downhill. Business went to the mall. That was not a successful effort. Can you imagine what Bellingham would look like without street trees? You can’t even think of it without trees anymore! The next time when the trees are in leaf, go down and give that some thought. More recently I was on the committee of the Rotary Club that was interested in community projects. I had heard that the city had some money to do something for the farmers’ market and to improve Railroad Avenue on that block. I was kind of delegated by that committee to find out what they were up to and if there was a part for the Rotary Club in it. I went to visit the mayor and to my amazement he told me that in fact they had a plan and it would soon be presented. They had a Seattle architect putting it together and they had a million and half dollars of state and city money committed to it! I thought, ‘My god, that’s amazing. That’s a huge story!’ He was delighted that the Rotary Club would be interested and welcomed our assistance. Just the next week was the great day when the architect came up from Seattle to present the plan to the stakeholders (the stakeholders being the property owners and business people along the street and the Farmers’ Market Association). We kind of invited ourselves to the meeting (‘we’ meaning Rick Wright, the chairman of the Rotary Committee, and myself). Rick and I and everyone else were horrified at the plan. It was awful; it didn’t do the job for anybody and the farmers’ market people were distraught. I thought it was just going to be a street beautification project that wouldn’t help anybody and we would just be throwing a million and a half dollars down the drain and I told the mayor that. At any rate, Rick and I walked away from that meeting [and thought] that no one would touch this with a ten foot pole. Then the wheels began to turn. That awful creativity wheel began to move, as with my friend Wright. We called one another the next day and said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about that and here’s a possibility.’ He told me a fact that I didn’t know. That site that the farmers’ market had been on for thirteen years was the site of the old railroad 17 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED depot in Bellingham, the first railroad depot; a very historic site. It was a wonderful old Victorian building built in 1892. That kind of excited us. I remembered visiting a couple years previously the cathedral in Chartres and after we had toured the cathedral, we wandered a block or so away to the market square and it was filled with cars. It was used as a parking lot. There was a market building in the center of it and it was filled with cars too! Cars were everywhere. This was on a Friday. We stayed in Chartres that night and the next morning was Saturday and we went back to that square and there wasn’t a car to be seen and here was this marvelous French market. That really struck me as a great use of that public land. All of a sudden I thought, ‘Wait a minute, we should do that here in Bellingham! That’s the perfect plan.’ So I sketched up some pictures and Rick and I made an appointment with the mayor for two days later and we sat down with the city and pointed out what they could do. The mayor says, ‘That’s terrific. That’s just what we want to do. Let’s do it.’ We committed to hire the architect and raise a bunch of money and off we go. Now it’s being done. In another six weeks it will be done! Anyway, I always had a terrible enthusiasm problem! TB: That’s great. Is there anything else you want to talk about in terms of your community activities? BG: No, that’s about it. TB: Okay; how and when did you get involved bee pollination? BG: Well, I’ve always been fascinated with natural history. It probably started as a kid poking around in the tide pools. About twenty years ago now, I planted that Belgian fence out along the 16 th Street sidewalk – forty fruit trees, apples and pears, planted two and a half feet apart and trained in the espalier method. I wasn’t getting very good pollination in those early years and then a friend sent me a WSU bulletin titled The Orchard Mason Bee. I read it and I was fascinated. It was just about this time of year in the spring. It said to drill some holes in a block of wood and hang it out in your garden and maybe the bees will come. So I came out here to the shop and did that one morning and hung it out on the dog kennel wall and the garden house wall. That very afternoon I had two little black bees nesting in those holes. I was blown away! I was just fascinated. Over the next few years I built up a large population and I made a contact with an entomologist with the USDA who had studied this bee for years. Scientists knew about the bee but nobody had ever popularized it. Finally I had more bees than I knew what to do with. They really worked wonderfully. One day I thought I would make some Christmas presents so I made a little wooden block with a dozen holes in it and to the bottom of it I nailed a little slice with three holes filled with hibernating bees. I put a little hang tag on it and gave them away for Christmas. People were fascinated; it’s a pretty different thing. The next spring, they all worked. The bees came out of the three holes and filled up the dozen empties and people just loved it. I thought boy, what am I going to do with all these bees? They multiply like rabbits! I got a bright idea that I would take that cutesy little house that I had given away and I sublet about four square feet from a friend who had a booth at the Seattle Garden Show. I went down for five days, stood there and talked to people constantly, showing my wares. I met only one person who had ever heard of a mason bee. I sold all of them. I came back with $3000 in my pocket. I sold them for $15. 18 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED End of tape 2, side 1 I had a hoarse voice; I was exhausted, but exhilarated! I realized that I had found an economic opportunity in a strange little niche. Driving home I thought to myself, ‘Griffin, you just stood there for five days giving away your information! You told everything you knew about these bees to hundreds and hundreds of people.’ Ah! I was an old lit major at Whitman. Here was my chance to write a book! That spring I wrote a little book and I self-published it and I’ve since sold 30,000 of them, which I understand is a pretty good number for a self-published, self-sold book. I developed over time a wonderful little business selling bees and bee nesting holes and I wrote a book about bumble bees later. There are books and video tapes and all kinds of stuff. Essentially I popularized this wonderful little native bee that is native to almost every state in the union. We have thirty four products. It was a pretty good little business. I did it for fourteen years. Then eventually all the fun and the creativity was gone. It began to seem like work. My youngest daughter Lisa had been helping me. I had made her a partner. A year and a half ago I gave her the rest of the business. Now I’m retired again! It was lots of fun over the years, you know? It was such a strange little niche. I got my picture in Smithsonian magazine and Better Homes and Gardens and Sunset a couple of times. The last one, Lisa and I were featured in a full page of People Magazine! It was really a kick. I have to be very happy about the role I played in educating people about pollination and bees. I think it has been important and probably the most important thing that I will achieve. It feels very good. I didn’t mention, I guess maybe, I’m as proud of anything as of Fairhaven Village Green. We skipped over that. One day Chuck Robinson and another merchant down there called me and said, “We really need public restrooms in Fairhaven and we need somebody to run a campaign to build a public restroom down here in this city-owned lot behind us.” They wanted to build a bandstand on the corner down there and put a restroom under it. I turned it down. I said I had no interest in building restrooms for merchants. The more I thought about it (it’s that damned enthusiasm again!), I began to envision what we could do and how important that could be. A couple weeks later I called them back and said, “Okay, let’s take a run at it. Chuck, if you’ll help, I’ll take it on.” That land was owned by the city. The city had bought it with the Greenways funds a couple of years before. I put together a small task force of six or seven people who had particular skills they could contribute. I don’t like committees but I like task forces! We got John Stewart, the architect, to do a free design. We got a contractor to give us a free bid. And we got to the park board before they set their budget and got to the city council before they got their budget going. In pretty rapid order, we got that thing put together and built and raised almost $400,000 to contribute to the city’s $400,000. We raised about half the money to do that and got a lot of volunteer activity. It has really been successful. It feels very good. I’m very proud of that. I’m hopeful I’m going to be very proud of Depot Market Square. I think that is going to do for the downtown what the Village Green has done for Fairhaven. I really have a strong belief that communities need gathering places. We all buzz around in our automobiles and we meet occasionally at a social event but there are very few places where people are just kind of forced to come together and do something in common. That kind of place does that. TB: That’s very nice. What are the things that you most look forward to yet doing? 19 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BG: I’ve always been kind of a half-baked artist. I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands. For the last ten or eleven years, right here in this building we’ve had a little group that comes together to do watercolor painting. Because of the Village Green, I got involved with carving patterns and casting them in bronze, so I made the manhole covers down there and the bollards (I made those patterns). I’m kind of interested in that. I think maybe I’m going to concentrate on artsy things for the foreseeable future. In fact, I’m headed off to Venice for two weeks in May to do nothing but sketch and paint. TB: Are you totally self-taught in art or did you take some classes? BG: I’ve taken a few classes. We got this group together here ten or eleven years ago and pooled our money and hired Steve Mayo to teach us the rudiments of watercolor. We’ve had a couple of other teachers and I’ve gone to a couple La Conner classes. It’s just fun to do. I don’t make any pretenses [about] being any good at it; it’s just that I enjoy it. TB: That’s excellent. Actually, one other quick question, you have also gotten real interested in local history and have been doing some oral histories. Can you tell a little bit more about what got you started doing that? BG: Most recently (I mentioned that I did one of my uncle fifteen or twenty years ago) Bob Moles, who was a wonderful man and an amazing community leader, was dying of cancer and I went out to visit him. I asked him in our conversation whether he had written his history. His great grandfather came to Whatcom County as a circuitriding preacher only he wasn’t a rider, he was a walker; he couldn’t afford a horse so he walked to preach up around Custer and Blaine. He’s got a long history and nobody in his family had ever written it down. I so respected Bob and he had such a personal story that I asked him if he would allow me to do an oral history interview with a video camera. He welcomed that. I came home and bought a video camera. Two days later I was sitting in his living room. Fortunately, I got an hour and a half of Bob telling his and his family’s story. Three days later his health took a dip and he wouldn’t have been able to do it. That felt very good and I think it’s an important thing to do. Somebody said to me once, “When and old man dies, it’s like a library burning.” That really is so true. I wanted to record that and I’ve done some very interesting people. Do you know Pat Fleeson? Pat almost single-handedly saved the museum. When the tower burned up, the city was just going to just bulldoze it into [Whatcom] Creek. They were going to just knock it down. Pat put her foot down and said, “No way.” She worked at it for years and years and raised most of the money and made it happen. Recently I did Ken Imus who owns so much of Fairhaven. I thought that story had to be trapped, caught. I’ve done David Morse. I’ve done about thirteen of them, maybe this is fourteen. Then I give a copy to the museum and a copy to the archives (to Western [Center for Pacific Northwest Studies), one to the family and I keep one. TB: Excellent. It’s a treasure what you are doing. One last question: Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you would like to comment on? BG: Not that I can think of. 20 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Thank you very, very much. It was a great treasure to meet you. You have a great story and are obviously a great Bellingham-builder of our community and have done a lot for it. Thank you very much. BG: Thank you; my pleasure. 21 Brian Griffin Edited Transcript – April 6, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Harlan Jackson interview--December 12, 2006
Description: Harlan Jackson attended the Campus School from 1948-1955 and Western Washington University, Class of 1966 (BAE).
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_JacksonHarlan_20061212
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Harlan Jackson ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use"
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Harlan Jackson ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Harlan Jackson at Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections in Bellingham, Washington, on December 12, 2006. The interviewer is Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Tuesday, December 12th, 2006, and I’m here with Harlan Jackson who was an alumnus of the Campus School as well as an alumnus of Western Washington University. He did sign the Informed Consent Agreement, and we’re going to do the questionnaire for both the Campus School alumni as well as the Golden Vikings. So our first question is: How did you happen to attend the Campus School? HJ: Well, that choice was made by my parents. I don’t know why they picked the Campus School. They’d drive us (my sister and I) to the Campus School everyday and there was someone else in the neighborhood – Vicki Hyde, I believe it was – sometimes her parents would take us, sometimes my parents would take us, and they’d drive us up to the Campus School. TB: Excellent. Did anyone else in your family attend the Campus School, and what were their names? HJ: Well, my sister, Wendy, attended the Campus School. She was a year behind me. TB: Okay, what were the years and grades of your attendance? HJ: Kindergarten through sixth grade; it would’ve been spring of [1955] when I graduated. TB: Did your family pay any fees for your attendance at Campus School? HJ: I’m sure they did. TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School? HJ: We lived in an area in Bellingham called Edgemoor; on Bayside Road. TB: And how did you get to and from school? You shared part of that. HJ: Yes, just by carpool mostly. TB: And do you have any other favorite memories of that experience? HJ: Well, sometimes, to get home, I would jog or run. There used to be trails through where Highland [Drive] is, in that area. There were some swamps in there and I could jog all the way down into the 1 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Fairhaven area, and go home. I’d do that once in a while. Most of the time [though] I’d wait for my dad to pick me up after he got off work. TB: So what’d you do in the afternoon between when school got out and he got off work? HJ: Sometimes we’d play on the monkey bars that were in the back of the Campus School lot. There used to be a road that drove up behind the Campus School, [where you had some room to park.] TB: And what did you do for lunch? HJ: Lunch, I think they used to have a cafeteria we used to go in. I remember my favorite dish was when they’d have green beans, I remember that, buttered green beans. But the food was pretty good. TB: Do you remember any favorite classmates and please name them for us? HJ: Well, a lot of [my favorite] classmates would have been ones that were in my class. Gale Pfueller, who lived up in the same neighborhood, Biff Dickerson, who’s still in town (Gale’s still in town, actually). There was John Rice; Bart Wachter, who was a good friend of mine in sixth grade, we used to have a lot of fun together. There was Gary Kulbitski his dad was a football coach for a while, then he moved on I think when we were in high school. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? HJ: Well, I think my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Van Wingerden. I really enjoyed him. He was the only man teacher I had, so I guess I kind of liked that. Miss [Merriman], I thought she was really a good teacher. I think she was my fifth grade teacher. We used to have an exchange with a class in Canada, and I can remember we went up there, and we were told how strict they would be and how everyone would stand up and so we went up there and stood up when the teacher walked in. I think things have changed up there quite a bit. Then their class came down to be with our class one day. She used to do a lot with puppets, so we had a little puppet show that we had for them. I can remember that, that was a lot of fun. And I think another thing was I always liked PE. The play fields were out in front of the school, and we’d have swimming over in the swimming pool, which was kind of a big deal for us. TB: Oh, nice. Do you remember any of your student teachers? HJ: I remember Mr. Ferguson in sixth grade, he was the basketball coach; at that time we had a basketball team. And some of the time that’s why I was late for my dad to pick me up, because I would have basketball turnout. He’s about the only one I can remember now, but I really liked him. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? HJ: I think we made candles in first or second grade, and that was a lot of fun. And the puppets were all fun, of course; and sports [were] always important for me. In fact, when I was in fifth grade, some of us fifth graders organized a football team to play the sixth graders. We worked and had turnout on our own, stuff like that, and we went down to one of the lower parks. I think one of the college kids actually came down, was walking by, and started to referee for us, and we had a good game of tackle; which probably now days you wouldn’t be allowed to do. I think it ended up in a tie. TB: What kind of learning materials did you mostly use? Regular school textbooks, or materials created by your teachers? HJ: I think in earlier grades a lot of it was probably created by the teacher. But I do remember we had this set of books like, “See Spot Run”, that type of books, in the early elementary grades. I’m not quite sure what we had in fifth and sixth grade and fourth grade, but I think it was a little more set. But we had a lot of student teachers, and that was in a sense probably good and bad, because you didn’t really have a good 2 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED continuation of things from one teacher to another. When I think back, I think that so many student teachers – nine of them in a school year – was probably too much and probably was detrimental to some of the learning [opportunities] that were offered. TB: What kind of grading system was in use during your attendance? Letter grades or narrative reports? HJ: I think it was just a report. I don’t remember ever getting a letter grade. TB: Do you especially remember any creative activities, such as weaving or making things? You said you remembered the candles. HJ: Yes, I remember the candles, I remember the puppets, but I can’t remember if we ever made any puppets or not. But that’s about what I can remember right now. We did a lot of stuff in Kindergarten, I remember that; a lot of painting things. Of course we had specials for PE, one of the PE teachers at the college was our PE teacher. TB: Was that Miss Weythman? HJ: Yes, Miss Weythman. TB: What was it like for you to be observed so often by student teachers? HJ: Well, I think it got to the point where you just got used to it. You didn’t really think of it. I guess I was kind of a rebel in a way, because I used to like to give some of them a bad time -- particularly the women ones. I’d test them out. If the student teacher liked sports, then he was okay right off the bat, but if he wasn’t involved in sports in high school or something, then I kind of liked to give them a bad time. TB: Did you attend summer school at the Campus School? HJ: No. TB: What out of classroom activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime, and what did you enjoy the most and what games did you play? HJ: Well, a lot of the times during recess, we’d go out and play tag or we’d – I don’t know if we used the bars very much in the back of the school, but during football season someone seemed to always have a football, so we could throw the football around. You were allowed to do a lot more than you do now. There was times we’d go down to the gym after school. I’m not sure if we were supposed to be down there, but we’d play bombardment in the gym. You had three gyms; one we used for basketball, one was a side gym where we had bombardment, and then there was the Kindergarten gym, I think it was. It had a lot of big wooden blocks you could make things out of. And even though we weren’t in Kindergarten, we would love to sneak in there and build things. TB: Did you visit the college itself, the college library, attend assemblies or sporting events or anything else at the college when you were at Campus School and then any special memories of these experiences? HJ: I think we went over to the library a couple times. In the springtime, a couple years, we used to go out on the knoll and have sort of like a picnic thing towards the end of the school year. Well, we went over to the swimming pool, that’d be a visit. There wasn’t much up here, then, you know. You had the old track and the old gym and Highland Hall and [Edens] Hall. When I first started, they didn’t even have the science building, or the auditorium, you just had the old library. TB: At what grade level did you enter public school? Why did you transfer and what was the transition like for you? 3 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED HJ: It was the start of the seventh grade, and that’s because sixth grade was the last year for Campus School. I don’t think I had any problems of transition. TB: Did you not find grades a surprise? HJ: No, no, I didn’t. TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. HJ: I think that the Campus School was weak in teaching the basics of spelling and things like that. I think that affected me, because my spelling is not as good as I’d like it to be. I have to always check over everything so I think that was a disadvantage. Actually my parents wanted to move me into the public schools a little sooner, because they felt maybe I wasn’t getting what I should get. And I and my sister, we were having so much fun up there, we kind of raised a ruckus and they decided to let us finish out. But I think I found that the public schools were a little harder at the time, and I think part of that reason again was because we had so many student teachers. TB: What further education did you pursue: college, graduate, or professional school? HJ: I went on and got my education degree and taught school for thirty-two years. TB: If you later attended Western and majored in education, did you observe or student teach in the Campus School and what was that experience like? HJ: No, I did not. In fact, the Campus School was gone by the time I started student teaching, I think, or it was getting close to the end. TB: How did your attendance at the Campus School influence your life and/or career? HJ: Now, that’s a tough question. I picked up some good discipline. I remember one of the things in sixth grade was the traffic patrol that we used to do. There was a couple of us, depending on who had the most days, because we were always assigned days, and when you got so many days I think you got a star or something. So there were two or three of us who were always asking somebody else if we could take their days. So, I think I got a kind of discipline there, and I think I got some discipline in sports. It’s really hard to say how it’s all molded together. TB: Are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates and if so can you help us contact them? HJ: Well, I’m still in contact with my sister and Pat O’Conner, but I think you already reached him. I see Gale Pfueller once in a while. I think most of the people I’ve mentioned you’ve already kind of shook your head that you were acquainted with them. Some of the girls, I don’t know, Jane Clarke, I forget what her married name is now, and there’s Janet Gregory. She’s on the East Coast somewhere, I think. TB: Do you have any Campus School memorabilia, including photographs, class publications, crafts, artwork? HJ: I don’t know if I have any artwork or not. My mom might have some stuff somewhere, I don’t know. TB: And please share any other favorite memories of your Campus School days and any comments about areas not covered in the questions above. HJ: Well, I think a lot of the fun was watching the buildings go up. The science building used to be kind of a swamp where that is, and we used to go down there and catch frogs. I can’t think of much else. I remember kind of running around the track. Oh! We used to go in the restroom. We’d play, like cowboys 4 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED or something, and we’d try to ambush each other, making the sounds of guns and things; which would make the woman teacher very upset because she couldn’t come in. She would be yelling and holler that she was going to come in. We used to do that all the time and we had a lot of fun doing it. I suppose if I had a little bit more time … Oh! Another thing I remember, too, is, I think it was the fourth grade class it used to have a beehive in it. We used to watch the bees come in and go out, and that was always a lot of fun, too. And when it snowed, everyone would run and look out the window. The teachers would try to get us to sit down, same as they do today. TB: Right, some things never change and apply to every school. Okay, that’s all of our Campus School questions. I guess we’ll just jump into the Golden Vikings. Part II: Golden Viking Questionnaire TB: Why did you choose to attend Western? HJ: Well, it just kind of happened. As I graduated from Bellingham High School, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do. I thought I’d go to Western for two years then I was going to transfer to Central, that’s what my plan was. But then I got up here, and I made new friends, and I made better friends, I guess, with some of the old friends I had, and so pretty soon I ended up staying here the whole time. TB: I’m fascinated. Why were you going to go to Central? HJ: Oh, I think just probably to leave home and get away, but that never happened. TB: What were your dates of attendance at Western? HJ: I think I started in fall of 1961, and graduated in 1966 I think. TB: What degrees or certificates did you receive? HJ: My Bachelor’s of Education. TB: Did you receive any other degrees elsewhere? HJ: No. TB: What was your first job after leaving Western and any distinctive memories of this experience – salary, work conditions, etc? And please share any information about your subsequent career. HJ: My first job was at Everett, and at that time, everybody from Bellingham kept saying, “Why would you go to Everett?” Because Bellingham and Everett used to [have] a tremendous rivalry. I think the starting salary was $5400. I wondered how I was ever going to make enough money to save up enough money to ever buy a house or anything. I majored in PE so I taught PE and coached and that was at North Junior High in Everett. After four years, I moved up to the high school and spent twenty-eight years there. TB: Have any other family members attended Western? HJ: My dad; I know he picked up maybe his Master’s through Western. TB: What was your father’s name? HJ: Harlan Jackson. TB: Oh, so you’re a junior? 5 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED HJ: Right, he was an assistant superintendent of the schools in Bellingham for many years. TB: Was he an assistant superintendent of Bellingham schools when you were going to the Campus School? HJ: No, he was coaching and teaching at Bellingham High School. I think he probably was getting a little pressure to, and that might have been one of the reasons he wanted to transfer me. TB: Where did you live when you were going to Western as a college student? HJ: Well, I lived at home for two years, I think it was, and then I lived in a house on Iron Street. TB: Any favorite memories of those experiences? HJ: No, but we always seemed to have a lot of fun. It was a really interesting makeup, because we had some people in the house that were real, real conservative, and some that were real, real liberal. And we used to get in some good discussions. Every once in a while we’d even have a faculty member come down from the college and we’d have a good discussion. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers and why? HJ: Dr. Flora was, I thought, an excellent teacher. He made things very interesting. Dr. Taylor was also very interesting and very challenging. You always had to be really on your toes when you had a class from him. Dr. Tomaras probably did the most. He was my PE instructor for a lot of my classes, when I decided to major in PE. The reason I majored in PE was because of Dr. Tomaras. I just took a PE class for the fun of it, it was the History of PE, and I enjoyed it so much I decided to take some more classes. When I took a few more classes, I decided to major in PE. At one time I was thinking of majoring in history, so Dr. Tomaras had a lot of influence in me. Dr. Lappenbusch was a real character, I liked him. He was one of the funniest guys I’ve ever known. Mrs. Kirkpatrick, she really made kinesiology interesting. She was really a good teacher and we all liked her and liked to have classes from her. TB: So your main course of study, then, was physical education. Which extra curricular activities did you enjoy the most? HJ: Well, I did a lot of intramurals; I played intramural basketball up here. That was a lot of fun. We would do things on the sides, you’d get to go out on the weekends and things, but I think intramural basketball was the thing I did the most. I remember one year – they used to divide us into leagues and we were about the middle league in the building, but we started winning a lot of games and one of the guys knew somebody that was down at KPUG radio (that was the radio station everyone listened to in those days). And you know, he’d call up the score of our intramural game, and pretty soon they were announcing our scores over the radio, and they’d say, “We’ll be waiting for the next game, to see if they can beat soand-so.” It did irritate some of the people on the other teams, but it was kind of funny. Finally we got beat in the play-offs. But they’d say, “And now, the next important game...” and then they’d give our score, and then they’d say, “And the NBA’s results...” TB: So what was the name of your team? HJ: I can’t even remember the name of it anymore. TB: Please share any other outstanding memories of your college days. HJ: Oh, I can’t think of anything else, you know, just typical things that college kids do. 6 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Well, I’m curious … That would be the very early years, but any thoughts about the Vietnam War or people’s attitudes about that? It would seem like you were here in a time when there were beginning to be a lot of changes. HJ: Right. There was, that’s right. The war was starting to kick up and we were starting to get the war movement. I can remember we went into register for classes and there were about 30 people laying around on the floor, making it hard for you to get into register for classes. So, yes, there started to become a debate on campus and the hippies started, that movement was picking up, it was a big transition from the crew cut to the long hair, the marijuana was starting to show up, and acid. There was a transition; you could see a real change in some of the students. TB: Anything else that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to comment on? HJ: Not right now, probably in another hour, I’ll think of a lot of things. TB: Okay, well, thank you very much. HJ: Thank you. 7 Harlan Jackson Transcript – December 12, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Charles Robert "Bob" Hitz interview--October 10, 2006
Description: Charles Robert "Bob" Hitz attended the Campus School from 1938 to 1948.
Digital Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Special Collections Oral History Program
Local Identifier: SCOHP_HitzCharles_20061010
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Charles Robert Hitz ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use&
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Oral History Program Charles Robert Hitz ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Charles Robert (“Bob”) Hitz on October 10, 2006, in WWU Libraries Special Collections (Room 279). The interviewer was Tamara Belts. TB: It is October 10th 2006, and I am here with Charles Robert Hitz, who goes by Bob Hitz. He has just signed the Informed Consent Agreement. He‟s one of our Campus Schoolers and we‟re going to do an oral history. Our first question is how did you happen to attend the Campus School? BH: Because of my parents. They set us up, my brother and I, and we came here. TB: So you sort of answered the second one: did anyone else in your family attend the school and what were their names? BH: My cousins: Suzanne Rykken, Jack Rykken, and Rosemary Rykken; they came here. They lived out on Forest Street, and we lived on the other side of town on Ellis Street. So we were on opposite sides of town. TB: Okay, and then your brother Jim? BH: Yes, and my brother Jim. TB: What were the years and grades of your attendance at Campus School? BH: Oh my goodness, okay, I started in Kindergarten which started in 1938. I went on from Kindergarten to the ninth grade which was in 1948. And you‟re using the sixth grade as the main thing, so that would mean 1945. I went through the whole grade school, from Kindergarten to the ninth grade. TB: Did your family pay any fees for your attendance at the Campus School? BH: Well, as far as I know—I have no idea—but apparently they did. How much I don‟t know, and we never discussed it. TB: Where did you live when you attended the Campus School? BH: Over on Ellis Street, which is the north side of Bellingham; 2701 Ellis Street. TB: How did you get to and from school? And please share any favorite memories of that experience? BH: Well, as far as I know, it was either by cars—my parents ran us up—and there was a number of people in our neighborhood that came to Campus School. Don Miller across the street was in my brothers‟ class (My brother was four years ahead of me). I remember one time in the car, all of us piled in and all the big kids were in there and just little old me in the middle [chuckles]. And we drove up to Campus School. And the other way I remember is the bus; we took the city bus which stopped right in front of our house at Ellis Street and then went around north and then west and then back down—I think it was Cornwall. And so if I missed the bus, then I could go down Hampton Street over to the bus and it came around and I‟d make the bus. There was a number of youngsters on the bus that were in my grade: Dick Fisher, Jerry Gill, and Richard Gray. Richard Gray got on the bus first, and then I got on, 1 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED and then Dick Fisher, and then Jerry Gill. Then we rode all the way up to Garden Street, got off at Garden Street then went up the steps, the switchbacks, to school. TB: It let you off on Garden Street? BH: Yes. TB: So you had to go up to High Street? BH: Yes. There was a walkway going down from Garden Street to Forest Street. It was kind of a switchbacks, and I remember that and look for it, don‟t see it anymore. The commons is built down there now. But the college kids made a path down alongside the switchbacks. The switchbacks would come up, and then there was a path from the top down, and it was straight down. And Jerry Gill got a—we went down to the plywood mill where they peeled the logs in thin strips, and in the end there was a piece about six inches, like a core of about six inches and they sold that for firewood around town, and they‟d cut it into pieces. And at the top of the hill there was a pile of those, and Jerry took one and rolled it down the hill. I can still see it going down, all the way down to the armory, bouncing all the way up, and it landed in the bay, I think, I don‟t know. But man, that was really scary. But Jerry, you ought to interview Jerry, he‟s really got class. He was the only youngster that had a single mom, and he came in, and he was kind of wild. All of our class talks about Jerry Gill. He came out and talked to us last time, I think he‟s on the East Coast now. He‟s a minister, and a very good speaker and talker. Georgia McCush probably can find [him]. I haven‟t talked to Georgia, but I will—probably run him down again, we had a hard time finding him but we found him. TB: Excellent. What did you do for lunch? BH: I ate peanut butter sandwiches -- that‟s all I ate. TB: Really? BH: Yes, and I don‟t remember much about lunch period. Going back those many years it‟s hard to remember. I remember peanut butter sandwiches were what I loved. TB: So your mom must have sent you to school with a sandwich everyday? BH: Right. TB: You talked a little bit about this, but do you remember any favorite classmates and please name them for us? BH: Well, yes, Jerry Gill is the primary one, and Georgia McCush is the one that really is involved in the reunions. I think our class was one of the first ones that started the reunion here -- for our class. We had two of them. I gave you those two yearbooks that we had. Jerry really got involved in the school and mischief and all that. He was quite a fellow. And then Diane Griffith passed away about a year ago; she was a key person in the class. And that‟s about it for now, that‟s all I remember. TB: Who were your favorite or most influential teachers? BH: I don‟t remember any of the teachers. TB: Really!? BH: No, I don‟t, I don‟t remember any of them. My brother‟s diary names a lot of them, but I don‟t recall any of them. TB: Do you remember any of your student teachers? 2 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BH: No, and that‟s interesting, because people I walk with down at Stanwood, they graduated in education. We got talking about student teaching, and they said that to get assigned to Campus School for [your] student teaching was pretty difficult. But they said they had to take a class that went into the classes to view the students, and I don‟t remember any of those students. If they were there everyday, I don‟t remember them. And they said they went in a group, and I still don‟t remember any [them]. So they were apparently just kind of background, but [I] never saw them, just didn‟t pay any attention to them. So I don‟t remember any student teachers. TB: That‟s interesting. BH: Except one. I was going to school here during World War II, and some of the veterans were coming back. One of them was in the, not the Sea Bee‟s, but the skin-diving—they started using skin-divers to swim up to the beach to take out the things that stopped the boats and so forth—and so he was bragging. He was over at the swimming pool and he was bragging about how he could swim underwater, so all the kids said, “Do it! Do it!” Then he dove in, and he swam one length of the pool underwater, back again, and he must have done it maybe three or four times! And the last one he didn‟t come up, he just sat down there. Everybody was looking down saying, “What is he doing?” Somebody says, “Well, I think he’s drowning!” So they dove in and pulled him out, and he was! That‟s in my mind and I remember it, but I‟ve talked to other people and they don‟t remember it, so whether it‟s true or not I don‟t know. That was quite impressive. TB: What were your favorite subjects or classroom activities? BH: Again, I don‟t remember much about that. The only thing I remember is dissecting the cat. I think it must have been eighth or ninth grade. They had two people to a cat and we dissected it, and the arteries were red and the veins were blue, and they were all dyed. That was quite fascinating, and so we spent quite a bit of time doing that. Has anybody else mentioned that? TB: I think Georgia McCush mentions that, and that led her into biology. BH: That‟s right, yes, I remember her in the class. And I don‟t know if that just started when we did it—well, my brother I think did it too, but I‟m not sure. TB: You guys are the only two I‟ve heard mention it, but she definitely mentions it, and that was part of her life career then. BH: Right. My career, my father wanted my brother and I to be dentists, because he was a dentist here in town. When we were born that‟s all we heard: we would be dentists. And so I got interested in biology because I could draw, and that‟s the only praise I would get, because when I drew he would say, “Great! You’re doing a wonderful job.” Mother would say I was doing great. But in English and math my grades weren‟t that good, so it was always, “What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you do better?” So, I took to drawing. I loved the airplanes in World War II, because everybody had airplanes. And then everybody thought the airplane was brilliant, so I drew airplanes. That‟s all I remember of school is drawing these airplanes. So when we got into biology, that was a place I could draw. In science you looked through the microscope and you drew what you saw. So my drawing skills developed because of that, I think. I did quite well that way. I went to college and got a zoology degree, and applied to dental school, and didn‟t make it; got drafted in the military, and then came out, had the GI bill and I could do what I wanted. So I ended up as a marine biologist for NOAA, and I loved it. It just really worked out very nice. And we‟ll get into the drawing later. But that reminds me, one of the things that I didn‟t learn in Campus was that dive-bombing during World War II was a key item. As you probably knew in Midway dive-bombers got the carriers. Well before that Germany had the Stuka dive-bomber and it would go way up high and then dive down. And I heard somebody in Campus School saying that if a dive-bomber comes at you, you put your finger up and if you hide the bomb, you‟ll be hit, and if it falls on either side of your finger then it will go off to the side of you so you‟ll be safer. That stuck in my mind all these years and when I was out on the research boat, the John N. Cobb, they had a cannon ball at the end of the cable 3 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED and they went out in very deep water, and they had a reversing thermometer on it, and you get down there and they‟d open up and you‟d get the sample and then you‟d bring it back in. And as the cable comes in, it comes in very rapidly, and as it gets near the ship, you got to slow the winch down. Well, one of the scientists that‟s running the winch, he got busy looking around, forgot to watch the meter, so the thing just came right up, came up and took the reversing thermometer off and the ball broke off and went straight up in the air. It went way, way up, and I stood there with a finger and as I watched it fall back, it went to the right of my finger. So it is going to go off to the side—and it did, so it works. And then I finally read some place in a book about World War II, and they apparently taught the soldiers that. It must have come back through the war, and it works! TB: That‟s excellent. Let‟s see, what kind of learning materials did you mostly use? Regular textbooks, or a lot of materials created by your teachers? BH: Don‟t remember. TB: And what kind of grading system was in use during your attendance: letter grades, or narrative reports? BH: I‟m not sure, I don‟t remember any grades, but I remember worrying about going to the next grade. So they had something. I remember we had the meetings with my mother. My mother was a teacher—she was an English teacher. She became quite concerned about how Campus School was teaching us in spelling apparently, because they didn‟t use phonetics, they used flash cards as I understand it. I remember flash cards. But I could not spell, and neither could my brother, and so she was very concerned about it. My brother had a tutor, and I had tutors every summer for years and it didn‟t make any difference—it just didn‟t make sense to me. I ended up as a biologist, and we had to publish or perish, so I had to write. They even sent me off to tutoring there, and it didn‟t help. Then they finally sent me off to a school, a fellow and me went down to it, and it was mainly women, it was a secretarial school, to improve my English. They gave us a test at the beginning and then a test at the end, and my test at the end was worse than the beginning. So they decided not to send me back for that. But the interesting part is my son was having the same problem, and my wife got quite concerned about it, went up to the public school in Seattle and they said, “Well, you can use the dictionary,” and they wouldn‟t help him out much. She went and talked to another person there at the school, they had a child there, and she said that he maybe is dyslexic and why don‟t you have him tested? So he was tested and he was dyslexic. Man, I decided I think I should be tested because it sure sounds like that‟s what my problem is, or I think it is, and I find out that I am dyslexic, and that explains a lot of the spelling problems that I‟ve had over the years. It really paid off, it explains a lot. Our son is very involved, and he wrote a book. I kept telling him, well if you write a book you‟ll never get it published because of the problem. He said, “I will,” and he did. I should have brought a copy of it up for you, I‟ll bring it up and give it to you, I think you‟d be very interested. TB: We‟d love a copy—we collect publications by faculty, staff, student, and alumni; that‟s what the Western Collection is down there. So we would like one for it because he went to Western. BH: Yes, right, I‟ll bring one up. TB: Excellent! Do you especially remember any creative activities such as weaving, making things, etc.? You obviously drew a lot, was that part of the class or…? BH: No, that was just on the side. I do remember weaving the squares making afghans. I do remember we had a pen pal down in New Zealand. TB: Oh, that‟s interesting. BH: Yes, and they had another school down there and so we wrote a letter to the individual, and he corresponded with me for quite awhile. I don‟t remember his name. I don‟t have any record of it. I was kind of curious about who they were and whatever it was . . . it would‟ve been fun to go back, but it‟s pretty hard to do that. 4 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: That‟s really interesting. What was it like for you to be observed so often by student teachers? You kind of already answered that. BH: I just don‟t remember anything about it. I just don‟t even remember them around. TB: Did you attend summer school at the Campus School? BH: No, but I had a lot of tutors in the summers. TB: So who tutored you? BH: There were two tutors, one who lived near us, Mother knew her from grade school. Both of them were English teachers in the public schools. They tutored us, but it didn‟t make any sense to me. My brother too, I don‟t think it improved his spelling. The other thing with this dyslexia, Chuck came up to Western and we had a conference with a counselor here and we mentioned dyslexia, and she said, “We know that already.” It had showed up in a test, and so, the Western Washington was very good with the dyslexics. Chuck, he‟d go to this counselor and say, “I’m having trouble with this teacher,” this teacher didn‟t believe in dyslexia and said, “You gotta learn just the way everybody learns,” so he dropped the course and took another one that would give him time to take the test and he graduated. In fact, he‟s gone on to . . . I think he‟s got three Master‟s now, because Boeing keeps paying for the education, and he keeps on going. TB: Wow, very good. What other classroom activities did you engage in? What did you do at recess, lunchtime, and what did you enjoy the most? What games did you play? BH: Campus School really taught me recreation: they developed a baseball team. As a matter of fact Jerry Gill was an avid sportsman; he wanted football here, he wanted basketball, he wanted baseball, anything and everything, he was very much involved in sports. After school he‟d get a team out there playing touch football. But it wasn‟t part of the school, it was just recreation. But then, they got a baseball team going here at Campus School, and I think it was the eighth grade or the ninth grade. I turned out for it and I wanted to play first base. Richard Clement who‟s a fellow in our class, he got first base and they put me out in the outfield. I guess my skills weren‟t that good so I ended up sitting on the bench most of all the games. And one leg was dark because where I rubbed my hand on the leg; the rest of the uniform was all white. But in the last game we played Fairhaven, and the coach finally put me up. This was the last game of the year and all that, and he put me up to bat. The pitcher, who was named Monte Bianchi, was a really good baseball player, in high school he did very, very well. So Monte was pitching—I got up, and the first one came and I didn‟t even see it, so I swung: strike one. And I decided, “Well I better not swing at the next one because if I do, then they’ll know that I’m just swinging.” So the next one came through, I still didn‟t see it: strike two. And the third one I said, “I better swing at this one,” so I swung and missed: strike three, you‟re out! Everybody laughed, and the game was over. The coach, and the ump got in the same car we were riding in, and the umpire says, “Why didn’t you put that last kid up more often?” And he says, “Why?” And he says, “Well, he’s the only one that didn’t flinch.” What Monte was throwing was a curve ball. It would come at you, and then it would curve in, and everybody saw it coming at them, and they‟d step back. And I stood up there and swung. I decided, “That’s it, I’m not going to turn out for anymore sports,” and I never did. TB: So your blindness was also a gift. BH: You‟re right. [Chuckles]. TB: Did you visit the college itself? I mean, you recognize this room. BH: Oh yes. We were in Old Main and then we went over to the new school—Miller is it? Miller Hall with the— TB: Right, now it is Miller Hall. 5 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BH: We used the library extensively. I remember this room. I remember going through that bookcase over there for some of the books. We spent quite a bit of time in the library, in the main library also. And then we used the swimming pool. The swimming pool was excellent. My brother‟s diaries says he swam—it must have impressed him, because he loves swimming. He said every Monday they went swimming. So, every week we must have gone swimming. It was quite a thing. As a matter of fact, Jerry Gill—I think both the girls and the boys swam in the same pool, and the girls had their locker room and the boys had theirs, and Jerry went in the girls locker room one time and caused all kinds of excitement. But Jerry‟s history was like that. TB: What about assemblies or sporting events? Do you remember any of that? BH: No; only thing I remember is the dances. TB: Okay, tell me about that. BH: We had dancing up there in Old Main, and I‟m not sure how often we had them, but I remember that. Elaine Nelson, who was in our class, she danced with me off and on, I remember her. TB: Cool. At what grade level did you enter public school, why did you transfer, and what was the transition like for you? BH: I went from ninth grade to high school. The transition was kind of difficult at first, because there was a fear of hazing and all that. Once we got in there and we made friends, it went pretty easy. Well, I won‟t say easy, because my spelling wasn‟t that good and I had trouble, but it went fairly well. TB: Did you find that your class from Campus School though stuck together a lot in high school at all? BH: No, we pretty much split up. Dick Fisher was the only one—he lived fairly near me. We made new friends -our peer group changed. TB: Please share any specific differences between public school and Campus School that especially affected you. BH: I don‟t remember anything, or any differences. TB: What further education did you pursue: college, graduate or professional school? BH: Yes, as I said, my father wanted me to become a dentist, and so I thought that‟s what I should do. My brother came here—that reminds me! He came here as a freshman, which was the same year I was in the ninth grade. If he saw me walking down the hall, he would go the other way; he didn‟t want to see me anywhere. I remember that. And then he turned kind of wild, because he flunked out of Western. He had a car, and Dad was trying to motivate him to earn more money so he made the mistake of saying, “I‟ll pay for half of your car, if you make the other half.” My brother thought that was pretty neat, so he came back through the door that summer and says, “I got a job in Alaska, I’ll see you in a couple months.” He went up to one of the canneries, and it was a big year, they had a lot of overtime, and he came back with a bundle. So he says, “Come on, Dad!” and went down to the Chevy garage and in there was a beautiful convertible and he says, “Here’s my half, where’s yours?” and Dad had to come up with it. So he had this beautiful car, brand new one, and that was just after the War, and my father was driving this old „33 Packard. So, he kind of raised-End of Tape One, Side One BH: . . . my father‟s practice. That‟s why I went over to Washington State, because my brother was there. So I went over there and started my freshman class. I ended up as a zoologist because that‟s what--either you end up with a degree in pre-dental or zoology. So I decided on zoology. I applied for dental school and never made it, but my brother applied and he made it, and he did very well. So then I went on to fishery school down at the University of Washington and ended up in fisheries; it was a really interesting career. 6 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Excellent, excellent! So you, yourself did not go to Western at all? BH: No. But my son and daughter did, as a matter of fact they graduated the same year, because Chuck, when he got out of high school he didn‟t know whether he wanted to go to school or not, and he decided to work. So he worked in the printing press for that time and he decided that school sounded better so he came up here, so that‟s why they graduated the same year. TB: How did your attendance at the Campus School influence your life and/or career? BH: I‟m not sure, I don‟t know how to answer that. TB: That‟s okay. Are you still in touch with any Campus School classmates? BH: Yes, we‟ve had two reunions; we‟ve kind of lost contact now, but plan to get back [together]. Well, Georgia was the one that I was involved in. We had two reunions; the first one, our neighbor in Seattle there, I got talking to her, and she was going to Western here. And so we were trying to get a speaker for the group, so I think it was Dr. DeLorme . . . I‟m not sure. TB: Oh, DeLorme. BH: DeLorme, Dr. DeLorme. TB: Right. BH: So she had mentioned him, she liked him as a teacher and said that he was a historian and he knew the Campus School, so I decided to get him. He said that he would, and the reunion was [over] at Canada House. So we were all thinking, “Oh, we’ll find out how important we were! And how all the Campus School is was a guinea pig for the public schools and all that.” And so he says, “All the records are lost. We don’t even know if you went to Campus School.” That was a real disappointment. We don‟t even know if we have any proof that we went to Campus School. So that was a neat reunion, better than the high school. TB: Oh good. Do you have any Campus School memorabilia, including photographs, class publications, …? BH: I‟ve got some more photographs that Georgia took at all of the reunions, and I‟ve got a few others. TB: Well, I‟m going to ask you a couple questions because it‟s not really set up in here, but you were in Old Main: can you talk about the experience of being in the grade school in Old Main and also having all the college students around you, I mean what was that like? BH: I never paid much attention to the college students. Because in Old Main, we were there in that segment, and then we went to different places as a group, but the college students—never paid any attention to them, they were kind of in the way. It seems like it, because it didn‟t seem like there were many college students around. We kind of lived in our own world. TB: Well, that‟s true, you know, you were here during the war too, you would have started just before the war, and a lot of the men students especially would have been off at the war: it probably was a smaller population. What about, was it exciting watching the new school being built? BH: Yes it was, I remember them driving the piling down, but I don‟t remember much about it. The only thing I remember is the rubber mats on the ramps going down, the heavy rubber mats. That was impressive, and still is. Matter of fact, we all went back in the class and ran up and down them again, so that was a neat thing. I remember, reading through my brother‟s diaries, he mentioned putting a corner stone in over there, I remember that. I don‟t remember it, I remember when he wrote it in the diary, I recalled it. He‟s got the date, and the corner stone was put in in there. And I was thinking that it was the stones out there on the sidewalk, for each year; I thought that was it, but I think it was the cornerstone in that building. 7 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: The new school. BH: Right. TB: Interesting. What about going into the new school; was that pretty exciting? BH: I remember going into the new school, and I‟m not sure what grade it was . . . TB: 1943, it was dedicated in—I think it was January of 1943. BH: Yes, I remember it was pretty exciting, but I don‟t remember much about it. I remember before, we had the paper drives, during the War. That was before the school was built. And we went up to Old Main, down there in the gym, we had the gym filled with old newspapers, for the drives. TB: Now what was the paper drives for? BH: During the war they needed paper. I don‟t know why, but they had the paper drive, and then the—there was a big mound of aluminum pans and stuff that was out there someplace on the campus. I remember coming up one day with the papers, and my Aunt Alice, who drove us up, and we loaded the papers in there, and Anne Morey was down there, she was one of our classmates and she helped us out. I was pretty impressed with Anne[chuckles]. TB: Okay. BH: The gym, I remember, was filled--completely filled. It was a huge amount of paper. There was a lot of collections going on during the war. TB: Do you remember any other memories related to war? Did you have drills [in case] the Japanese were going to come and bomb or anything like that? BH: I can remember some, but I remember my brother cleaning out—we had a porch at our house and we cleaned that out for a bomb shelter. It was a real concern. But it was kind of exciting for the kids, for me it was, it was fascinating. Matter of fact, I remember two of our neighbors, Don Miller‟s sister went to Campus School, and she was ahead of Don and my brother, and she had a boyfriend named Bob Lewis, who lived near us. I remember them on their porch, Patsy Miller, Bob [Lewis]. She used to babysit me. I remember going over to her house when my parents were gone, and she‟d read to me and all that. And so, she was really a key person, but I remember Patsy and Bob Lewis on their porch before he shipped out and he was all dressed up in his uniform. And he never came back, he was killed in Saipan. Then there was another fellow, just behind us, who was a bombardier, Buzz Slentz. I remember he was flying over Germany and his plane was shot down, and he bailed out, and they never heard from him. But when I was overseas, the Slentz had asked me to go up to his grave site and take some pictures of it. I couldn‟t make it, but a friend of mine did, he got pictures of it. He died over there, I remember that very clearly, those two. And also all the flags in the houses with the stars. They were all over the neighborhood. TB: And that was how many boys that you had in service? BH: Yes, and then they had one if they died. I can‟t remember if that was a gold star or not, but there was a lot of them hanging in the windows. That was really quite a traumatic time. TB: What about after the war? Did you at all sense when the [veterans] started coming back to campus—or you really just didn‟t feel the college students at all. BH: No, I didn‟t see that much at Western. However when I went over to Pullman you really felt the GIs coming back, there was a lot of them, just a few of them coming back into Campus School. But I don‟t remember [much] except the ones who were killed, [those were] the only ones. 8 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Please share any other favorite memories of your Campus School days, or any comments that I haven‟t asked you about. BH: Well, the drawings, because I got praise for that. I took the drawings and I developed it into a business. When I went out on the research ship a person asked me, “Could I draw a ship?” And I said, “No, no, I can draw a fish.” So he said, “Well, draw me a fish and I’ll buy it.” So I did and he bought it. It wasn‟t very much, but once a person buys art work, you know they like it. You can give it to them, they‟ll say, “Wonderful, I really like it!” But really do they or don‟t they? But if they pay for it, you know they like it. So, then he said, “Well, draw me a ship. I like this fish, so draw me a [ship].” So I drew his ship and then another fellow came up later on and said, “I‟ve got some birthday money, draw me my boat.” So I did. It was just token money, just a little bit, I mean it wasn‟t much, and the amount of time put into it was much more. Then he said, “Why don’t you make prints of that and sell it to the crew?” We went to the printer, and you have to print 500 and 500—[that‟s] too many to sell. I got a printer to print me 50, [for about] the same cost as 500, but he printed 50 and I sold them to the crew. Then we started thinking about how to make them into a plaque, because during World War II the Navy had a lot of ship stores, and they had a lot of bronze, and they had foundries and everything. They started making brass plaques, and everybody wanted brass plaques. That‟s very expensive to etch into brass. So we, my wife and I, decided to transfer my drawings into a metal photo. It‟s an aluminum sheet that they developed during World War II for instrument panels in aircraft. They embed the image into the metal, then they can machine the metal and put an instrument in there. Then underneath it it says what‟s there; it‟s in there permanently, it can‟t be destroyed—or you have to destroy the metal to destroy the image. It‟s very clear: you make a negative, and then you transfer the negative to the metal plate. The Coast Guard has a [policy] that every two years they change to another boat, and so they have a tradition of giving them something when they depart, and so a plaque is ideal. TB: Oh nice! BH: So, we got into the Coast Guard, and we‟ve sold maybe twenty thousand, something like that. We sold the business three years ago. It was a nice, supplemental business, it couldn‟t hold by itself, but it was nice to have the second . . . So the drawings from the Campus School, to that [referring to the plaques], to now has really paid off. And my question is, is it a learning process, the skill of art, or is it hereditary? TB: Well, how much art was required of you in the Campus School? BH: None, as far as I know. I remember cooking class, dancing, but I don‟t remember much about art, and it was just something I did. When I went to high school I took drafting, and the teacher there said that, “Anything you learn here, you’ll use later in your life.” And that‟s actually what‟s happened, so it‟s kind of an interesting process. I don‟t know if it‟s learned or if it‟s practiced, but I do know that I was praised: it was always a good feeling [to have] them saying I did alright. So that encouraged me go on to do more. I still draw! TB: I was just going to ask you that! Okay, what kinds of stuff do you draw now? BH: Mainly ships. Because I wanted to draw airplanes, and you go back, and all the artists drew airplanes and everything assault but nobody drew ships, and so I started drawing ships. Still have the business . . . this is the last month the business is—we get our last check this month. It was a neat adventure. TB: Well, anything else then? BH: No, I think that‟s about it. At least I can‟t think of anything else. TB: Okay, well, I‟ll say „Thank you very much!‟ Addendum TB: [This is another side] of the story that Brian Griffin told about the crows. 9 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BH: Okay, well my brother, Jim, and Brian Griffin and myself, we had a place on Friday Harbor, a cabin that the Griffins and the Hitzes bought. My brother was always fascinated with crows and he kept talking about splitting a crow‟s tongue to make him speak, so he was out to catch some crows. They caught a crow in a trap— it was a fullsized crow—and they had a string on it, around the foot, and then I was supposed to hold the crow, while they did something else, and the crow got away with this great big long string flying about. It went up and disappeared. Then later on, a week or so along, they found a tree up on the property and there was a crow‟s nest up there. My brother climbed the tree and couldn‟t get to the nest because all the branches were too thick; and the crows were divebombing him and dropping stuff on him to keep him off the tree. So he chopped the tree down. The nest came down, and the baby crows fell out, and the big crow, with all the string, was all raveled around there and was dead. I remember that very clearly. Then they took the baby crows and they took then down to the house, and they decided to split them up. One went for Brian, and that was named Beulah, and then Huey and Louie we kept. And my brother had Huey and Louie. And we also found a couple baby seagulls. And we had them in the car with us, we went down on a ferry, and we were showing them off, the baby crows and the seagulls, and this game warden came up and said, “You’ve got to take the seagulls back because it’s illegal to take seagulls,” because seagulls are protected apparently. So we had to go back to the cabin and leave the seagulls on the beach, and then took the crows back. So, Beulah was Brian‟s crow, and Huey and Louie were my brother‟s. And Huey and Louie never got quite tame, and Beulah, which was Brian‟s crow, became quite tame and was really a neat—a friendly crow. Brian would walk down to school, and the crow would be flying way up above him, and some kid would come over and they‟d start talking and he‟d say, “See that crow up there?” And they‟d say, “Yes.” “I can call it down!” He [the other kid] says “No, you can’t.” And [Brian] says, “Yes I can!” And he‟d call it down; the crow would fold its wings, and come down and land on his shoulder. TB: Oh, nice! BH: The other thing the crow did was, anything silver or bright, it would pick it up and then take it up and drop it in the gutter. And so Brian said when he went up there to clean out the gutter they had rings, pans, all this stuff the crow had put away. Apparently, the crow then, later on, went down to the Bornstein fish market, down on the south side [and joined] with this big flock of crows, and that‟s the last they saw of it, [it] was flying off with all the other crows. So that‟s the—and the seagulls stuck around the cabin for a couple years. TB: Oh wow! Okay. BH: And Huey and Louie—Huey fell in the rain barrel and drowned, and the other crow I don‟t know what happened—I think it probably went—by the way, the crows, would go down and sit on the clothesline, and the sheets would be all flying out and then there‟d be these big streaks . . . and so everybody was ready to shoot the crows. TB: I guess so! [laughs]. BH: Well that‟s the story of the crow. [Another Brian story is] he was a year ahead of me in school. He had a natural ability to swallow air, and then belch it. It was really loud. When he walked home from school—from Campus School to home—all the kids would get him to belch. And I never saw it, but I heard of it, but my uncle, Dr. Rykken, when he was over at the cabin on San Juan, heard about his belching, and he said that‟s not a common practice but people can do it, and so Brian belched for him, and he said, “We’re gonna take you off to Hollywood, make a big star of you,” and all that. So that was another great fame of Brian‟s was his belching. TB: Well, thank you very much. 10 Bob Hitz Edited Transcript—October 10, 2006 Campus School Memories Project ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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