Historic Hood River
Park Street School, 1896
7-23-2015
Notes
The Park Street school sat where the Children’s Park now sits. These buildings always look so grand in the photos, but I suspect we would be less impressed if it survived to present day.
The History Museum of Hood River County
Bringing the Rich History of Hood River County to Life
Dan K
I went to third and fourth grade there back in the early 60s.
Arlen Sheldrake
Ah yes, us old guys remember some good and not so good times at Coe and Park Street schools….I don’t remember it looking so elegant. Some neat in class pictures…Joy Vernon Jubitz’s mother was one of our teachers…..boy I remember her as one no nonsense class manager. I also spent some time with the principal……
L.E.
It was still there in the 60’s? When was it demolished?
Yes, the photo does look grand, but Hood River had and still has some grand looking schools.
I suppose it was cold in the winter and hot in the early September days of school.
Jim Gray
This must be an early school, the Park Street school I went to in the fifties was Masonry.
Susan Turner
My father (Marv Turner) was principal of that school in the 1960s. I had 3rd and 4th grade there–imagine that! Your daddy for your principal! 🙂
Arthur
The only wide views we have of the Park Street School are of this wood building. I see a couple of tight views of kids in a doorway in 1915, and it is a brick building.
The Glacier reported on construction of the "new Park Street School" in December 1920, so apparently those dates were off a little. Now, do any of you have pictures of the brick Park Street School? I can’t find any in our 543 pictures of HR schools.
Norma
My most vivid memories of Park Street School was Principal Chipley making us line up by grade outside before school in the morning. He must have been a drill sergeant in the Marines!
I don’t have a picture of the whole school just one of our 4th grade class on the front steps. Yes Arlen, you are standing right in front of Mrs. Vernon. Arlen, do you remember her multiplication drills?
Susan Baldwin
Oh my, I had Mrs. Vernon as a teacher too. Liked her! I remember a brick school building, the cafeteria serving slimy okra for lunch, waiting in line for inoculations, meeting Nancy Wesche for the first time after her family moved to Hood River. Lots of memories. Did first and second graders walk from Coe Primary to PSS for hot lunch, or are some of my memories faulty?
Bill Seaton
And, yes, I was in the same 4th grade class with Arlen and Norma in 1950-51. Bea Vernon was my all-time favorite teacher and I actually enjoyed the multiplication drills. My favorite recess time and lunch hour activity was playing marbles for keeps.
Melody Shellman
A little trivia. Did you know that Bea Vernon was the sister of the woman who donated the land for Jackson Park, Vilate Jackson? I really enjoyed the article on the history of the park in yesterday’s Hood River News! And if you’re looking for old pictures of local schools, check with Ed Walston, retired custodian of May Street School. He’s amazing!
Jeffrey Bryant
We lived just down the hill from Park Street school. I remember playing low height basketball in the gym on the south, and marbles under the trees on the north. I still have all my marbles!
Cecelia Goodnight
Park St. School was a brick building in the late 40’s. Mrs. Finney was principal then and one of my main memories was Mrs. Clark who kept tubs soaking reeds around edge of room and we all made baskets during snowed in recesses and lunch times.
Bill Pattison
Miss Shinsato (sp) a 4th grade teacher gave my son a ukilali (sp)
and my grandson still plays it.
The building was totally subject to a fire that would have been horrible. It was demolished for this reason. The City Fire Dept. recommended it’s demise.
Many people feel that the flat area east of the rest room should have a rock with a plaque on it reflecting the history of this very contributing school. The stairs on the Hazel St. side were the north entrance to the school.
BillP.
L.E.
Was Miss Shinsato Japanese?
Thanks everyone for the memories. I enjoy reading them. And I am so glad Jeffrey still has all his marbles.
Many schools no longer allow playing for marbles, nor promote memorizing multiplication tables.
I wonder what those kids will have for memories sixty years from now?
I will have to check out the stairs on Hazel Street.
Arthur
Concerning "playing for marbles"– one of the treasures we recently found in a school district archive is a letter from the superintendent in the 1920s explaining the discipline problems he deals with, and "playing for keeps" was definitely frowned upon in that era as an element of delinquency. Bill, apparently, was a delinquent.
Arlen Sheldrake
I will testify that Bill is in fact a delinquent…..and he very probably has retained the evidence of his ill gotten marbles….some of us have lost our "marbles".
Marvin Turner,former principal
The picture is of "the old Park Stret School" . The new one was built about 1910 of brick and was closed about 1971( and burned shortly thereafter). "
The ‘great migration" movement of children to May Street (grades k-6), Hr Middle School grades 7-8 and the new High School allowed all the upper grades move to that building The realignment was completd when kindergartens were introduced, requiring an u9pward nudge to make room for them to the present configuratioon.
gerald w morgan
Ahhh, the good old days. I remember principal Chipley. I seem to remember that after a heavy snowfall that the principal fell through the roof of the outdoor basketball court while doing snow removal.
Kim Ekker
How fun it was to sled down the playground after school hours – but I admit to getting my tongue stuck to the monkey bars once when it was frozen!
Kim Ekker
PS I believe Miss Shinsato is Japanese-American. I think she was born in Hawaii. The only reason I think this is because she and my Mom (who taught third grade at Dee) had a cultural exchange day. We (Park Street kids) traveled to Dee where’s few of us did the hula and my Moms’ class did western dancing. We also had her over for dinner one night. I thought she was really cool!
Pat Nickerson
Miss Oberon was Principal, Ruth Rueter, 4th grade teacher, Miss Whitely 3rd, Mis Bryant and Miss Coe 5th and 6th grade in the mid 1930’s. moving the teeter totter closer to the monkey bars ended my flying thru the air routine to "save" space on the bars for my pals…… Marianne scearce, Ethel Mae Matheny, PeggyGodsey, Barbara Frazier and Elva Ann Alexander and others. I loved that school and those teachers best of all. wish there was a picture of that Park Street school of my memory.
Barbara Parsons
I remember the day my Park Street classmate Ed Nyseth (then McQuiston) (sp?) did the forbidden–swung so high on the big chain swing that he went "over the bar" That boy was a daredevil! I would have given anything to be as brave as he was. We were nine or ten at that time. Without any communication in the years after graduation, I received a lovely letter of condolence from him on the death of my husband when I was 50. At that time he was in the Navy, on the US Kearsarge. Courage AND courtesy…what a combination.
Barbara Parsons
Here’s another playground activity that had its run when
I was at Park Street School: balancing on the teeter-totter. It took two to play. A person sat on either end, and by edging back and forth managed eventually to equalize their weights. Then the "action" started. It was an endurance trial. How long could a pair maintain their equilibrum? This would be my game of choice now that I’m 80. Low exertion,high suspense. I wish I could find somebody to play it with me now.
Barbara Parsons
Does anybody remember a phys-ed teacher we had at Park Street named Miss Fineberg? This was before the roof was built over the outdoor gym. With six inches of standing water on the dirt surface and rain still falling, she would form us into a circle and make us play dodgeball. Sometimes she varied things by putting two or even three balls into play. Not only did those balls sting, but thy left circles of wet mud on our clothes which enraged our mothers. Parkas weren’t in use at that time, so most of us wore wool coats that either had to be sponged off or (horror of horrors!) dry cleaned. If it had been the least bit of fun, it might have been worthwhile. She would have been a good choice for football coach if there had been such a thing as little kids’ football. I’m sure she would’ve had us running up and down those Hazel Street stairs.
Barbara Parsons
I can’t believe that our solid masonry Park Street School could burn down! I am going out right now to take pictures of all the schools my kids and grandkids attended where I live now. I remember Park Street School’s huge windows which could actually open for fresh air. Every once in a while, people from "the state" would pop in with light meters to make sure we weren’t sitting in dimness. Fat chance.
Another use for those sunny windows was to catch flies. I had a little anole chameleon at home, and he relied on us to bring him live food. I would bring a small pill bottle to class, and when I would spy a fly (with my little eye) I would pop the mouth of the bottle against the glass and trap him and take him home. Sometimes other kids would bring bugs in bottles from home "for your lizard". Once Freddy Wilbur’s mom called my mom to sat she had found a bug in her basement and to send me down to get it for my lizard. What neighbors we had then!. When I got to her house, she handed me a fruit jar containing a young cricket, and asked me not to tell anybody she’d had a cockroach in her house! She was relieved when I identified it as a cricket
Stan Frederick
I was a student there from 1955-56 and my class was the first to through the newly renovated May Street School starting in 1957. Does anyone remember the third grade teachers at Park Street in 1955-56? I am trying to remember the one that I had.
Carolyn Downing Stevens
Stan, I had Mrs. Albright for 3rd grade. I don’t remember who the other teachers were. I was a year behind you.
William C. Seaton
Yes, Arlen, I do still have some of the marbles I won at Park Street.
Jeffrey Bryant
I have my marbles from Park Street School too.