VERNON GRADE SCHOOL: Class of 1953

Vernon Grade School, Portland, Oregon, early on a fall morning in 1948. On the stairs are Mark and Mary Strachan. Dunno who the others are.

I have a great fondness for British generational BBC series, often adapted from whole serieses of books by the generation who lived through two world wars, the intervening Depression, and the spectacular beginning of the Space Age. The Cazalets, Lilies, A Dance to the Music of Time, and today I finished up Nancherow. Of course, 7 Up is the ultimate -- still ongoing -- and perhaps the deepest lodged is Upstairs, Downstairs. Thanks to Netflix, we don’t have wait for them to be programmed onto cable.

My original Vernon Grade School class, entering kindergarten in 1944 and graduating from the eighth grade in 1953, has reconvened and meets monthly for a “night out.” Since most of these people went on to Jefferson High School together, the Jeff grads overlap. The Alumni Association there is almost as active as it is for most colleges. This is rather remarkable because as we grew up, the demographics of the area changed radically until it was populated by Southern blacks brought in as wartime labor and then displaced by the Vanport Flood into our North and Northeast part of town, which began as a little country village and had decades of life as shops along street-car routes and the modest houses that grew up around them. Now the City of Portland is encouraging mixed groups to share their memories.

The Vernon Class of 1953 is nearing seventy years old, entering our fourth generation so that some of us have great-grandchildren. It’s time to gather our own stories and, since the Internet make it so easy, to put them into a book via www.lulu.com, another of the digital innovations. I’m the main gatherer, but we need the stories.

I don’t think Doctor John Webber will mind if I mention the garage door that closed on his back in the middle of a game of hide-and-go-seek, which marked the beginning of a long fight by a local doctor to keep him from being paraplegic. This fight was so hard fought, so invested in John as a person, and so internalized that Dr. John has been a dedicated lifelong warrior in the fight against disease, trauma, deprivation, and hardship. Somehow he’s done all this with the zest of Spike Jones (remember his wacky records?) and has swept the rest of us along with him. He’s promised to write about it.

There must have been other turning points, some of them secret crises and some of them world events. We came to consciousness, as they say, as WWII was just turning towards victory. Our teachers seemed very old, but I suspect they were mostly in their forties, which meant they were born about 1900, coming to consciousness just as the automobile displaced the horse. They were rural or small town in style, devout in their understanding of education, confident that they were doing the right thing, and equally confident that WWII was noble and valiant. There was enormous security in their conviction.

I can’t remember my kindergarten teacher, but maybe the others can. I was terrified by school, even in half-day doses. The room, which is now Vernon’s administration offices, is as alive in my senses as it was from the beginning. The other children were a blur. I entered late so they were a group rather than individuals and I remained a bit of an outsider right on through high school.

The first grade teacher was Mrs. York, I think. We learned poetry by heart: “Up the airy mountain and down the rushy glen, Daren’t go a hunting for fear of little men...” At Christmas, because I had red hair, I recited “Holly,” which imprinted me forever with the spotlight. And I was pressed into service as a red-headed angel sitting on a cushion by a red-headed boy angel. I think he didn’t stay. He lived in some of the neighborhood’s more marginal housing. Some houses were little more than shacks. Some streets were unpaved right on up to today. The banana man kept his horse and wagon behind the Alberta Theatre and more than one old lady with rural roots had a little flock of chickens.

The second grade teacher was Miss Munson, I think. She had soup and crackers for lunch and if you were very good, she let you wash out the saucepan. What about Mrs. Qualman and who was that other teacher of the same grade -- the one with the bad temper who threw an ink pot at my brother?

But then who was the third grade teacher?

In fourth grade we began to “pass” between rooms. Mr. Garnett was science and my home room. He was a memorable man! Mrs. Rumble taught music and told us all about her wonderful son. Mrs. Kraut taught art. Miss Colbert -- talk about MEMORABLE! was fourth grade and her trademark was puppets. Or you might have Mrs. York -- can that be right? -- whose little schtick was radio.

Fifth grade was Miss Eade who insisted on fine handwriting and this is when Pearl Lee joined us from China, displaced by the Japanese invasion. World events did not pass us by.

Sixth grade was Mrs. Rhea who taught us South America by offering us yerba mate, which she represented as being rather risky because of the caffeine! Stronger than Mountain Dew! And she read us “The Saturdays” by Elizabeth Enright.

In seventh grade Mr. Jones pitting Art Schmidt and I against each other as sentence diagramming champions. Mr. Jones, a young man, was resented by the girls who hinted at bad behavior, so he married the kindergarten teacher and went to dental college.

In eighth grade we had Miss Carter, or rather that formidable woman had us. Even late in life she ran that classroom as though she were a nun, and she was such a pillar at St. Andrews Catholic Church (a cathedral church on Alberta) that it’s kind of curious why she wasn’t in an order somewhere. Her “thing” was Red Cross boxes, knitting squares for afghans for the soldiers in Korea, and puppets -- but not hand puppets like Miss Colbert -- rather marionettes on strings.

So Vernon students from the years between 1944 and 1953, send me your tales, your photos, your additions and corrections. Then I’ll put a green shade over my forehead and see what I can make of them. Kibitzing is welcome, even if you didn’t go to Vernon, even if you’ve never been to Portland.