Doomed old school once a New Deal project

Sixty years after graduation from La Conner High School, members of the Class of 1954 are still doing their homework.

And the topic of interest is history.

Specifically, local history.

That’s because these La Conner alums were born the same year — 1936 — that the recently vacated La Conner Elementary School building was constructed, a project made possible in great measure by the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was the largest and most ambitious of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies.

It’s often been said in the eight decades since the Great Depression that almost every community in America had a new park, bridge, or school constructed by the WPA, which at its peak employed more than 3 million people.

La Conner was no exception.

The elementary building, in fact, would become a cornerstone of what by 1942 was proudly proclaimed in and around La Conner as “an excellent example of a modern small community school system.”

But soon the old La Conner Elementary School will be no more.

The building, which up until a few months ago had been designated for renovation as a middle school, is now scheduled for demolition. This after concerns were raised that the historic school might literally crumble under the stress of remodeling work and that mandated upgrades to comply with flood plain standards would prove far more costly than new construction.

Countless former students, however, remember the school in better days.

Among them are the Class of 54’s Nancy Van Wieringen, David Alvord, and John Summers, who have collaborated on a written history of the building and many of the staff, who made the school an integral part of the lives of La Conner’s youth.

Their account is so vivid, so descriptive of student life in La Conner, the trio is being encouraged to convert their work to book form.

“They’ve collected a lot of information,” notes Wendell Skaflestad, among those familiar with the project, “that otherwise might have been lost forever.”

Especially details related to the World War II period.

“We entered that building as first-graders in 1942,” Alvord recalls, “and that’s when the war was on. I can remember the military boats that were here in La Conner at that time.”

Van Wieringen and Sum-mers recount with pride the role their classmates played on the home front.

“One day each week,” Van Wieringen says, “we brought our nickels to school, and eventually we’d have enough to purchase, for ourselves, a Liberty Bond. By doing so, we were helping the war effort.”

The campus, she and Alvord remember, featured a small elevated airplane lookout — similar to a gazebo on stilts — from which students and adult volunteers took shifts scanning the skies for possible enemy aircraft.

The War era students were influenced by a literal Who’s Who of La Conner School District. There was the legendary Jack Whittaker, the one-armed son of an English diplomat, who served simultaneously as an administrator, teacher, and coach.

The La Conner football field, opened in 1972, is named for the iconic Whittaker.

Their honor roll of teachers includes Sara Baldwin, who wrote and directed grade school plays; Miriam Nelson, known for her unique artistic skill; and Clara Church, who once each year amazed students by undoing her tightly bound hair and letting it cascade in seemingly endless fashion down her back toward the floor.

In some cases, four generations of the same family either attended or worked at the single-story, red-brick La Conner Elementary School, which would undergo numerous additions, including a sweeping north wing eventually connected by a covered breezeway to the round La Conner High building that opened in late 1974.

Tom Zimmerman, whose wife, Judy, is on the La Conner Elementary faculty and was among those who moved their classrooms across Sixth Street earlier this month, remembers attending classes in the old building in the 1960s.

Before bullying became the buzzword it is today, Tom says the 60s saw at least one La Conner teacher take an innovative approach to curb potential student aggression.

“We had a teacher in sixth grade named Dick Moore, who put a punching bag up in the classroom,” Tom recalled. “The idea was instead of hitting the kid that was bugging you, you’d hit the bag.”

There is no shortage of amusing anecdotes from those days related to classroom management and discipline, many linked to the diminutive but no-nonsense Elsie Cecotti, who took on many teaching assignments over the course of a long career.

Cecotti, many recall, was adept at admonishing students for poor behavior while deftly hiding a bemused smile.

Not all memories, of course, are so benign.

La Conner Grade Schoolers were summoned from mid-morning recess on Nov. 23, 1963 to learn that President John F. Kennedy had been shot dead earlier that day in Dallas, Texas.

Though school was dismissed early, there were no smiles of joy.

Emotions ran strong as well when it was learned La Conner’s trade of elementary and middle school campuses would effectively retire the old building.

“La Conner Schools have been at the heart of our community for years,” Judy Zimmerman stressed to her colleagues as the elementary move approached.

“Generations have passed through these hallways,” she added. “This is a bittersweet day for some, a glad farewell for others.”

And yet, Judy insisted, on one account all are agreed: The old La Conner Elementary School will leave its mark.

“Whatever it may be to each one of us,” she said, “please pause a bit to honor and acknowledge the long list of educators who spent time in this building, and the parents and students who left their footprints and memories here.”