Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 5, May 2004
Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.
STAN'S LOOKOUT:
Interlake Elementary School remembered
By STAN STAPP
(Editor's note: The following column originally appeared in two parts in the May and June 1985 editions of The Forum, a community paper that covered Wallingford and Fremont, which was edited at the time by current Seattle Sun editor Clayton Park. The former Interlake Elementary School, located on the southeast corner of North 45th Street and Wallingford Avenue North, was converted that year into what is now known as the Wallingford Center.)
The beautiful restoration of Interlake Public School and conversion to a combination of apartments and retail establishments by Bruce Lorig & Associates is an important contribution to the growth and development of the Wallingford community.
The high quality of the project not only provides residents with a satisfactory solution to the problem of what to do with an abandoned school building originally built in 1902, but, for former students, has eased the pain of witnessing its slow deterioration.
Last December, I attended an open house marking the transformation of the old schoolhouse into the new Wallingford Center the last chance to see Interlake as I had know it as a student for six years, from 1924-1930.
I enjoyed chatting with Harriet Farrell, a sixth grade teacher back then, and director of the Boys Glee Club of which I was a member. It was also a pleasure to meet Robert Nelson, superintendent of Seattle Public Schools, who like myself attended Interlake, Hamilton (Junior High School) and Lincoln (High School) but later on than I.
"Did you know I used to work for you?" Nelson asked.
No, I didn't, but I could guess. As a youngster, like several thousand others, he had been a carrier for the Outlook newspaper, a Stapp family enterprise for 52 years in Wallingford.
I wandered about the building, as did many other Interlake grads, trying to identify each room and recall which teacher had been "mine": from Miss Nadeau (first grade), who got this 39-1/2 pound kid on his way; through Bertha Remley, Adelle Wheeler, Mildred Spear, Aileen O'Neill, and finally Lulu Shafer (sixth grade), who greatly encouraged my youthful writing attempts. (Miss Farrell said that two of my teachers are still around: Miss Spear and Miss O'Neill, residing in Washington, D.C., and Woodinville, Wash., respectively.)
When I started Interlake, Wallingford had sidewalks, but the residential streets were unpaved gravelly and full of mud holes. My usual route zig-zagged from my home at 4203 Woodlawn Ave. N., past the original Wallingford Playfield (now the site of Hamilton Middle School), north on Densmore Avenue North (now the middle of the present playfield), east on North 43rd Street, and north on Wallingford Avenue North.
The playfield at that time was mainly used by Lincoln High gymnasium classes. I don't recall the boys' gym outfits, but I remember that the girls wore big ballooning black bloomers.
The block between North 42nd and North 43rd streets, and Densmore and Wallingford avenues, was ungraded the high point being quite a bit above Wallingford Avenue. A horse or two was usually grazing there. When Hamilton was built on the site of the original playfield, the block with the horses was leveled, becoming the new playfield. This required moving the one house that had been built on the southwest corner, across the street, next to the gas station (which has since been torn down and replaced with a new home).
If I arrived at Interlake early, I might play bottle tops with my friends in the south school yard, which was then covered with pea gravel and, at times, mud puddles. Bottle tops were the round cardboard caps used on milk bottles. Two or more boys could play at a time, taking turns throwing the tops to the ground, one at a time, trying to hit those already there, retaining any that were covered.
The best tops were the oldest ones, tops that had been softened through wear and tear, by soaking in water or, better yet, in mud puddles for they were more apt to stick to the target, not bouncing off like the newer, stiffer ones.
When the school bell rang, we boys moved inside through the south entrance, holding our caps in our right hand over our left breast, marching to the drum beat provided by an older student situated in the middle of the school, on a platform in the main staircase LEFT, LEFT, LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT!
My principal for three years was George R. Austin, noted throughout Seattle as being the last of the strict disciplinarian-type principals. When Hamilton was built in 1927, he became its principal, and Charles F. McKeehan became mine from grades four through six. Mr. McKeehan was from the "new school" which believed kids might be reasoned with to a certain extent.
When I moved on to Hamilton, Mr. Austin again became my principal. Girls could not wear lipstick, silk stockings, or bobby sox; boys and girls couldn't walk to school together without written permission; and if Mr. Austin spotted a scrap of paper in the hall, all he had to do was yank open the nearest classroom door and roar, and a scared student would rush out to pick it up. To this day, I would not dare walk on the parking strip of Hamilton, and the last time I strolled Hamilton's halls, I picked up a piece of paper and a gum wrapper, looking nervously around to see if the long departed Mr. Austin might be watching.
Yet I survived those six years with Mr. Austin quite well, and though I wouldn't carry his discipline quite as far as he did I have to admit, quite sadly, that the younger generation has been going to the dogs ever since his departure from the school scene.
* * *
The opening of Wallingford Center in the former Interlake Public School building has triggered memories of my school days there some 60 years ago. The beautifully restored school now has 24 apartments on the top floor and retail tenants are leasing space, or have already moved in the basement and first floor.
The following are a few more of memories of my experiences as an Interlake student during the years 1924 until 1930:
. . . The time Marvin Popp pinned me backside to the playground trying to beat in to me the proposition that babies came from eggs. By any stretch of the imagination, I couldn't picture a baby coming out of a chicken-sized egg, even if it was a Large AA. (Marvin's dad was the original Mr. Popp of Wallingford's Tweedy & Popp Hardware.)
. . . Plugging my ears when rainy day recesses were spent in the school basement, the din of 400-plus boys in a confined area, reaching present day rock concert levels, I believe. The boys basement was in the south end, the girls in the north end.
. . . At Christmas time, everyone traipsing single file around to the other rooms to see their student-made decorations and Christmas trees (not then recognized as a fire hazard or a religious problem).
. . . When in the Boys Glee Club, being taught by Miss Harriet Farrell to eliminate the hissing sound created when singing the word Christmas, by substituting Chrithmth. Miss Farrell is Interlake's oldest surviving teacher, and a resident of the Wallingford District.
. . . Admiring the many athletic trophies in the main hall showcase, won by Interlake athletes when the school had eight grades, before the introduction of junior high schools.
. . . Learning the minuet and dancing around the Maypole, the latter sometimes on the lawn of McNett Realty Co., across the street from the school.
. . . Having to reword my handmade Mother's Day card because the teacher thought my message, "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MRS. STAPP," was a bit formal.
. . . Participation in Bank Day, once a week, by making a deposit in the Washington Mutual program, usually a penny, nickel or dime trying to achieve a better record than the other school rooms. Most rooms, if not all, achieved a high or perfect rate of participation by stockpiling a few pennies, wrapped in paper with each student's name written thereon, and kept in a cigar box, for emergency use on the day when he or she forgot to bring a deposit.
. . . Likewise the school office had a few extra neckties on hand in case any of the boys forgot to wear one.
. . . The time that Melvin King wanted me to play "John Alden" and ask Marion Bryson to go with him to the Saturday matinee at the Paramount Theatre (now the Guild 45th) for which he paid me one dime in advance. When I asked her and she said "No," it made my whole week, for I was kind of sweet on her myself but even more bashful than Melvin at asking for a date for myself.