Beloved teachers spark memories

E-V-E-R-E-T-T, stands for Everett High…

The building is 100 years young, so it welcomed many of us to a reunion. I got there at 12:30 so I could enter the building at exactly 1 p.m., the published starting time. I found out which room the ’30s were to sign in, Room 223. I believe that was where Mrs. Effie Ramstad taught me American history.

On the north end of the third floor I looked at the doors of the rooms where I studied botany from Jane Taylor and Ethel Wycoff. And the door in between where Bert Vanderwilt drilled zoology into us. I often think of those three teachers as I enjoy my lifelong hobby of keeping and racing homing pigeons.

Then heading south, another Jane Taylor class, chemistry this time. Across the hall, three years of English with Ruth Stephenson. At the end of the hall, geometry from Charles Hatlen. Isabelle Carlisle made us aware of the world around us in Current World Problems. That was late 1937 and we knew the war was coming.

I looked into the ’30s room again, no one there for 1938, 1937 1/2 to be exact, 73 years ago almost to the day in January. Bonita Rowland Hubbard and Lucibelle Spencer O’Grady had telephoned to remind me and to make sure I signed in at our room but neither of them could make it.

I looked in at the library but had to head across to that new building built in 1939, the Civic Auditorium. It was a great 90 minutes; Larry O’Donnell took us through all 117 years. Then to the cafeteria for cookies and tea, chatting with several people. I sat down with two old gentlemen; it turned out they graduated more than 20 years after me. They hadn’t even started first grade yet in 1938.

When I got back to the library, it was nearly 4. I took a quick walk around, people weren’t anxious to leave, no one seemed to be kicking us out, but I reluctantly left. An afternoon to treasure.

Thank you, everyone, including The Herald for great coverage before and after.

Elwin F. Anderson

Everett