School days. -Photo courtesy of Naismith family private collection.

A young woman clings gracefully to a bannister at Olympia High School. ~Courtesy of Naismith family.

This postcard scene shows downtown Olympia during the holidays. ~Talcott family.

~Photos courtesy of Shattuck family, Betty Shoblom, and Naismith family private collections.

An Olympia High School football player strikes a pose. ~Courtesy of Naismith family collection.

A drayman is in front of the Olympia Tug & Barge Co. ~Courtesy of Craig/Smith private collection.

School days. -Photo courtesy of Naismith family private collection.

Our Memories; continued

Teacher's Journal

Teacher's Journal

Diane Waiste, current principal of John Rogers Elementary School, shared several pages taken from her grandfather's journal. Ray Gruhlke kept a journal from 1886 to 1958, and the following are a few of Gruhlke's entries written in 1906 when he was beginning his teaching career at a tiny school in Yelm:

Oct. 1 -- My first day of school. I didn't have the least idea how to start out, but I managed to get along somehow. I have a small, wooden schoolhouse. It is painted. It is ceiled on the inside but not papered. There are 8 seats. I enrolled 7 pupils this morning, practically all Germans, although they can talk English. There are 3 girls and 4 boys. One sixth grade, one fifth, three third and one first year. The youngest is 7 and has been to school a part of a year. He is scart half to death every time I come around. On the whole I got along very well. The chief trouble is that they have so few books.

Oct. 2 -- I saw the primary teacher of the school south of Yelm and she gave me good advice about teaching. My scholars' names are Mabel, Henrietta and Tommie Twichwell; Edgar and Irwin Stoeppin; and Walter and Linda Drabe.

Oct. 3 -- This is quite a wild country around here. There are few farms. Coyotes are numerous, even coming into the yard in the daylight after chickens. Drabes' dog disappeared yesterday and they think the coyotes got him. They say there are cougars around near here.

Oct. 4 -- I am getting along pretty well at school now. I saw the clerk and got a dustpan and an axe for the school.

Oct. 5 -- I went to Olympia on my wheel after school. It took me not quite two hours. It is 22 miles from the schoolhouse. I am glad to get home again.

Oct. 31 -- They want to have school eight months and I think I will get $45 all right beginning in January. I paid my board tonight $10. I am making slow progress in studying. My lamp either goes out of kerosene or is out of the room with someone else. When I do have the lamp it makes poor light and smells like a dirty lantern. I have an alcohol stove to heat water in the morning. It costs me about five cents a week. I have bought several new books in Olympia Saturday and managed to spend nearly all of my month's wages.

Talcott remembers

An interview with 86-year-old George Talcott in 1976 was recorded on reel-to-reel tapes that have since been donated to The Evergreen State College library. Some of his memories from just one of the tapes follow:

- The first school in Olympia was built in 1852, but was crushed during a snowstorm in the fall of the same year.

- He recalls riding a wood-burning steamboat to Seattle to greet soldiers coming back from the Spanish-American War.

- The Saturday night band concerts were popular events, and people rode to town on horseback to attend.

- The Olympia Knitting Mill was a company formed by the leading men in Olympia, but "was never financially sound and failed." Located at Fifth Avenue and Jefferson Street, the mill sold products to the West Coast market for about 15 years.

- The Talcott Bros. store was heated by a pot bellied stove. "Governor Rogers used to sit and spit tobacco juice on the belly of the hot stove."

On newspapers, Talcott said, "The Washingtonian was John Miller Murphy's newspaper. He was a very spicy writer and it was a high-rated newspaper." He remembers that The Daily Olympian was at the top of the hill in the old school house.

When the old Capitol burned, Talcott said the Tacoma fire department responded. Talcott said the fire truck in Olympia was drawn by a team of white horses, and was an exciting thing to see. "Horses could beat an automobile to a fire by five or six blocks. When the gongs sounded, the doors to the stalls would open and the horses would go out and stand."

The Olympian Copyright 2000

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