Et cetera : A Blast from the Past - West School

This is a shot taken from 10th St., and E Ave, left is Norm Jacobsen and Skippy along with a friend

Girls playing in the SW corner of the football field at the West School

NW corner of the field looking north.

A neighborhood friend carrying a radio, standing in front of a '36 Chevy

Abt. 1948, this is inside an old one room classroom, do you know anyone in this photo?

Taken next to one of the old school houses located on the west end of West School's playground.

A few months ago I ran into John.

From time to time, he will be sending in photos and a bit about them for you to enjoy. 

This week's photos, center around the West School. Enjoy, you might see someone you know! Thanks John! 

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 Photo 1

A picture of the West School building from our house on 10th street and E Avenue. My brother, Norm, is on the left, with our dog Skippy. I do not remember who the young man was on the right. We played many a game of workup in the playground.

For those who do not know what "workup" is, it is played with a ball and bat and you do not have enough people to play a regular game of baseball. You all stand in a circle and toss the bat up slightly and one person grabs it. Then everyone takes turns putting your hand on top of the last person, and the one who gets their hand on the top of the bat is the first batter. Then everyone else takes to the field to catch the ball when batted by the batter. A fly ball is worth 100 points, a single bounce is 50, and a grounder is 25. The first person to get to 500 then replaces the batter, and everyone starts over on their total scores. We spent many an hour playing that game.

Photo 2

This shot is looking to the southeast and I do not know who the young ladies are. I believe they would be girls that my brother Norm knew.

Photo 3

This was taken from the football field on the northwest side of the school, looking north. Again, I do not know who the young girls are.

Photo 4

Another shot from our house on 10th street. I do not know who the young man is, probably a friend of Norm's. Notice the old radio he has under his arm, and our old 36' Chevy.

The small white building on the left side of the picture was a small grocery store that my grandfather Thomas Phillippe owned for a few years. He sold it to my Aunt Alma who only kept it a few years before she sold it to someone else. I spent quite a bit of my allowance and later paper route money in there.

A few of us use to sit on the bench out front of that store taking a drink from our 5 cent bottle of Pepsi and then putting in a bag of peanuts and then taking a drink of pepsi and eating the peanuts as they came out. When my grandfather owned the store he still had the small barrels of crackers and pickles. Also many glass jars of different types of candy.

One thing he told me was that in all the years he owned the store he saw all the neighborhood kids stumble into the door. They would be in a hurry and trip on the "one" step to get in, but he said he never saw one on the kids from the blind school stumble. He said, "you younguns need to pay attention to what you are doing."

Photo 5

This is the inside of the old one room school houses. I am the second from the left in the first row. I do not remember who the others are specifically, but I do know that Fern DeBates was one of them. This picture was probably taken in 1948.

Photo 6

The old one room school houses on the west side of the football field. My brother Norm is the eighth one from the left. He is standing just to the left and behind the guy in the middle with his legs crossed and hands in his pockets. I was told these old school houses were moved into town from surrounding areas to consolidate the schools. I believe there were six or seven of them total, and they had their own playground behind them. I got my first kiss under the grape vines in the back.