When my sister started school, she went to a grade school on the corner of First South and First West. I remember going there with my mom when I was about 3 or 4 for a program. I also remember our maypole dances on the first day of May on the playground.

The girls wore their pretty spring dresses, anklets, stockings, and white shoes. I don’t remember when this old school was torn down or what it was used for after the new school was finished.

Tooele Central School was built north of the old school. It was beautiful. It had cork floors and ramps with railings to go from floor to floor. The window glass was reinforced with wire. We were taught not to use the railings along the ramps so they wouldn’t get worn.

We would march single file to our classes and we were called “Jensen’s Army” after our beloved principal, N. Howard Jensen. He was such a good principal.

The lady teachers wore dresses and the male teachers wore suits. We had desks with a hole for inkwells and a shelf for our books, crayons and pencils. We took good care of our supplies, and our crayons lasted all our school year. We were careful not to waste paper or sharpen our pencils too often.

We had blackboards with chalk and erasers. We cleaned the erasers down in the basement by rubbing them on a screen, and we considered it an honor to be chosen to clean them.

There were big black locust trees in front of Central School. They had big pods filled with seeds that we used to peel the top skin from. We would put them on our lips and they looked like a cold sore or blister. I wonder what our teachers thought to see all the children with blisters on their lips?

Some of the children were not getting balanced diets during those hard times, so all the children were given iron tablets that tasted like chocolate, once a week. The first free school lunch in the country was started at Tooele Central School. A stove was put in a room in the basement, a lunch room was prepared with benches and tables. A nourishing vegetable soup was furnished everyday. Our mom packed a wonderful lunch for me and my sister everyday in the winter, using our dad’s big, black lunch bucket. We had cold packed deer meat sandwiches with pickles and mayo, apples and a Hostess Cupcake. We each had our own hot Ovaltine in the thermos. We ate that and a bowl of soup. No food was wasted at that time.

Our lady teachers were Miss Garfield, Miss Sarah Orme, Miss Evelyn Martin, Miss Dorothy Anderson, Miss Agnes Partridge, Miss Jennie Huffaker, Miss Trish Spiers, Miss Guinevere Anderson, Miss Hanora Long, Miss Melba Spiers, Miss Ramona Dodd and a Miss Jenson. They could not teach if they were to get married. Several did get married and left the teaching profession.

The male teachers were Mr. Lloyd Callister, Mr. Bryan, Mr. Hutchings, Mr. T. Leo Jacobs, Mr. Cullimore and Mr. Dee Gowans. The male teachers could be married as long as their wives did not work outside the home.

We had school operettas with costumes and excitement every year in our school auditorium that had a real stage and curtains.

We had fun times along with getting educated in those days. We made classroom Valentine boxes and waited for our names to be called as each Valentine was pulled from the box.

We had peanut busts — all the peanuts we could eat. One time the whole school was let out to go to the “Three Little Pigs” movie at the Strand Theatre. It cost one dime each.

Our long and seemingly endless summer when school was out was spent doing chores and freedom to roam when they were done. We had the hills, the canyon, the swimming pool on Vine Street and the town to explore.

In the spring we played hide and seek, Run My Sheepie Run, Red Rover and neighborhood baseball games. We played Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, jacks and hopscotch. We went roller skating around town with skates that fit over our shoes with a strap around our ankles and a key-tightened clamp around the toes. We wore the key on a string around our neck to tighten the clamps from time to time. We seldom spent much time in our homes, and we played games well into the evening.

Doors were left open for nighttime breezes and I never heard of any problems because of it. I remember there was a murder in Salt Lake City that made the front page of the paper, but it was the only one in my childhood. The kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby back East horrified and shocked everyone in Tooele. But life here was simple and safe.

Dorothy Lawrence Iman graduated from Tooele High School in 1944. She currently resides in Ogden.

compiled by Abby Palmer