Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Time and Again – at Cooper School
I’m hopelessly nostalgic, so when September arrives so do childhood memories of schoolgirl days at Frank B Cooper School. The building is still standing in West Seattle as sturdy as the last century, though it has been converted into the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.
The overpass is still there, too. We used it to cross Delridge Way, helped by students on patrol, wearing hat, and sash. Some on patrol, extended their flags with a sing-song ‘ready-walk’ to help us cross side streets below.
When I learned of the school’s 100th anniversary celebration a few years ago, I had to attend, hoping to trigger memories bound up in the hallways, smells of warm sandwiches left in lockers, shoes shuffling on marked-up floors.
I was welcomed by young greeters.
Had I ever been there before they asked? Yes, before you were born, but I didn’t say it, just that I’d gone to school there many years before. They encouraged me to look around with other returning alumni. I thought I might recognize faces through the years but did not.
I climbed the stairs and I was in 4th grade again, debating with my best friend Joyce, which group was the best, Paul Revere and the Raiders (her choice) or the Monkees (mine.) I remember Miss Warner interrupted and told us to stop acting like monkeys. We laughed at her words though I felt my group had been impugned.
Miss Warner was my favorite teacher. Her face and dress were golden tan, her hair the same color, short and tightly coiled. She wore black shoes like the piano she played – music that encouraged me forever. I hope she knows this.
I found the lunchroom where we lined up to buy a hot meal for 35 cents, from smiling ladies wearing soft shoes and hair nets. On Tuesdays we had hamburgers, they were delicious, the meat stretched by oatmeal, I think. If I brought a sack lunch, there was still milk to buy in tiny cartons for a nickel with two cents change in return. The best ice cream sandwiches could be bought for 12 cents, and I did when I could.
We ate in the same room that served up assemblies and Disney movies after school and where I stood on the stage and spoke in the Christmas program.
We played ‘red rover’ and ‘soak out’ in a space that now seemed much too small. The gym, where we also square danced to ‘pistol packin’ mama’, a song no longer welcomed but was innocent then.
I visited the Office where naughty boys were sent to get the paddle for their foolery.
Not me. I was an ‘office girl’ answering the phones with ‘Cooper School student speaking.’ (I guess I was destined to be in an office.)
After an hour of wandering the hallways I left, leaving the memories behind for now.
You can read more about the history of Youngstown and Frank B Cooper School here: Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
I’m glad that you have these wonderful memories with you, Susanne. ❤️ I remember lots of things from high school and elementary school too.
Thanks, John. I think I have the most memories from elementary school, because I spent 7 years there, K – 6th, and only 3 years each at my junior high and senior high.
When I was in school, only 10-12 was high school but it’s different today. Why it was changed is a mystery. I was very shy which made school difficult, really introverted!
Me, too. I liked it better that way. 7 – 9 junior high, 10 -12 high school.
Right, we need to know why it was changed! 😂
Wonderful nostalgia! Weren’t those the days?
Sadly, my grammar school (which included grades 1-12), was a wooden structure deemed no longer ‘up to code’, was razed to the ground after a new brick school was built to replace it. I’ll never have the chance to walk those wooden corridors again in real life, but only in memory.
Oh wow, K – 12! Too bad they razed it. I remember my elementary school the most because I spent 7 years there, K – 6th. Then I moved on to the nearby junior high school for 3 years, followed by a move across town for high school, 10 – 12.
What a beautiful school! I don’t know how you come up with these fascinating posts.
We must be close to the same age based on the price of lunch tickets and milk. We had spaghetti with garlic bread on Thursdays, everybody’s favorite.
Thank you so much! I have fond memories from those schoolgirl days. 😊 And I figured I was giving my age away by mentioning the Raiders and the Monkees!
It always amazes me how old schools are good enough for other purposes yet not for schools. We have several in town repurposed for town offices and one is senior living.
Good point! I’m glad they at least saved the building. Makes we wonder whether the population of children in the neighborhood declined so it wasn’t needed for a school anymore.
A wander down memory lane there Susanne. Several years ago I received an invitation to attend my high school’s 500 year anniversary! I couldn’t go and I doubt many of the school’s early students did either!
500 year anniversary? A typo or… There must be more to the story. Do tell! 😊
Not a typo. The school dates back to the 1500s I think. There’s a lot of old stuff in Britain. Near where my parents lived in Cornwall, there was a church with a list of sponsors, I think. Halfway down that list was Queen Elizabeth, and that was the first Queen Elizabeth!
Aha! I kept wracking my brain for somewhere in the USA where there might be a school 500 years old and kept coming up short. (Jamestown? St. Augustine, not quite!) Wonderful history, Graham, I didn’t realize you’re from Britain. Thought you were a Washingtonian. 🙂
Not a Washingtonian, but I lived there a good many years!
Wonderful memories. I went back to my old school and read from my books to the current students. It was so special!
Oh, that sounds wonderful!
I also have nothing but happy memories of my days at senior school in central London. I went back for two reunions, and only stopped when the teachers I loved to see again started to die.
This my school in 1963. The Victorian old buildings on the left, and the newly-built glass block on the right. It is still there, but they changed the name from Walworth Scool to Walworth Academy. (Walworth is the name of the London district where it is situated.) Best wishes, Pete.
I was happy to go back and visit the old school, though I didn’t see any of my old classmates. Lots of good memories. And I found your link. I love the old Victorian buildings!
It seems the photo link didn’t work. https://remakingenglish.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/buildings-patj-3-copy.jpg
I found your link!
It’s great that you had this opportunity to wander the corridors of your old school like this. I can just imagine how many memories they triggered!
It really did! Seven years of my childhood spent there, from K – 6th grade. Lots of wonderful teachers, friends and memories. 🙂
Lovely stroll down memory lane.
Thank you. ☺️