Our Home in 1943

517 S.W. 100th St was a typical project home, as you can see. Rough wood siding painted a light battleship green at that time. Gravel road, gravel driveway with lawn newly seeded. But we always had sidewalks. Our unit extended to just the living room and two bedroom window sets. The third bedroom window set was part of our neighbor's unit on the other end. That's me in my mother's arms. My sister and brother are seen in the living room window. They were confined to the house being sick with some childhood disease like the measles.

Behind our '41 Chrysler Royale was the double coal shed for us and the other neighbor. My brother had the job shoveling coal for the kitchen stove (for cooking and hot water). Much later I took over when he started his job on a "Seattle Star" paper route.

Not too long after the time of this photo, I was able to walk and climb. I immediately escaped out of that first bedroom window and ran naked down the street.

The Old Schoolyard

Such a warm sight to my eyes despite the gloomy day in Spring, 1956. This is my little sister and friends. Gaze upon the vast expanse of pea gravel in back of the school where we enjoyed many a recess and after-school games. Different groups of kids were free to do their thing unlike the front of the school which was bisected by walks and fences, as I recall. In the Fall of 1948, when I started, the school was overcrowded and the two 1st grade classes were in the facing housing units just to the right of the dark clothed boy's head. "The Portables" I think they were called. It was cozy there but cut off from the rest of the school. I enjoyed it better in the 2nd grade when we began that year-by-year progression from one end of the long narrow school building to the other, west end where the gym was. Does anybody have a photo of the school itself?

4th Grade Class Photo

Ah, 4th grade, in retrospect the perfect class for a kid. Maybe you can recognize yourself in one of these faces. At nine, you were well accustomed to the school routines; apron strings completely cut. You were too young for the self-conscious, emotional turmoil of adolescence. You were hot stuff if you knew the answers in class and could outrun the other boys and girls on the playground. Your teacher was the most important female in your life and, if she was as pretty as Mrs. Sanders here, you were in love.

After 55 years I forget the names of half these kids (can you help me?) but their personalities remain vivid. Placid Delbert J; chatty little Larry P; wryly humorous Marvin; good old Claude S; my quiet classmate through all 7 years Bruce F; tall awkward Orville F; quiet loner Darlene S; quiet friendlies Faye, Yvonne and Bernice L; big, smart and popular Karen A. and her tall, lanky, less smart crony Betty T; and my only girl pal in class Diane L.

With my superabundance of mental and physical energies, I was ever a distraction in class. Mrs. Sanders even labelled me "obnoxious" on my report card. But I think she liked me, often getting to eyeball distance with me and talking me down to a dull roar.

The project kids here weren't marked by their appearance. I came across another 55 year old class photo from another school in the district, Normandy Park E.S. It was a ritzier neighborhood that we aspired to. All private houses, big yards and with an exclusive community center right on the Puget Sound beach. But the kids clothes and hairstyles were indistinguishable from ours. I initially thought some of the kids had transferred from my own class.

Welcome Old Neighbor or Classmate!!

I have created this blog to connect with former residents of White Center Heights, the old public housing project just south of Seattle. Also, former attendees of the WCH Elementary School are most welcome as are others who are interested in this special little place created at the beginning of WWII and now, sadly, is just a memory.

The old wooden school was demolished in 1973 and most of the houses have been leveled or drastically remodelled and renamed as "Park Lake Homes II". My family was one of the "pioneers" of the project, moving in 1943 before the school was even built. My older sister, brother and younger sister all attended WCHES. We finally moved out in 1956 after I had completed the 8th grade at Evergreen (then Jr.) H.S.