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AI: We're continuing our interview with Helen Amerman Manning, and I wanted to take you back to 1943, and school is continuing through that year. And if you could tell us, you alluded to some of the difficult conditions of operating a school there. I was wondering if you could tell us just a little bit about, say, a typical school week in, in 1943. What that would look like and what some of the conditions and challenges might have been.

HM: Now, are talking about the first year or the second year?

AI: Yes, the first year.

HM: The first year. Well, the typical school day started at eight in the morning, for the teachers it ran 'til five, and then four hours on Saturday morning. We were in the civil service, forty-four hours, so we had lots of time for preparation. The students, except for those in work experience program, which was another aspect of the progressive education which was part of the design, the work experience program, they would spend half a day working under supervision of a high school teacher who oversaw the whole program, in various specialties. For instance, there would be high school students working in the carpentry shop, or in auto mechanics... I would imagine offices. There was something like forty-two different options of work experience. So those would be off for the afternoon. There would be classes from eight in the morning until about three, and then there were...

I remember the first school dance came in December. It was a Christmas mixer. And the faculty were a little bit upset because Mr. Light said, "Now, this is a student activity. Let the students plan it." Oh, we just foresaw it was going to be a disaster. And we got down there, the dining hall had been transformed into a ballroom with lots of crepe paper decorations, the tables pushed back against the wall, the floor carefully waxed. They borrowed some student's record player. I don't know, I assume it was a student's record player. The various students contributed records from their collections, and everything moved so smoothly. Come intermission, the girls had made refreshments, there were egg salad sandwiches and punch, everything was orderly. Came the end of the dance, we didn't have to tell the cleanup crew that it was time to put things back. In no time the school was back to normal, the dance was over, and that was the pattern of school dances from then on, even to the egg sandwiches. [Laughs]

AI: [Laughs] Oh, that sounds like -- it must have been a wonderful event for the students.

HM: It was. And of course, they had the school athletics and Hi-Y and Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls, I guess. So there were activities in addition, but I didn't get involved in those very much.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.