REMEMBER WHEN FROM THE PAST--PETEETNEET, TAYLOR AND PARKVIEW SCHOOLS

REMEMBER WHEN

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Kenna Holm

PETEETNEET SCHOOL, TAYLOR SCHOOL AND PARK VIEW SCHOOLS

    So many things have changed over the years.  I went to elementary school at the old Taylor School which was one of Payson's first school houses.  When I  went to school at Taylor, there  was just the  Peteetneet and Taylor Elementary schools.  The kids on the East side of Main Street went to the Peteetneet  School before the addition was added and the kids on the West side of Main Street went to the Taylor.

    The Taylor School had 6 class rooms then in 1949 they added on to the North of the building making 4 more class rooms and an auditorium.  Before then, we had our assemblies and programs in the big hallway of the school.
    Our  lunch room was in the basement and we had to go downstairs by the furnace room to get to the lunchroom.  When I was there the teachers I remember were: Della McCellan was
1st grade and also kindergarten (we just went 6 weeks in the summer as I

    Thora Jean Moore Jewett said they loved living next to the Parkview because  they had  the park to go play at and all the land behind her house.
    In talking to Jim Pfouts, who also lived  in the neighborhood, he told me a few things they did.  They called the field where the playground is now, 'The Pasture'.   He said they used to hunt  pheasants in there and one day shot one that landed on Ralph Wilson's 2nd story balcony.(now who would do such a thing?) He also said that when they were building the school, the neighborhood kids would take flash lights and half of them would go to the north end of the structure and half to the south and theywould crawlup in the rafters and crawlalong towards eachother and ifyou got hit with the beam of a flashlight, you were dead.
    Jim said that the old Wilson home stood on the corner of 1st East and 3rd South.To the South there was the home of Annie Spainhower (she was a clerk at Christensen’s for many years).  The Westrings lived in the basement of her home.   Next to that was the basement home that belonged to Glen and Afton Hansen.  There was then an empty lot and the then home of Mary Jeppson (who taught at the Taylor and then went onto the Park View to teach) stood about where we find the front entrance ofthe schooltoday.  There was another empty lot and then the Patten home was across the street from Jim Pfouts’.  Next came the old Bale home.   This home was originally built by Joseph L.  Townsend.   He wrote many of the hymns we find in LDS hymnbooks today.  Just to the southofthat was the home of the Morse's (that was Thora Jewett's mom and step-dad).  When they built the schooltheytook out the Hansen’s house, Jeppson’s, Patten’s and the Townsend  home.  Thora Jean’s parents home still stands just south of the school today.
     Mrs.  Jeppson said when she went to the Park View to teach, it felt like home since she could look out the window and see the same things she did when she lived in her home located there.
    I think the first principal of Park View was  Garth Olson (Mildred's late husband).  My mother worked in the lunch room along with Trelma Curtis, Lora Miller and another lady I don't remember the name of.   My mom was one of the best cooks and so was Trelma.  Mom did the baking.  It was nothing like the hot lunch programs of today.  They did all the cooking from scratch.  In fact I have a lot of my mothers recipes she used at the school.  (Big recipes) She made hot rolls that were to die for.
    Also Jack Powellwas the next principaland he would love to sneak into the kitchen and get treated to hot rolls or cinnamon rolls before lunch time.
    The school was beautiful and they had a lot of play area in back.  Then like every thing else, it became too small.  They used mobile units for a while to take care of the over load of students.
 

   Then in the last few years they expanded more.  They took the home that was South of the corner of 300 South Main.  That home was the home of Ralph Wilson.  He had 3 daughters, Barbara, Andra Lou and Colleen.   Barbara and I were good friends and runaround in the same crowd.  We had a lot of fun parties at that house.   Ralph sold the house when he married Jean Christensen.   Rex and Harriett Mendenhall bought it.  Now it's gone and it's also part of the play ground for the Park View School.
    There was also a dry cleaners on the very corner of 300 South Main that was owned by Darrell Hill.  He closed it and built down the street by Crump's  car dealership  that later became Jolly Joe's.  The cleaners was then  run (after the Hill's moved) by Mary Mortensen.  (Jim's mother).  After that Joe Wilcock and his wife Shirlee bought it and run the cleaners for a long time. 
    It seems just like yesterday they built the Park View but its been 55 years but it's really fun to remember when....