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Show .... flr-'-i --if ! y , : hi i Students at South Davis Elementary were never lacking in projects. Every year, the school had a maypole like this one to celebrate May Day. Rae Woolley Willoughby is pictured fourth from the right. E-ailor s noie: i ne louowing arucie was submitted by Rae WooUey Willoughby in honor of the Bountiful City Centennial Celebration. Wiiloughby's memories of this period of history bring back some of the "olden days" of the area. One day in 1940, Jesse W. Cleverly from Bountiful knocked on our door on 2nd West in Salt Lake City. He wondered if we were interested in buying some land in Bountiful, and building our own house through an FHA loan. Were we ever! In 1941 we were one of the first ten families to move to the area kitty-comer from the Orchard Ward as we moved into a home which my dad, K ml and G. Woolley, helped build. We were so excited to have our own home something which had never seemed possible before. I was five years old then, my sister, Ann, was seven. We liked our new neighborhood because we could walk miles in any direction and never be afraid of anyone because we knew everyone. The Beckmans, Sconbergs, Liebelts, Olsens, Bangerters, Hatches, Taylors, Powells, Clarksons, Drapers, Mosses, Jensens, Troths, Seiferts and Wilsons were among some of those families which became a very real part of our lives. Friday nights were special as the whole family attended ward shows at the recreation hall where homemade popcorn and candy were sold. While it was fun for the family, fami-ly, it also united our ward into a family. We walked to South Bountiful Elementary, which was recently torn down in the name of progress for the new Motel 6 just off the freeway, which wasn't there then either. Mother helped us get across Highway 91 as we walked to school and was always there to help us cross back when school let out. In 1932, Ruth Cox became the first female school principal in Utah. She was assigned to South Bountiful Elementary. Miss Cox, who loved to wear purple flowered dresses, rode daily on the Bamberger Electric Train from her home in Salt Lake City and walked with us from the crossing cross-ing by the Schulthies to school every day. I remember the first school lunch program, and Mrs. Dobbs, my fourth four-th grade teacher who was dieting, peeling and eating grapefruit for lunch. When she peeled off the membrane eating only the fruit, I was fascinated. We had a lot of programs for the parents. I'm sure it was Miss Cox's doing. We had a Maypole Dance every May Day, and wore costumes is! We passed Lagoon every day, and I have a picture dated about 1941 with my sister, Ann and our folks at early Lagoon. 0 We got good grades, tried to please our parents, were respectful to teachers, went to Seminary, dressed in long skirts for girls, folded fold-ed up jeans for boys and Joyce shoes and Jantzen sweaters when we could afford them. We talked about having "it" which meant you were really with it then, danced to "Slow Poke" and "Goodnight Sweetheart," and graduated with Miss Streeper's English help the 300-strong class of 1953. It was a lovely, peaceful, uncomplicated un-complicated time then with not so many activities pulling kids out of the home. We made our own fun. Mrs. Hatch, our neighbor, made some of our clothes, and mother the rest. She dressed my sister and me like twins a lot as we were only 1 8 months apart in age. I went on jobs with my Dad. He owned "K.G. Woolley Sheet Metal" and did such a fine job everyone wanted him to install their furnaces in new homes and old ones alike. As Mutual girls, we camped overnight at Mueller Park and later watched as the stake house above Colonial Square was built I remember re-member going to the drive-in near there in the 50s, Hayward's in Bountiful, malts at Bountiful Drug Store, shoes at the Co-op, Holbrook's Dairy in North Salt Lake, Pace's "Dairy Ann," "Slim Olson's," putting shingles on the house the day the war was over and hearing people on the highway honking horns and yelling because they were so happy. We paid our bills, saved some, had piano lessons, sang at South Bountiful Ward where Alma Eagle was bishop, went to church, on special shopping outings with mother to Kee ley's Restaurant in Salt Lake and to a movie, saw women mending nylons at Wool worth's during the war, listened listen-ed to "Lux Radio Theatre" and "The Lone Ranger" on the radio. I learned that J.C. Penney had good quality sweaters we could buy more of for the price of one named Jantzen, Jant-zen, worked in Salt Lake and commuted com-muted by bus later on, cared when people got hit or hurt because we were all a part of this lovely, wholesome community of Bountiful. Boun-tiful. So, when folks ask me, "Do you remember Bountiful in the early M days?" I say lovingly, "Yes, I do, remember! ' our mothers had made. We skated with our friends around the cement of the school, put blindfolds on friends and led them around at recess telling them what to do. But my favorite spot was at the top of the yard that was in the very same shape as the state of Utah. We made houses, and brought mirrors and other things to put in them at recess, playing in our own little world by the little stream at the top of the lot On Mondays, we had Family Night before there were lessons. Mother let us choose what we'd have for supper always root beer and hamburgers. It was on one such night that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated for his second term as the President of the United States. We had lots of fun in those days before the onset of the aerobics classes of our children's generation. We rode bicycles with the wind in our hair, played softball with the neighbor kids, walked everywhere, swam in the wild rose-lined canal above our property and picked fruit for summer jobs. We got strawberries from Mrs. Siefert's garden. (Have they ever tasted that good again?) We spent lots of our summer days at the local swimming pool. Beck's Hot Springs, located about where the oil refinery finally moved more complicated as we learned to change classes every hour. The chorus class was my favorite, and I still know, by heart, a poem I gave in English called "Into the Stilly Woods I Go. ' ' I joined the band, we marched at every parade, and even though my mother made me practice prac-tice my French horn in the garage, we competed for first chair at school and I didn't do too badly. When I was 13, we walked across to the hamburger place where "The Cottage" later was built, and saw our first black and white television. It was magic! It was several years before our family got a television at home, and more before we got the new, color television. There were no high schools in Bountiful when we were children, so when it came time to attend secondary school, we were bused to Davis High in Kaysville. Every school day we traveled the 34-mile round trip to school and home again. I remember our bus driver waiting for us at the bottom of our street while we changed clothes over mother's objections, then we waited for the Rollin's sisters, Myr-na Myr-na and Jean, to run down their road to the bus. I drove over the other day from McDonald's in Center-ville Center-ville to a spot of trees on the east side just to see if that little pond I remembered was still there, and it The Bamburger Electric Railway ran from Ogden to Salt Lake City from 1891 to 1952. in. If you roll your window down just after going over the 1-15 bridge before Beck Street, you can still smell the hot springs today. We hiked up and down these mountains, especially by the reservoir reser-voir with its slanted, cement sides. We used to eat our lunches on the sides of that reservoir and view the . whole valley clear to the Great Salt Lake. There wasn't a home for miles. Today, the old reservoir is far below the new homes in North Salt Lake, but back then it was our playground. We used to hike up past Wilford Wood's property to some huge rocks which faced the mountainside. mountain-side. There are three hills there hooked together that we used to climb. When we were older, we r . " ft mm ' - J m . - m ft. - ''. ' ix -t: y - i ' t 1 u if J "ninn si- n ni I n" rr I I 'Mil aw i i ; ill c y-'i I III ) stopped climbing and started singing sing-ing in a women's chorus with Mr. Wood's daughter, Mary. Miss Cox transferred to the Ogden School District in 1945 and was replaced by V.T. Rice. He taught us to love reading. When our work was done, we could choose from a whole book case at the back of the room full of wonderful works. He wrote and published " music such as "My Heart Belongs to Utah" and "Utah, Bountiful Utah" which we got to sing on the radio. Mr. Rice had a daughter who sang professionally, and he later became the mayor of Bountiful. We never forgot him, and even after we graduated and went on to South Davis Junior High, we came back to visit Mr. Rice. The halls looked long and narrow in the junior high and life got a lot 4-H was one of few organized activities for these youth of Bountifu' in 1947. The children entertained themselves with hiking, bike nding and swimming among other favorite pastimes. These fourth grade boys pose in front of South Davis Elementary School about 1946. f |
