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Show ? 1 i , IF5 Jn ' I At ' 1 1 i y Ill f-'X'-- ill ' 7. A' - Teacher Kathryn Evans Hansen says the Washington School has a little more warmth than it did 59 years ago. Former teacher likes new look by DAVID HAMPSHIRE Record editor About 20 people who attended Saturday's ribbon-cutting at the Washington School Inn could claim they were students in the old building. But only one could claim she taught there. That one was Kathryn Evans Hansen, now a resident of St. George, who taught first and second grade in the Washington School in 1926. Mrs. Hansen is the first to admit that, as a young college graduate with only one year of teaching experience behind her, she was still learning the ropes of the profession. "I had no idea what to do with them (the students), but I guess it worked out all right," she smiles. "I suppose I learned by hit and miss." Her stay at the Washington School was a short one. She left at the end of her first school year to join the staff at the Lincoln School. "I wanted to go down to the Lincoln School (which stood on lower Norfolk Avenue) because be-cause it was closer to home." Mrs, Hansen confessed that she didn't recognize anyone Saturday from that year she spent at the Washington School. "I can remember only three of that first group I had here. One was a little girl named Rose. She used to write her name backwards: back-wards: e-s-o-r." But the building itself left an indellible impression. The classrooms class-rooms were big. "You could look up and hardly see the ceilings. And, in the winter, they were cold. "It was uncomfortable. The rooms were so large and the furnace wasn't very adequate." The man responsible for keeping the furnace going was a taciturn janitor whose name was something like Peter Pawl. "He didn't care for the kids too much but he sure rang the bell on time." Mrs. Hansen taught three years at the Lincoln School, then quit to raise a family. But in 1947 she returned to teaching, first as a substitute, then full-time at the Marsac School (now the Marsac Municipal Building). She retired in 1967. She and her husband, two-term City Councilman Clements Hansen, Han-sen, finally sold their Park City home and moved to St. George in 1978. . Like many natives of the mining area, Mrs. Hansen is less than enthusiastic about the recent changes in Park City. But she's delighted with the new look of her old school. "It's beautiful, isn't it? I was so happy to hear about it." |