Chapter 15 of Tales That I Can Remember by Elsie Swagerty Burton
During the two months of each year, the Allan Standish’s and their two daughters, Patricia and Beatrice, came to stay in their large, two story home on the ranch. They lived in Palo Alto most of the year where the girls went to school. Mr. and Mrs. Miles Standish also had a rather nice place on the ranch. They were at home there when they were not traveling.
The girls, Patty and Bea, would sometimes become bored with their activities. I could never understand how that could be possible when they had an entire room set aside for a playroom with every kind of toy imaginable, a lovely large yard, beautifully landscaped, a swimming pool and a horse to ride. But they did and would beg their mother to request that I come to play. I was about two years older than Patty and six years older than Bea.
One day during their swimming break Mrs. Standish became tired of my dog paddle – so much splashing. She took it upon herself to teach me the side stroke. It is done all underwater – so no splashing. One thing about those swimming episodes that bothered me was the dressing rooms. They were down a short garden path from the pool. There were two rooms – one for the girls and one for the boys. Now the entire house and grounds were encircled by a nine foot high two foot thick pivot fence. A section of this fence provided one wall of the dressing rooms. I knew my brothers and I knew that if one wished, privacy could be easily violated. From stories I have heard since, it was on more than one occasion.
Another recollection of the grounds at the ranch is of a grape arbor on the path from the house to the pool. They were covered with concord grapes, the kind that slip out of their skins when squeezed. Those grapes were so refreshing on hot summer days!
One day Mrs. Standish called her daughter and me into her room. She was in bed with a headache; she frequently had headaches. She wanted us to hear a radio broadcast of President Hoover’s inaugural address. I knew it was an historical event and I listened intently. Although I was too young to understand the substance of the speech, I was aware that it was a first and I should always remember that I had heard it and I have.
It was the first time I had heard a radio with a loud speaker where everyone could hear simultaneously. Our family had what was known as a crystal set. One had to use ear phones, so only one could listen at a time. In time we got an Atwater set. It consisted of a board with tubes setting on top of it with some sort of loud speaker for the sound. We could all listen to that at the same time. In the years that followed, we had one of the regular consoles everyone had. However since it was a constant struggle to get us to turn it off so that we could do our homework, when repairs were needed, the set was just set aside. Quite a period of time went by at our house when there was no Amos and Andy, The Shadow Knows, etc.
There was an activity which involved the entire family in the summertime. It was canning, canning, canning and more canning. Mother canned 100 half gallon mason jars of peaches, 100 half gallon apricots, 100 pears, 100 tomatoes. 100 green beans besides jars and jars of jam, jellies and preserves. We would work five, six days at a stretch, peeling, peeling, peeling. Mother took this opportunity to teach the times tables, capitals of states and countries, word games and songs. After all her occupational ambition had been to be a kindergarten teacher. She was accused of raising her own kindergarten.
When school started in the fall after graduation from the 8th grade, transportation was a problem. The nearest high school was eleven miles away. It had been decided that I go to Theodore Roosevelt Junior High School in San Jose. Mother would drive and my brothers could go into San Jose as well to take advantage of what was considered better facilities. They all enrolled at Horace Mann Grammar School. It was located a block away from First Church at the corner of Sixth and Santa Clara Streets.
The one and only time that I was ever on the Honor Roll was that first semester at Roosevelt Junior High. No longer did we have reading as such, and there was no math, I now had algebra. That first semester I was taking beginning Spanish which was easy for me, but by the next semester the Spanish grade was a “C” and English Composition got to be a problem.
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