School teachers

Recently I found an old list of my school teachers and the Danvers schools I attended. It is not complete, but it did add a few details I had not remembered. Using those clues and my memory, I can quickly construct this list:

1st grade:  Mrs. Billings at the Hathorne School.  1949/50

2nd grade: Tapley Street School

3rd grade:  Mrs. Billings again (but at a different school, between Charter Street and Maple Street)

4th grade:  Mrs. Oliver at the newly-built Great Oak Elementary School

5th grade:  [a classroom in Richmond Junior High School]

6th grade: Mrs. Sears in a classroom in Richmond Junior High School

7th grade: Richmond Junior High School

8th grade: Mr. Corbeil, Richmond Junior High School

For 9th and 10th grade I attended Holten High School (next door to Richmond Jr. High).

I definitely remember that I attended five (5) different schools in my first five years of school! The Danvers school population was growing rapidly (because of the post-WWII baby boom), and the school district no doubt had many challenges in finding sufficient classroom space.

I've written previously about walking to the one-room Hathorne School, and about taxi and bus rides to the other schools. The expansion of Route 1 forced the removal of the Hathorne School at the close of the 1949/50 school year.

By the 1953/54 school year (my fifth grade), note the overflow of some elementary classes into the Junior High building. For six years I was bused to classes at the same location: that Richmond/Holton campus. It would have been eight years, had I stayed in public school.

I left Danvers schools after 10th grade (1958/59).  I'll explain why in my next post.