Missing Locker for the 122nd Carnival of Genealogy

Missing Locker

I attended John Rogers High School from the fall of 1963 to June of 1966. Rogers was an old building built in the early 1930s opening in 1932. It is a three story brick building which had by the 1960s had a few additions, a cafeteria, a wing to the east which mainly housed home economics, and the big field house on the south which had the boys and girls gymnasiums. Since the baby boom had hit high schools we also had a row of portables out back. In fact my homeroom was in the second portable.

Each floor had a row of lockers along the halls outside of the classrooms built into the walls, but there was not enough for everyone, so we had to share. My neighbor had gotten a locker near the middle of the east hall on the first floor and asked me if I wanted to share and I said yes. First floor lockers were prized possessions and at that time you kept the locker till you left school hopefully when you graduated. So I had a locker in a great location for my sophomore and junior year.

When I came back for my senior year I headed for my locker and when I got down the hall counting the locker numbers and my locker was missing. During the summer the classroom on the other side of the wall my locker was on, had a folding door placed in the middle of the very long classroom that was there before so it could be used as a big classroom or split into two smaller classrooms, but they needed a new door for the second classroom, and so they removed about seven or eight lockers and added a door, my locker was in the middle of those removed. So where is my locker?

They had a locker window where you went if you needed a locker, lost your combination, or were looking for a partner, so I went there and asked where my locker was? A very small boy looked on his maps and said it was right down this hall, so I asked him to show me. Down the hall we went counting locker numbers to the new door! He stood there with his mouth wide open looking at the door, no locker. He goes back to the locker window and talks to the faculty adviser, and he came down the hall and looked at the door also. Then he said they did not know where our locker went and we would have to find it on our own. I was nearly late for my first class so did not get to look till after school and by then my neighbor had found our locker in the back hall.

The back hall was a long narrow hall that led to the band room the stage for the auditorium, and the old gym that was not used much when we were there, it was tiny and with the school bursting at the seams with kids we used the bigger gyms in the field house. So here was my locker near the east end of that hall, just past it was three doors and a stairway to the second floor. One door went to the home economics wing, one door went to the outside and the row of portables and one to the east hall, I think the busiest corner of the whole school, and so very hard to get into my locker on that long narrow hall.

Think that was the end of the missing locker? Not yet. I was in the band that year and the band room was off the back hall, and because we came back late sometimes from playing or marching at various football or basket ball games the band director wanted all the band to have a locker just outside of the band room and he had arranged for a row of lockers outside of the band room and we were all to go to the locker window and get one of those lockers, I raised my hand and said I already had a locker outside of the band room. He asked how I got it, and I said it was a long story, but I had to go show him my locker.

 A few years ago the school district passed a bond issue to remodel Rogers High School, and they removed the band room, the old gym and the field house and built two huge new gyms, a commons area with the cafeteria at one end and a bunch of new classrooms between the new gyms and the old building. When that new section was done they went into the old building and gutted it and rebuilt it with new windows, new wiring and better heating and insulation that the old building had needed for a long time. Part of the money was to restore the front to look like it did in 1932 when it opened. When they finished they tore off the 1950s home economics wing, the 1960s cafeteria and removed all the portables and so now it looks like the 1932 building on the front and they matched the look of the old building on the east and west sides. At the grand opening they invited the public and so I went to see if my locker had survived, all the lockers on the back hall were gone, and all the lockers on the first floor are gone also, but the door in the middle of the first floor hall is still there.

Wordless Wednesday The Highest Stack

This is another postcard from my dad's collection, probably from mid 1910s.

Wordless Wednesday Middle Creek

This is another post card from my dad's collection, not sure where Middle Creek is, but it looks like the same creek as in the last wordless Wednesday post. The back on this one is blank also.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy State Archives

Week #37 – State Archives

Week 37: State Archives. Which state archives repository is your favorite? Have you been there in person? What does their website offer to visitors? Share any advice you can to potential visitors who may visit the archives in the future.

Well maybe I am a little prejudiced but I think the best state archives is the  Eastern Branch of the Washington State Archives located in Cheney, Washington. Besides having the records generated by the seven counties of Eastern Washington it also houses the first Digital Archives in the world. I do look ups at the Spokane County Courthouse, and I hated looking in the very old and fragile records, so when they moved those records to Cheney and digitized and indexed most all of them I did not have to search in the old records anymore, just go online and search.
Many archives have a wildcard search, but I have not seen one here, but you can search with just a few letters. so if you search for Hansen, you might want to also search for Hanson, so just put Hans in the surname box and it will search for both spellings. Works for given names also. You can also do a soundex search.
They also have several other special collections you can search, one I like is the pictures from the Ritzville library the A M Kendrick Collection. Mr. Kendrick worked for a farm implement firm and took pictures of those farm implements working on the farms he had sold the equipment to. So you see farms all over Eastern Washington and how they used to farm using the old equipment.

Wordless Wednesday Falls of the Brook in Montana

This is another of my dad's postcard collection, this one says copyright 1908 Billings, Montana. The back is blank.

Wordless Wednesday Chas. Russell Great Falls, Montana

Another post card from my dad's collection, probably from the mid 1910s.

This one has a note on the back: Do you think you can go down and feed the cats at the elevator? Dady Pop's dad owned the grain elevator at Columbus, Montana and so that is probably the elevator he was talking about.

Carnival of Genealogy #121 Discovery

I have kind of felt left out with all the people researching their Civil War ancestors for the 150 year anniversary of the start of the Civil War, as I have until last night not found a single Civil War ancestor. I know that none of my grandfather Hansen's ancestors were in the Civil War as he did not leave Denmark till 1887 and arrived in New York on St. Patrick's Day. He did tell of watching the St. Patrick's Day parade from the ship in the harbor. He did marry a lady whose family came to New England in 1632 the Dillingham's, and so I have ancestors in all the wars after 1632 till the Civil War. So why was her father Stanislaus Dillingham not in the Civil War? He had bad legs and could not stand for long nor march, so I guess he was exempted medically. So how about my mom's family the Kellys? They were in Illinois when the Civil War started, and according to the "Kelly" Bible they got on a wagon train to California, stayed till 1865, then went to Sacramento and then San Francisco, caught a ship to Panama, crossed the isthmus caught another ship to New York, and then back to Ursa, Illinois where her parents were still living. Her father had been in the War of 1812 in the battle for Fort Miegs, and he was one of the few survivors of the Kentucky riflemen that went to help William Henry Harrison retake Detroit. Still have some others on this side to find, so it is possible I will find another Civil War ancestor. The other line I know a lot about is the Vanderpools, and I have Vanderpools in the Mexican War as teamsters hauling supplies to the troops, I even had a Vanderpool in the Blackhawk War, he volunteered, marched to Illinois for training and before the training ended BlackHawk surrendered, so he never fired a shot. So that brings me to Joseph Vanderpool, my great great grandfather, his obit says he was a Civil War soldier, but both he and his widow applied for a Civil War pension and they were turned down saying he was never in the Civil War, so I assumed he was in the home guard in northern Missouri, so last night I was playing on Ancestry in their free census look-ups, and I put in Joseph Vanderpool, and I found his 1850, 1870 and 1880 census and then it said the 1890 Special Civil War Census, so I clicked and this is what I found, he did serve a whole month in the 35th Missouri Infantry and was discharged due to getting measles. I had measles as a child, but I know it is much worse in an adult and very contagious so I see why he was discharged.

So this was a surprising discovery, but it looks like Robert Forsyth who served in the War of 1812 was my last ancestor that actually fought in a war. The Dillinghams were Quakers and so shied away from conflicts, but a few did fight in the Revolution. My dad was in WWII but not in a fighting unit, his service squadron serviced the B-17s and B-24s in England, Africa and finally Italy, neither of my grandfathers served in WWI, one was too old and the other worked for the Great Northern Railroad and railroad workers were exempted. 

Saturday Night Fun Type of Genealogist

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!): 


1)  Read Lorine McGinnis Schulze's blog post What Type of Genealogist Are You? (25 August 2012).

2)  Answer the questions, and write about them!!

My thanks to Lorine for her blog post as instigation for this SNGF.

Well here is the definition of the type of genealogist I am primarily. The Hunter or Detective: This genealogists loves the research. While they want to find their own ancestors, they'll research anyone's ancestry just for the thrill of the hunt. They are easily sidetracked from their own ancestral research by the challenge of solving a stranger's brick wall.
I volunteered to be the research person for our local genealogical society because I like doing research and have continued doing that for 14 years now.

I am also an Ancestor Finder for my own research - but slowly as I am always pretty busy researching for others.

I am not really a Gatherer and Ancestor Collector do not do collateral lines unless I have hit a brick wall and need to.

I am NOT a Scholar type in terms of source citations, but I do put sources in my database

I am not a Hoarder or Junkyard Collector



The Analyzer: This genealogist finds a new fact, then studies it and analyzes it carefully before moving on to the next bit of research. They use each fact as a stepping stone to more research. They verify every piece of information they find and they view it critically, thinking about what it actually means and what other clues might be gleaned from it. I do analyze what I find before moving on.
 
I am NOT a Planner, I have never done a research log that would probably helped me, but have tried to concentrate on one or two people to research.