A BOYLE HEIGHTS TEACHING CAREER:
IDA CRUM AND HOLLENBECK JUNIOR HIGH, 1925-1966
By Abraham Hoffman
Given the complexities of present-day urban school districts, it is highly unlikely that a teacher would spend his/her entire career at one school. Most teachers work at several schools, or leave teaching for a position in private industry. The dedication required to remain at one site, through changes in the neighborhood, opportunities for advancement elsewhere, or just plain burnout makes the decision to stay in one place an exceptional one.
Ida Crum made that choice. For more than forty years she taught at Hollenbeck Junior High School (HJHS) in a career that began with the presidency of Calvin Coolidge and ended with her retirement during the administration of Lyndon Johnson. During that time, she encountered the grandchildren of the students she had taught. Ida Crum was a teacher who made a difference. Her story, however, was also the story of the school where she worked and the community it served.
Ida Crum’s education at Whittier College included a number of activities that in later years provided an added dimension to her service at HJHS. As a member of La Tertulia Espanola, a Spanish-speaking club at the college (Spanish was the only language allowed at club meetings) she put her major field of study to practical use.
Miss Crum’s beginnings at HJHS resemble in some ways the myths of ancient heroes. With characteristic consistency, she kept the exact starting date at the school obscure, preferring to awe new, wet-eared teachers by her presiding as social chairman at first-of-the-semester faculty meetings. A dusty yellowed 3x5 card in an obscure file is the slim bit of evidence that fixes Ida’s arrival at HJHS as February 16, 1925, with her college majors listed as Spanish and History.
By 1926 HJHS had undergone several name changes, from Boyle Heights Intermediate School through Hollenbeck Heights Junior High to Hollenbeck Junior High. There were 85 teachers on the faculty, and the principal was Burt W. Reed, who had come over from Central Junior High with a number of teachers to get the new school underway. Miss Crum was given Class Room 207, and before long her opinions about her role as a teacher became known. When several teachers bobbed their hair, the conservative female faculty members still kept their crowning glory. Maybe Miss Feenan would have her hair bobbed, but Ida Crum would not. The spirit of fashion was captured in this poem in the school paper, with apologies to Lord Tennyson:
Bobs to the right of them
Bobs to the left of them
Black and blonde mingled
Theirs not to reason why
Theirs but to blow and fly
Windblown and shingled.
In 1927 Miss Crum sponsored the Spanish Girls’ Glee Club, composed of Spanish-speaking girls and girls who were taking the language course. Mr. Reed agreed for the school to buy Spanish-style costumes for the members. For many years the A9 (graduating) class and the faculty held receptions where the A9 classrooms, school clubs, and faculty members gave a program. The Glee Club, “dressed in flashing costumes, were as pleasant to the eye as the singing to the ears,” reported the Siren. Miss Crum also “sang most delightfully” at the performance.
On her return from summer vacation in September, she found the enrollment had reached 2,213, and that she was one of some 9,000 teachers in the Los Angeles City School District. The old designation “C.R.,” for Class Room, was changed to “H.R.,” for Home Room. Her previous Home Room had graduated—56 girls, “100% Siren subscribers,” (the student newspapers) with A9 class colors of blue and gold. Among these girls were a number who had acquired a reputation for pet sayings, such as Sarah Jane Morris, “Hot soup!” and Freda Cohen’s “You poor lobster!” and Rose Jolson’s “Must you know!” Space prevents a listing of what the other 53 girls said, but Miss Crum knew them all and their names and sayings were preserved in the June 1927 Siren annual.
Miss Crum was now in H.R. 110, taking over a B8 girls’ homeroom. The Spanish Glee Club was up to fifty members, and club pins, of a little man playing the guitar, were ordered. A student, Tomma Belinkoff, wrote a poem about teachers who had declared war on bad grammar. Miss Crum’s pet peeve was given as the person who said “this here”:
The …bad error ‘this here’
Was left alone to fight
Miss Crum came along
And put him out of sight.
Miss Crum soon became identified with her announcing in Spanish class, “Leccion para manana, escriba—lesson for tomorrow, write!” The Spanish Glee Club sang at various assemblies. Members in 1928 included in their repertoire “La Golondrina,” “Linda Moreno,” and “Morir por tu amor.” Miss Crum could be counted on to sing a solo of “La Estrellita.” Home Room 110 had its own motto: Degania, meaning “truthful.” Most of the girls were interested in the Junior Red Cross, with 35 girls on the Junior Red Cross Honor Roll.
The year 1928 ran a close second to 1918 in its flu epidemic. Though this second flu attack is less known, it caused alarm in Los Angeles. Susan Miller Dorsey, superintendent of the school system, canceled all school assemblies, and absences running as long as three weeks for recuperation were not uncommon. At Hollenbeck, Miss Violet Thayer, the music teacher, died of influenza. Miss Crum was absent for a week with a “serious throat disease.” Her homeroom sent her flowers, and everyone wished her a speedy return, “as all miss her cheery self.”
With the illness past, Miss Crum could be relied upon to sing at many programs and assemblies. Other songs in her repertoire included “Too Much Cake,” “The Lilac Tree,” and “Sympathy,” as well as “Alone.” Her Spanish Glee Club entertained the night school class in Spanish that Ida was teaching at Central Evening High, singing songs and presenting a Christmas play. In the spring of 1929 Miss Crum and Mrs. Brown, who also taught Spanish for many years at HJHS, took fifty students to see the Mission Play at San Gabriel Mission, a field trip that they repeated for several years. In June her second homeroom graduated, with A9 colors of crimson and white.
In the early 1930s, Miss Crum attempted to expand the Spanish Girls’ Glee Club by including boys. This experiment lasted all of three months. Perhaps it was the Spanish costumes that caused male apathy. On the other hand, school fund-raising drives were more successful. The girls’ home rooms competed in a tin foil drive, the proceeds going to the Orthopedic Hospital. H.R. 110 collected four pounds of foil, but H.R. 118 won the competition with 25 pounds. Construction of a new cafeteria building was announced in 1932, to cost $80,000; it was finished in the same year. Also in 1932, a crossing tunnel underneath Soto Street was authorized and built, eliminating the danger of crossing the busy street.
On March 10, 1933, a major earthquake centered in Long Beach struck southern California, causing heavy damage to numerous homes and schools. Although nearby Theodore Roosevelt High suffered considerable destruction of its buildings, HJHS emerged relatively unscathed. However, it was obvious on inspection that new buildings were needed for the campus. For one thing, enrollment at HJHS was at an all-time high—2,528 in February 1937, the largest junior high school in the state. HJHS had been on double sessions, but a school bond campaign was successful, and in September 1936 construction began on five new buildings—East Academic, West Academic, Administration, Industrial Arts, and Girls’ Physical Education. Richard Neutra provided the plans for the buildings, which were also used for Emerson Junior High in West Los Angeles.
Ida Crum spent Easter Vacation 1937 at Laguna Beach, walking on the promenade and visiting the art museum. During the summer she worked as a hostess at one of the camps in the Adirondack Mountains, followed by a visit to New York and the Atlantic Coast. When school began again in September, the new buildings were ready. At this time HJHS created many school traditions that lasted for many years, including the point system for earning athletic letters, and announcements (usually by the principal) ending with “That is all!” on the new speaker system in the buildings.
In 1938 HJHS reached an enrollment of 2,652 students, representing thirty nationalities. Of these students, 1,122 were Spanish-speaking, the term then current for students of Mexican origin, and 867 were of the Jewish faith. Other ethnicities and races at Hollenbeck were Japanese, Russian, Italian, Armenian, German, Black, French, Greek Czechoslovakian, Scandinavian, Dutch, Polish, Austrian, Chinese, Hungarian, and fifteen others. Miss Crum was now the de facto social chairman for the faculty. Her sense of humor became apparent at the faculty tea to welcome new teachers when she remarked that “Mr. Whitely took a Scotch vacation by letting his mind wander; Mrs. McIrvin got her tongue sunburned; Mrs. Hartly is so magnetic because everything she has is charged; we must watch for symptoms of madness in Mrs. Traughbar because she was bitten by a mad dog.” In reference to the efforts of her students, she is known to have referred to their work by stating, “What coaches we have in here; I’ll have to pay you boys half of my salary.”
Miss Crum’s new home was now in the East Academic Building, Home Room 120, a classroom she kept until her retirement. Principal Reed was gone, promoted to assistant superintendent, and replaced by W.J. Goodwin (later principal at San Pedro High). His place was taken by J.C. Reinhard, principal of the “new Hollenbeck.” After a decade as a girls’ homeroom teacher, Miss Crum now presided over an all-boys group. She encouraged them to compete in the school athletic programs as if their lives depended on it, and they acted as if that was the case. Over the years the walls of H.R. 120 were decorated with numerous triangular pennants as Miss Crum’s homeroom teams won championships in basketball, speedball, track, and softball. In February 1940, to celebrate the boys’ accomplishments, Ida threw a triple party—Valentine’s Day, the eighth-grade basketball championship, and the thrift banner being the reasons. Everyone received refreshments and comic valentines, “wisely and appropriately chosen,” to quote Miss Crum.
World War II brought profound changes to the Eastside community. One hundred students of Japanese descent attending HJHS were moved to the Manzanar relocation center. Roosevelt High lost a third of its student body to the removal of Nisei students and their families. The Siren noted, “Our student government has been greatly affected.” Three of the four top student body officers were Nisei students. Before checking out, several returned to make invitations for the Mothers’ tea. Japanese Americans would return to HJHS after the war.
Miss Crum spent the summer of 1942 as a taster at the Val Vita Cannery, becoming an authority on the taste of peaches. She reported that “I never want to see another tomato puree for the rest of my life.” Such summer jobs were necessary for teachers on 40-week salaries. Ida also attended a county-sponsored workshop to study Mexican conditions in California, and she was active in the Whittier Eastern Star, attending a convention in Oakland.
During World War II HJHS held several fund-raising drives, selling War Bond stamps and bonds, and contributing enough money for the building of a bomber, a P-38 Lightning, and an F-6F fighter plane. Miss Crum’s three nephews served in the armed forces, one in the air corps, and two in the army. Adults experienced gasoline rationing and the limited purchasing power of ration stamps for meat, sugar, and other food items. Students who patronized the school’s hash lines at lunchtime suddenly found that the usual wooden spoons were no longer to be provided. The War Priority Board limited wooden spoons to defense plants.
Miss Crum’s relationship with her Spanish classes seldom provided time for dull moments. During the Christmas season of 1942 her Period I class gave her a Christmas present. She opened it and was surprised by a coiled, rubber snake. The class “wanted to see her jump.” They were disappointed.
Following the war years, Mr. Fox replaced Mr. Reinhard as principal, and in turn, Edward Olmstead succeeded him. Most of the teachers who had been at Hollenbeck since Miss Crum’s arrival had by now departed, except for Mrs. Doris Rasmussen in the Art Department. Several teachers came to Hollenbeck around 1950 to see “Miss Crum’s last building” erected, including Mr. Raffetto, Mr. MacDonald, Miss Buller, Miss Youngren, Miss Snyder, Miss Holzboog (later Mrs. Guayante), Mr. Salas, and Miss Cornwell. In addition to teaching Spanish, Ida became a grade counselor. To let the students know that teachers could let their hair down on occasion, Miss Crum and the rest of the faculty put on a Faculty Talent Show in January 1952 that would be remembered by those who saw it for years afterward. Ida starred in a skit as the “fragile little Nell,” and Olmstead as the villain everyone hissed. There was also a can-can dance that received critical acclaim as well as criticism from those who thought the faculty had let its hair down a little too far. But the audience loved it.
In the fall of 1952, HJHS started a Teen Club, with Mrs. Kennedy, Miss Walker, Mr. Meisner, Mr. Hodgens (later principal of Canoga Park High), and Miss Crum as the original sponsors. For Home Room 120 the late 1940s and 1950s were a time of winning more athletic pennants, attendance banners, and rag and paper drive competitions. Ever supportive of such contests, Ida provided her 1938 Dodge to bring the bundles of paper to the school, but the 1953 rag drive proved too much for the old car. In the rag drive of 1954, H.R. 120 collected the amazing figure of 853 pounds of rags. The boys won by Miss Crum’s application of “perspiration, persuasion, and paddle.” Comic books became very popular in the early 1950s before blue-nosed critics clamped down on the industry, and Miss Crum had her own collection that she generously provided for students who finished their work early. Just so that everyone knew where the comics came from, Ida stamped each cover with the words “Stolen from Miss Crum.”
As her teaching career headed towards the sunset years, Ida accepted new challenges. In February 1959 she took charge of the school’s Non-English Speaking Program, working with students new to the United States. Although most were Spanish-speaking, some came from such countries as Japan and Iran. The NES program was later briefly renamed Foreign Speaking, but by the mid-1960s it had evolved into English as a Second Language (ESL).
It is, of course, impossible to trace every activity in which Ida Crum participated. Scant mention can only be given to her first real job, that of delivering milk, or the summer vacation she spent as a waitress and cook at a waffle shop at Whittier and Atlantic Boulevards. Of the thousands of students who entered her classroom, perhaps those should be mentioned who were parts of families that provided numerous brothers and sisters, spanning long periods of “dynasties” when HJHS did not seem to be without a Castrellon, Terrones, Averbuck, Abajian, Abramovitz, Ramos, Nakayama, Nakano, Behar, Savin, Ackerman, Mendoza, Cantor, Roybal, or Shubin, not forgetting the third generation of Felicitas Montoya to Eddie “Pookie” Arriola to Eddie, Jr.
And what of the many dedicated teachers who fought the learning battle beside Miss Crum for decades—Miss Butterfield, the librarian; Miss Kainke in Science; Miss Jones and her world travels; Miss Steimple in Science; and Hoist, Tower, Hickman, Coons, Sizemore, Stapp, Vaughn, Ochoa, Cramer, McNary, Souza, Bureloff, and so many, many others? When Mrs. Rasmussen retired in 1965 only Ida Crum remained as the sole teacher who came to Hollenbeck before Lindbergh made his flight, before movies talked, before the stock market crashed, and before liquor was made legal again. Present-day middle schools will forever miss having rag and paper and tin foil drives, competing for intra-mural sports pennants, after-school programs, and other activities. In April 1940 Los Angeles schools celebrated Public Schools Week. To welcome parents to its Open House, the Hollenbeck Siren printed its invitation to parents in four languages—English, Spanish, Yiddish, and Japanese. Diversity in Los Angeles is nothing new. But it would be nice to find teachers as dedicated and as wonderful as Ida Crum in her 41 years of working with children.