Here's a cool artifact: a Dudley Stone School class photo, taken in 1953.
The historic Dudley Stone building is located at 1250 Waller Street in San Francisco. You can read about its history, namesake, and various incarnations (as the William R. De Avila School, and ultimately the Chinese Immersion School at De Avila) here. According to the changeable letter board, this was Dudley Stone School, Room 207, Grade L6, and taken on September 29, 1953.
And, of course, it was snapped by Plymouth Pictures / Golden Gate Studio, formerly of 1007 Market Street. As you may remember, they had a monopoly on the San Francisco class photo racket for quite some time.
Many thanks to anyone who can tell us why the front-row children are wearing seat belts.
Those weren't seat belts. Those were the safety belts worn by students who manned the Safety Patrol at the street crossings around the school. The program was sponsored by AAA and each
ReplyDeletepatrol had a captain, a lieutenant and two sergeants. The captain had a silver badge with blue, the lieutenant a silver badge with green and the sergeant a silver badge with red. They were a big deal back then and the patrol was usually manned by fifth and sixth graders only. It's hard to believe in this era of drone and helicopter parents that 10 and 11-year olds were allowed to take the safety of their fellow students in their own hands. But it was done and there never was a fatality in all the years the program stayed in effect. I was a member and Captain of a patrol at Frederick Burke School in Park Merced in the mid-1950's