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Page 11 text:
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BACK-THROUGH THE YEARS TO OUR READERS: May this intimate little history of the school we all love bring Happy nr emories to a ' inspiration to present day supporters who plan continue. greater achievement - • - Seminary. Tne Editors 1884 Five children — four girls and a boy in the middle — were just as excited as they could be over their father ' s decision to accept the call to become Bishop of Washing- ton Territory. They were born and had lived their little lives in the big Rectory of St. Peter ' s Church in the City of Brooklyn, New York. That was fifty years ago and this is a true story. The excitement reached its climax when the little boy of eleven was told that he could buy a pony out there for only fifteen dollars. He began to save up and the next year the pony came true and his name was Nellie! The biggest cities of Washington Territory in 1881 were Walla Walla with its four thousand people: Seattle with four thousand people: Spokane Falls, New Tacoma and Vancouver each with about fifteen hundred population. Walla Walla said: Make your home with us, Bishop, we have the best climate in the West, Seattle said: Come here, Bishop, we will soon be the New York of the Pacific Coast: Spokane Falls said: We are to be the center of a great Inland Empire: Tacoma said: Don ' t go to Vancouver. Bishop, they have malaria down there. Mr. Chas. B. Wright (resident of Philadelphia) and President of the Tacoma Land Company became the spokesman for the City of Destiny. He wrote: Dear Bishop, if you will undertake to raise twenty-five thousand dollars among your friends in the East, to build a School for Girls in Tacoma, I will give you fifty thousand dollars for an endowmer The opportunity to make possible Christian education for the rising generation of daughters of the pioneers: daughters who should lay a firm foundation for the great state that was to be: a state which would require women with kind, not callous hearts: with joyous, not pampered spirits: with broad, not petty minds: with refined, not tawdry tastes: with direct, not shifting speech. Women who could meet wealth with simplicity, and poverty with dignity and face life with quiet strength — developing from strength to strength: contributing to the righteous upbuilding of the great country which should reflect the Thought and Guidance of God. The challenge gripped the Bishop ' s mind and soul: the die cast, though stupendous the task. His great heart aflame to do and dare Blenched not at sacrificial way. but ran In holy haste to grapple with the plan. It was a far cry in that day from the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast. First came the steamer voyage to California to t e -- ; rr.c4- •tr n rop ' n ' pfal railway. Its train de P sae seven
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Page 12 text:
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luxe boasted no dining car. In lieu of a diner there appeared a man — three times a day — garbed in butcher ' s apron, striding down the station platform, clanging a colossal brass dinner bell. Hunger, tinged with terror, sent the passengers scamper- ing after him, where, at the restaurant counter they grabbed a sandwich and gulped a cup of coffee, whilst in stentorian tones they cauqht the cry All aboard! all aboard! In seven days from San FranciSco, New York was reached. Then began an over- whelming experience in the welcome of life-long friends, who, a year before, had bidden God-speed to the new Bishop and Mrs. Paddock and their five children. But the Bishop and his children returned alone! The great helpmate of his life and work, taken ill on the journey to the far west, died at Portland, Oregon, just within sight of the new home. The bereaved Bishop and his children entered Washington Terri- tory bearing the body of her whose vision had led them through al ' the hardships of the adventure with undaunted enthusiasm and inspiration. The hearts of old friends were tender in their Welcome Home and congrega tions listened with responsive interest to the Bishop ' s appeal. Months of hard labor followed and the Bishop returned to Tacoma having succeeded in raising the major portion of the required fund. Plans were set on foot for the building of the girls ' school; a Board of Trustees was appointed to take charge of the erection of the building. The Tacoma Land Company gave the Bishop the choice of two or three building sites, and the beautiful lots on Tacoma Avenue bordered by Division Avenue and North First Street were chosen. Occasional criticism was heard from the people of Old Tacoma and New Tacoma: It is a fine site. Bishop, but isn ' t it a mistake to build a school halfway between two towns? At the close of that summer the Bishop returned to the East to beg for the rest of the money. This he accomplished, but his happiness was short-lived. Arriving in Tacoma he found that the contractor had failed and absconded, leaving the building only half done. Only one road opened: he must retrace his weary way and return to the East for a final effort. Though heart-sick and broken and sore, yet holding his eyes to the goal, he went forth again; but the strain was too great for his sapped strength and after once again reaching the goal, he broke down and for several months nervous prostration laid him low at the home of his brother, the Bishop of Massachusetts, in Boston. A happy day dawned in the summer of 1884. The School for Girls was a visible fact with its imposing turrets, its impressive portals (Principal ' s-Pupils ' and Patrons ' ), its myriad windows from which to view the scenery (and the passers-by). There it stood, on an eminence, between the two towns looking out on Puget Sound and its mud flats, the picturesque little Puyallup. and up to the Mountain that was God. For the name of the school the Bishop decided to compliment Mr. Charles B. Wright and call it The Annie Wright Seminary in honor of Mr. Wright ' s daughter. To the Annie Wright in its first year, came 94 girls from more than a dozen points in Washington Territory, as follows: New Tacoma and Old Tacoma. Ainsworth, Fort Spokane. La Conner. Damon. Port Townsend. Chehalis. Olympla. Fort Stellacoom, and Stellacoom. Whatcom, Tulallp, Walla Walla. Carbonado and Puyallup. Oregon was represented by a girl from far away little Canyon City, and British Columbia by two sisters (and a little brother) from Victoria. Would that I might dwell on the rare personnel of the first faculty of ten members. It was they who laid the firm foundations in the building not made with hands. Page eiqKf
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