Annie Wright School - Shield Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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1884 In 1884 Bishop Paddock asked me fo come and take charge or b t. Luke ' s Church which had been built about a year, and by the death of Mr. Bonnell had become vacant. He also asked Mrs. Wells, who had been very successful as principal of St. Paul ' s School. Walla Walla, to be principal of the Annie Wright Seminary. At his request, Mrs. Wells sketched some plans which an architect put into shape and when we arrived in June, 1884. the building was almost completed. The first night we stopped at the old Tourist Hotel, Tacoma was young and crude then. The next morning I asked if the street cars ran near the Annie Wright Seminary. There are no street cars, they said. Well, then send for a cab. There are no cabs, he replied. Get me a horse and buggy then. The livery stables haven ' t any. but you might get an express wagon to take you up there. So we called an express wagon and they brought out a chair and helped Mrs. Wells up on the seat with the driver. I climbed up and stood holding on to the back of the seat and away we went. In a few days we were able to move into the incompleted building, but by September 1st everything was ready — furniture, books, provisions, teachers, ser- vants, curriculum and pupils, and we started the school. One girl came from Alaska in a wagon train and was nearly a month on the way. camping out at night. Two girls came from the Hawaiian Islands. Some of the girls had never been taught to say their prayers: some, when sleepy, would get into bed partly dressed. So the teach- ers had to make a round of the rooms every night to see that all was right. But most of the girls were nice and well-behaved. The school opened with a small attendance, but grew rapidly and soon was full to overflowing, so that we had to put cots at the ends of the halls and every other available space. We had excellent teachers, but Mrs. Raynor was the most popular of all with every girl in the school. LEMUEL H. WELLS. First Bishop of Spokane (retired). 1888 As if it were but yesterday, I remember the first time the door of the Annie Wright Seminary opened to me. It was forty-three years ago. We had newly arrived in Tacoma. My father and mother, after due inquiry, had decided that the Seminary was suitable for me. The question was. was I suitable for the Seminary? To determine this, one day in early May, only a day or so after our arrival — this was In 1888 — my father took me to interview the principal, then Mrs. Lemuel Wells. Youth is exquisitely sensitive to impressions. The whole incident Is etched on my mind as clearly and as vividly as at that time of happening. The ride there in the Tacoma Avenue horse-car. The careful picking of our way across mud-caked Tacoma Avenue. Our pause as we reached the wide wooden side-wa ' lf : rounded the triangle at Division and First where stood the school. So that was it! Standing decorously back from the street, like a neat, ana brd . lady, tall, erect, the delicacy of young, new vines softening its severity like lace at the throat of an aristocrat. Its square, spired towers crowning It like a many-pointed cap. Its porches and steps extending in dignified and conservative Invitation. Page fen

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© Z7 i5= MSw- L i ® What was if like at the Seminary those first years? Of our frugal fare most vivid to me is lunch time. Down to the dining room (in the basement) we marched two by two. A teacher, stern or otherwise presided at each end of the long tables, the pupils ranged along the sides. On Mondays we had cocoa and crackers; on Tuesdays honey and hot rolls: on Wednesdays cocoa and crackers: on Thursdays honey and hot rolls: on Fridays fish. We loved the honey days and wished for more always. From the first catalogue we read: For board, furnished room, tuition in English branches and Latin, and laundry service, $350 a year. Among the Extras-Optional is listed: Classes in decoration on china, plush, velvet, etc. (We loved painting with Miss Fullick and got a real kick from her trilly laugh!) I remember that I painted for myself a spray of trailing arbutus on a sky blue satin ribbon bow for my back comb. Every five weeks came a Musical Review (not spelled Revue in those mid-Victorian days!) hHowever, to the musicale in which I took part, I wore my lovely party bow and sang (though never on the key) that lovely song Good- bye Summer. It was a memorable Review being my first and last appearance as a coloratura. On Sundays we marched down C Street (with its sidewalk of two boards laid lengthwise), to beautiful little St. Luke ' s Church, of which Rev. Lemuel H. Wells was the rector, as well as our beloved school Chaplain. Sunday evenings we walked the two planks again, lighting our way with kerosene lanterns. But it was fun slipping off the sidewalk into the mud and holding up the whole brigade, the while we extricated our feet from our overshoes and our overshoes from the mire. Note this announcement in the first catalogue: The School has received a gift of dumb-bells. This will add to the efficiency of the School. (Be it said for the benefit of the grand-daughters of the Old Girls that the modern use of the term dumb-bell was unknown in the eighties!) I quote General Regulations No. 2: €ach boarding pupil should be provided with a comb, brush, tooth-brush, a waterproof cloak, an umbrella, a pair of overshoes, a napkin ring, a clothes bag. two yards of carpet or a rug for her room and a colored skirt. Let no modern Miss misjudge and infer from this that the mid-Victorian girls wore extreme decollete. Let it be known that your grandmothers wore dress skirts, over the colored underskirts, reaching to the floor, and high neck basques with high neck collars, boned. If you please! Today, A. D. 1931, a beautiful Wing of the beautiful new Annie Wright Seminary is called Paddock Hall In honor of Its founder. The Wing Includes the Dining Hall and the Infirmary. It brings to mind the love the homesick qlrls bore him. It was the Bishop ' s habit to say to them If you were never homesick I should be afraid you did not have a happy home. Gentle as woman ' s was his manly soul — The form, the face, a sympathizing whole. The cheery word that lighted up their board — A kindred spirit rich with friendship stored. L ' ENVOI Her founder, vision-hearted and in saintly cheer Marched, the missionary chief and pioneer: Clear lay the way he needs must tread in duty ' s right, Lo! His sword — the Spirit — now damascened with light! February. 1931. Fannie Paddock Hinsdale. Page nin«

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Perhaps there was a breath longer than usual. Perhaps a heart pounded a bit. But we went on up the gravelled path that senni-circled the lawn, not nnuch broken by trees and shrubs at that early date, up the fourteen (or was it sixteen?) steps, to the porch, and rang the bell. A trinn maid answered. We were shown to the reception room — told to wait. The oblong room. The dignified furnishings. Th e windows at two sides. The crisp May breeze blowing in at the North. The clear, cool sunshine without. Across the street, a big, square house, known later — and happily — as Bishop ' s House. Beyond it, the blue and sparkling Sound, blue and cold — like me. Blue and cold, like the heavy silence that fell upon me. And like the sparkle upon the cold, my Father ' s gallant raillery to cheer me. Gradually, other impressions, Impressions from within the school itself. A subdued activity across the hall, a door opened, shut. A murmur of voices. Is the principal coming? Silence again. A bell far off. Steps in the hall outside our open door. Now? No, the steps go on quietly. Another bell — a clang this time. Then the sound of orderly marching. Near, nearer. Then fainter. A controlled confusion of voices. Then, from out in the open dir. the sound of young and happy voices, unrestrained laughter. Shouted good-byes. A glimpse of tam-o-shanters going by in twos, in threes, in groups, red, blue, vellow. The recession of steps down the gravelled path, faint, now fainter. School is over. A fifteen-year-old heart pounds harder. This self-controlled and decorous Annie Wright Seminary — will it take unto its heart a young stranger from a Mid-west high school, a greenhorn in experience, an undiluted product of Main Street? That young and happy laughter just gone, will it make room for another voice, admit into its intimacy a newcomer at tag-end term? The crisp breeze seems all at once crisper, the cool sunshine cooler, the sparkle of water — is it sparkle of ice? And then suddenly, there is no cold, no crispness, no ice. For something vivid and vital and cordial has glowed through the open door and into the room and we are on our feet, warmed and revivified by a personality. It is little Mrs. Raynor. in whose memory the Raynor Chapel of the present Annie Wright Seminary was built by her girls and by those coming after. Small in stature, this little lady, quick as a bird to move, yet with an ever-preseni dignity. Dressed always in black, her white hair framing a face piquant and smiling, eyes intensely alive and eager. Had we been waiting long? Mrs. Wells was occupied. Would the vice-principal do? Strangers? Tired after our long journey? Ah, yes, the credits, letters ... ah . . . well . . . come Monday. Monday morning . . . And then, like three old friends, we are all chatting . . . the green countryside, the hawthornes. the Puget Sound mist that is never rain! We are laughing together. Suddenly the Spring breeze blows in colder and the little lady is seized with coughing. We are all concern. My father springs to the window, closes it, tells me to bring water. I rush wildly to the hall, commandeer a startled teacher. We get the water, return. The ice is completely broken. Pan- .- ' -v-n