Kinkaid High School - Kinkaidian Yearbook (Houston, TX)

Page 15 text:

E FIRST Y AR S

Page 14 text:

KTNKA DS FFT he year was 1906. The United States was fast emerging as a world power. The country was prosperingg its outlook was bright. Teddy Roosevelt had given up his Hrough riderv saddle for a desk at the White House, had waved his Big Stick in foreign affairs, and had begun trust-busting on the domestic scene. The enthusiasm generated on the national level was the reflection of the spirit of local communities, a spirit that was especially strong in the town that had been founded along the banks of Buffalo Bayou seventy years earlier. A visitor of that year wrote, ufloustone-the moving, bustling, active, thriving, industrious, wide-awake, growing city-is today the metropolis of Texas. Forty-one thousand in 1900-has almost doubled in five years . . . 1t's growing so fast hotels are not adequate, churches not large enough, post office entirely too small . . . People from all sections of the country are hitching on to Houston. 1t's got what they are looking for-opportunity.', Railroads, shipping, cotton, lumber, and recently discovered oil contributed to a pros- perity welcomed after the difficult days of the period following the War Between the States. lt was a fitting time for new beginnings, including that of a school. The expanding population had overcrowded the public school facilities. Parents, wanting more thorough and individualized instruction for their children, approached Margaret Hunter Kinkaid to teach a pre-primary class. Mrs. Kinkaid, a teacher at Hawthorne Elementary School until her marriage in 1899, was a young woman of serious mind and enterprising spirit. Since a regulation prohibited married women from teaching in public schools, she had given up her career to be a housewife. However, the domestic arts did not provide sufficient satisfaction for her. Her love of teaching was too deep rooted. Therefore, in September, 1904, she accepted her first students, seven five-year-old children including Annie Wiei' Bonner, Annie Beth Lockett, Hunter Kinkaid, Ruby Dick Blackburn, and Porter Hubbell.

Page 16 text:

he group met daily around the dining room table of the Kinkaid home, a five room frame cottage at the corner of Smith and Calhoun. Classes continued for two years until, in 1905, instruction was discontinued because of the birth of Williani Kinkaid. Vlfhen Mrs. Kinkaid resumed teaching, she had moved into a new house. It was a one-story cottage on the northeast corner of San Jacinto and Elgin. From this second beginning, the founding of the Kinkaid School is dated, for its formative years were spent in this location. Each day parents living in the neighborhood, a leading residential area. walked their children to school. This was a convenience not to be minimized in citing causes of subsequent growth. Transportation then was not easy, as paved st1'eets were considered a luxury rather than a necessity. Nevertheless, occasional horse and buggies fautomobiles were a rarityj, carrying students from the more distant, newly opened VVestmoreland addition, drew up in front of the cottage on the dirt road that was San Jacinto. Boys with their ties and high starched collars, knee length trousers and long sox, girls in full skirted dresses with long tresses and huge hair ribbon hows alighted. ln 1908, the school consisted of two grades, of seven pupils each, that met in the cottage living room. When one group recited, the other studied. Both delighted in the arrival of the vegetable man, for work was interrupted. Mrs. Kinkaid's return to the room promptly restored order. A natural dis- ciplinarian, who could command attention with a look or a gesture, she tolerated no foolishness. Typical of the rather Spartan regime of those early days were the two boys appointed to keep fires burning in the wood stoves. Although Mrs. Kinkaidis ideal was a small primary school, at the request of parents she expanded her classes, for she considered her function to be one of service to and cooperation with her patrons. ln 1910, with three grades and thirty children, she enlisted the aid of an additional Teacher, Mrs. Robert Gordon Ballinger, who remained with the school for twenty years. The fourth and fifth grades and a kindergarten were added in 1914. ln that year Mrs. Kinkaid asked Mrs. W. G. Smiley to establish the intermediate department. Mrs. Smiley, whose husband was superintendent of public schools, had previously taught in the city schools with Mrs. Kinkaid. She was a positive person with a deep fund of knowledge and a wide interest in civic affairs. Although she was on the staff for only a few years, Mrs. Smiley has remained a loyal friend of Kinkaid.