By Patricia Baker Laflin*
"Tuckers aren't quitters," was the response Lucy Tucker received from her father when she wrote a tearful letter describing the primitive conditions at her first teaching job in Big Sandy, Arizona. She decided she'd stick it out and it proved to be the beginning of a teaching career which spanned forty years.
Lucy was born in 1893 in Clara City, Minnesota and moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old. She graduated from L.A. Polytechnic High School and then from a two-year program at California State Normal School, also in Los Angeles. She was a fully credentialed teacher, but the one-room school in Big Sandy was a huge challenge for someone who had never been away from home before. Living arrangements were provided by the school board president and consisted of a bed in the corner of the board member's living room, in a two- room home. The eighth-grade boys in her first class towered over this petite, barely over 5- foot-tall, new teacher.
After receiving her father's no-sympathy letter, she determined to make the best of it and came to appreciate the families and the social times which centered around the school and the children. She left after the first year, however, accepting a job in another one-room school in Mendocino County, California. Her third job was in Thermal, California.
In Lucy's own words, she describes her arrival in the Coachella Valley.
My introduction to Thermal was in the fall of 1917. At the Los Angeles train station, I met another single young lady, Imogene Leet, who was headed for Thermal and a teaching job there, and we immediately became great friends. She would teach the middle grades and I had been assigned Grades 1 and 2 in a three-room school. We were met at the train station in Thermal. It was hot! We crossed the dusty road and walked to the Fleetwood Hotel which was about a block away. The hotel was a pleasant surprise. It was a two-story building with screened porches for each bedroom, a large dining room, and a parlor with a piano. The parlor was the most important retreat in town for anyone who liked to sing and for social evenings.
Incidentally, Lucy played the piano, so she immediately was very popular.
The girls had hoped to rent rooms at the Fleetwood, but the owner politely told them that he did not rent to single women teachers. Disappointed, they tramped through the dust in search of an apartment and found one at the Alderman Hotel, close enough that they could take their meals at the Fleetwood. That proved to be a good arrangement as other young people came to the hotel in the evenings for a song fest and other activities. Picnics in the canyons and horseback riding prevented boredom. Lucy said, "That's how I met my future husband." Ben Laflin had two ponies and was happy to loan them to the new teachers. Actually, that was how many of the local bachelor farmers found wives-by looking over the new crop of teachers each fall. Since the school board did not usually hire married teachers, there were new ones each year.
Dances were held in the Thermal Town Hall and in Mecca, but the school board said that Indio was off-limits because it was a railroad town, and too rough. The board also said that Lucy and her friend, Imogene, should attend the Thermal Baptist Church instead of the Westside Methodist Church, which they preferred.
Lucy remembered fondly her classroom and students at Thermal Elementary School, which later became John Kelley Elementary School. The three buildings were of stucco and cement block construction and her room had a fireplace in it-something she said, "added to its charm." A long-covered porch extended the length of the building and there was a bell tower. The Riverside County Library provided materials and the curriculum was quite basic. Lucy enhanced their learning, for example, by bringing a churn and cream to class so that they could see how butter was made. She always had a costumed rhythm band which entertained other classes and parents. During harvest season, when there was an influx of children of farm workers, separate classes were set up for them so that there was not an interruption of the regular classroom programs. Children were not promoted unless they were qualified for the next level's work.
Lucy returned to the Los Angeles area and taught in El Segundo for a year, but she could not forget the young man with the two ponies, and she returned to marry Ben Laflin in 1920. After their son, Ben Jr. was born, she became a stay-at-home mom, but when the Depression hit in 1929, she defied custom and went back to the classroom. Since jobs were scarce, many school districts would not hire female married teachers-saving the jobs for men-but Lucy's reputation for excellence stood her in good stead and she continued to teach until the 1960s. She taught in Thermal, Coachella, and Indio school districts and even received recognition in Ripley's "Believe it or Not" when it was noted that she was teaching for a principal, Ewing Robertson, who had been one of her first-grade students years before. At her retirement, the Rotary Club of Indio presented to her a plaque which read, "Lucy T. Laflin, in recognition of devoted service to the school children of Coachella Valley."
*Patricia Baker Laflin is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Coachella Valley History Museum. She served as author of The Periscope from 1994 to 2007. Her books Coachella Valley, California - A Pictorial History and Indio (Images of America series) are classics for anyone interested in the history of the Coachella Valley.
The Periscope, a series available on Amazon:
The Periscope includes a series of engaging publications that detail the rich history of the Coachella Valley. From life as a pioneer, the growth of the date industry, all the way to the Salton Sea saga, and much more, the stories bring to life the desert region of Southern California. Written under the umbrella of the Coachella Valley Historical Society (dba Coachella Valley History Museum), books in the series tell the stories of the innovators who helped to make the vibrant region what it is today.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. Priscilla Porter is the Co-Director of the Porter History-Social Science Resource Center at the Palm Desert Campus of California State University San Bernardino and a volunteer at the Coachella Valley History Museum. A former elementary school teacher, she is the author of many popular curriculum guides for teachers.
Professional gratitude is extended to the contributing authors: Patricia Korzec, Renee Brown, Diana P. Kitagawa, Rod Hendry, Julia Sizek, and Patricia Laflin. Credit is extended to Eduardo Contreras for the cover design.
This is the first book in The Periscope series from the Coachella Valley Historical Society (dba Coachella Valley History Museum). Additional books in the series will be available SOON. To hear about the latest books, sign up for the exclusive New Release Mailing List by sending an email to prisporter@aol.com. You’ll be glad you did!
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