I attended Montlake Elementary School in Seattle from 1957 -
1961. It is a classic mid-1920’s Floyd Narramore
design that, back then, served the children from the middle-class neighborhood.
Third and fourth grade at Montlake were years marked by good classroom behavior on my part. Being new to the neighborhood and the school I was focused on fitting in and my classmates helped me with that. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Parsons, doted on me so I was very comfortable and really well behaved in class. My report cards testified to that fact with notes such as: “Jon is a good citizen in class”.
Fourth grade introduced me to Miss Wolcott who was former WAC
or some other branch of the military and she didn’t suffer fools gladly. “Fear” would best describe my memories of her.
She was severe and when someone acted up in class the whole classroom would
have to go out on the playground and march military-style. Girls learned to “dress-right-dress” along
with the boys and nobody wanted to be the one whose horsing around caused the
whole class to march in the rain. I behaved and while I never fit in to
Scouting, I could sure look sharp standing at attention and marching on orders.