Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Two Promotions: Lindsey Gaynor will be graduating this year, 50 years after her grandmother Arline White graduated with the first class to graduate from Willow Glen Middle School.
A Willow Glen family celebrates middle school's 50th anniversary
A Grandmother and her granddaughter graduate from WGMS --only 50 years apart
By Kate Carter
One Willow Glen family is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Willow Glen Middle School this year in a special way.
On June 13, Arline White, formerly Camara, will visit her alma mater 50 years after her graduation to watch her granddaughter Lindsey Gaynor receive her promotion certificate for completing the eighth grade.
White, 65, who now lives in W. San Jose, says some things at the school have changed in the intervening years.
"Like I was telling Lindsey," she says, "When she comes back, it's not going to be the same."
But many aspects of the middle school experience--moving from childhood to young adulthood--remain the same.
White's transition at the school, then a seventh- through-ninth-grade school known as Edwin Markham Junior High School, was augmented--her first year at the school was the first year she lived in Willow Glen. White's family moved from Hawaii to Monterey in 1949 and she spent her eighth-grade year there.
Before her ninth-grade year, the family moved again and settled in a home near Bird Avenue in Willow Glen, the home where her granddaughter lives now.
White says it was a challenging adjustment to live in several different places in a short few years, but she enjoyed Willow Glen and the friendly people at the new Markham Junior High. She remembers Willow Glen as a growing community with a small-town feel.
"It had that atmosphere," she says. "You walked everywhere. I walked to school--that was kind of far for me. I walked to the theater downtown."
Because she was new, White says she doesn't remember much of the history of the school or what the area was like without it. But the school, built next to the new Willow Glen High School, was modern for its day, she says.
The two schools shared the new gym, swimming pool, cafeteria and theater facilities, White says. Walking through the school recently, she says she was amazed to see Willow Glen Middle with its own gym and pool, although the schools continue to share a theater.
White remembers studying all the normal subjects--English, math, history, science, Spanish, gym and art.
"I'm not an artist, but that was an easy class," she says.
She also took home economics and typing--using manual typewriters.
"There was no such thing as computers," White says.
They didn't have calculators, either, but she doubts that they would have made a difference.
"I don't think they would've let us use them if we had them," she says.
Photograph by Douglas Rider
Flashback: Arline White shows her granddaughter Lindsey Gaynor where she signed the Golden Book 50 years ago at Willow Glen Middle School. White had not walked the halls of Willow Glen Middle School since she graduated.
White did well in school, and when she graduated she had earned the privilege of signing her name in the school's Golden Book for students who remain on the honor roll during their time there.
White says she liked playing sports, but there were no afterschool sports at the school then, she says. Even if there were, she wasn't encouraged to play.
"Girls weren't supposed to be that sporty in those days," she says.
But students played sports like basketball and baseball in their daily gym classes, she says. The swimming unit, when the boys and girls were separated, brings back strong memories for White.
"We had these ugly swimsuits, these green monstrosity cotton things," she says. "You could see right through them. It was so embarrassing."
Unlike today's students at the middle school, though, she didn't have to wear a uniform to school. Students did have a dress code, and girls were required to wear skirts, she says.
White's family got its first television in 1951, so she didn't spend much time watching it in junior high. When she wasn't in school, White would spend time in Willow Glen's downtown with friends or earn 50 cents per hour babysitting, which she says she did often.
"I'm surprised I still wanted kids," she says.
But soon after she graduated from Willow Glen High School in 1954, she married Bob White, who has since died. The couple moved first to San Francisco, then to Cambrian and then settled in W. San Jose in 1961. During that time, they had four children--Sandy was born in 1955, followed by Patty in 1956, Cindy in 1957 and Bob in 1959.
"I had them in a row," White says. "It wasn't too fun when they were babies, but I really enjoyed my kids. They never gave me any trouble. I'm blessed."
White stayed at home to raise her brood while her husband worked.
"In those days, they didn't push the girls," she says. "You were expected to get married and have kids. It was wonderful. I wouldn't have traded it for anything."
The White children all went to Rogers Middle School and Prospect High School and most of them went to San Jose State University, she says. They have all married and White now has 10 grandchildren: Kelly, 16; Lindsey, 14; Michael, 13; Nicholas, 11; Taylor, 11; Andrew, 9; Lauren, 9; Matthew, 7; Chase, 4; and Ryan, 3.
Like White, granddaughter Lindsey Gaynor, whose parents are Sandy and Bill Gaynor, also enjoys sports. The middle school now has eighth- grade basketball teams sponsored by the San Jose Unified School District, and Gaynor played center this year. Gaynor says she hopes to participate in volleyball, basketball and swimming at Lincoln High School next year.
Many of her classmates still walk to school, Gaynor says, but her mother picks her up. She also has a laptop that she uses to type school reports and projects,and she uses a calculator in math class.
Photograph by Douglas Rider
Nostalgic Tour: Lindsey Gaynor points out some of Willow Glen Middle School's newer buildings to her grandmother Arline White Monday at Willow Glen Middle School.
Middle schoolers do still have physical education every day, she says. They have to wear blue shorts and a gray shirt during class, she says. The students participate in the swimming unit, boys and girls together, wearing their own swim suits, though.
Both Gaynor and her grandmother agree that middle school is a time of intense change.
"The kids think they're a lot more mature than they actually are," Gaynor says.
Willow Glen Middle School Principal Lois Allen says that's normal.
"These three years are so critically important because they set the basis for what the students will become in the rest of their lives," she says. "It's a time of craziness, a time when kids are trying to figure out who and what they are."
Allen says the middle school years are when children start having to make decisions--that they didn't have to make in elementary school--about how they approach school, friends, family and their futures. Those choices help establish the values they hold later in life, she says, and they aren't always easy to make.
"Most of the decisions about being moral people are being made now," Allen says. "It's so hard because this is the time when they have to turn into self-directed people. I look upon us as this bridge--we have to bridge this transitional time."
Gaynor is feeling ready to move on from middle school but a little nervous about what she'll face next year.
"I'm happy, but I'm sad at the same time," she says. "I'll miss my friends and teachers. But I'm glad that I'm going to meet new people. We're going to be around a lot of older people, like 18-year-olds. I'm worried the work's going to be a lot harder."
She and her classmates are still busy finishing up their middle school years. The eighth-graders visited Great America on June 11 and only had to show up for school June 12 to practice for the next day's promotion ceremony. After the afternoon graduation, the class will have a dance party.
They have a lot to celebrate, Gaynor says.
"We're the 50th graduating class of the school," she says. "That's pretty cool."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
