15

CHAPTER II

A WHITE TEACHER IN A SEPARATE SCHOOL

Late in the summer of 1946 Almera Anderson Romney. an experienced forty-

three-year-old teacher and school administrator from rural Utah, applied for a

teaching job in Monrovia, California. She later described the response of

Superintendent Dwight Lydell, who half-heartedly mentioned an opening at

Huntington Elementary School:

"I'm sure that you wouldn't be interested in the only position I have to offeryou," [Lydell said]. "We do need a teacher in our Negro school but theproblems there are insurmountable. The children are undisciplined and can'tlearn, the parents are ignorant, and the school is as dirty as a pigpen."!

Although she was amazed that me superintendent admitted to having a substandard

school in his district, let alone a segregated one, Romney immediately asked for the

job. She felt she had 00 choice out to accept the position, for her husband was ill and

she needed work. She signed a contract for $2100 for the 1946-47 school year, and,

on September 9, reported to Huntington School to teach fUth grade. Thr~ years later

she became Huntington; s principal.

Almera A. Romney 7 "Ail Children Are Alike unto Me," Dialogue: A Journalof Mormon Thought 6 (Summer 1971): 53.

16 (Romney's seventeen-year career at Huntington School began in much the same

way as that of thousands of other white teachers assigned to work at segregated

minority schools during the long, largely undocumented history of separate education

in the Western United States.2 She knew nothing of the history and culture of

Americans of color, and she received no special training for the job. Her assignment

was treated as temporary and low-status by her supervisors. and little help was

offered or expected. Teachers of Romney's generation, trained in the pedagogical

theories of the early twentieth century, were familiar with the works of preeminent

educational historian Ellwood P. Cubberiey, who advocated separate schools for "the

averaged, defective, delinquent, or the Negro race," and with psychologist Edward

Thorndike, who concluded from his group tests of intelligence thai. few Negroes could

even reach the white median score. 3 One could learn little about the education of

Negroes in the educational literature of the era, On the whole, the subject was simply

ignored. As historian Judy Mohraz points out, studying the schooling of black

children is exceptionally difficult ~ber;:ausetile material is frequently scant or

2 Irving G. Hendrick, The Education of Non-Whites in California, 1849-1970(San Francisco CA: R & E Associates, 1977), ix. According to Hendrick, "Mostareas [of non-white educational history] have hardly been touched ... even for blacks~~;o -::~;.f::;r;-. ...;; :,.:~~~~ ....._,._-r, ~-=l! l62~~;2..:-~'': i_;~.:.,<;.

3 Ellwood P. Cubberley, State and County Educational Reorganization (NewYork: Macmillan, 1914), 4: Edward L. Thorndike. "Intelligence Scores of ColoredPupils in High Schools," School and Sociecy 18 (10 November 1923): 570. See JudyJolley Mohraz, "Educational Reform and the Black Child" (Chapter 3), in The~~:S8"~~..;:~~ht-:.~.· .. r:~~,::..S.".0i'7<: of ~!':It:1( >=';Il('<lti,,!,!: if!..1~.Ii~ljh; J2QQ·:J2.3Q

-------- -

c

i1.•__-

nonexistent.:" Even if Romney had been given the time to comb libraries in order to

familiarize herself with the history of minority peoples in California and with their

educational history in the state, she would have found nothing to prepare her for life

at Huntington School. 5 Most probably Romney began her new job equipped "with

the usual luggage of preconceived notions, ready for anything . . . from mental

inferiority to secret vice, Of as one white teacher in Harlem described her initiation.'s

EduCation of an Educaior

Aithough Romney had acquired a broad professional background during her

years as an educator in Utah, prior to teaching at Huntington School she had never

known a person of color. Neither, however. had most of the other members of

Huntington's faculty. A!~~~'aghapproximately two-thirds of Huntington's students

were black and the remainder Mexican and Mexican-American, in 1946 mere was

orlJ\' ~np ve-rJr liaht-skinned teacher of",....r· !OT' · ~t thp school ~!ptt;t Paullvn Garner. 7• .... -- ... ...~t) _..... 1_", _""'1. >I. ...... '" ..... "'" _ ....... ""' .. , '"'~_:~ __ :._ •

tvfohraz, Separate Problem, xv,

5 For instance, Roy W. Cloud, in Education in California: Leaders,Or!!anizations. and Accomplishments of the First Hundred Years (palo Alto: StanfordUniversity Press, 1952), states that California solved its "race problem" in the "right~.~'8.~~:;t~ t 875--~!,,!rj never mentions the subject again. See Chapt~r IT (following) for a

6 Virginia L Snitow, "I Teach Negro Girl~," The New Rer.mblic 107 (9

? "New Teachers Announced," Monrovia News-Post (subsequently MN-P), 13July 1944: "Supt. Lydell disclosed that the first Negro school teacher to be employedin the local system will start work at the Huntington school in September." For more

17

18{

The remainder of the staff were white, with the exception of one custodian.

Furthermore, there were no minority teachers or administrators at any oilier Monrovia

school, including the junior and senior high school. Before moving to Monrovia later

in the school year. the Romney family had always lived in all-white communities, as

did most suburban Californians." As Romney wrote many years later, "I was totally

ignorant of the problems that beset our racial minorities . . . I had not thought

seriously about their problems. I am appalled that r could have been so blind andignorant, so indifferent and unconcerned. "9

Although it had been twelve years since Romney had been in a classroom, she

was a confident teacher who had always felt at home in a school environment. The

differences she encountered in her mostly ten- and eleven-year-old fifth grade pupils

at Huntington School, however, shocked her:

On the opening day of school, I experienced something completely new to me.There W:1<: absolutely no response to me as a person. No matter what I did orsaid there was dead silence. If I turned my back for a second, there was

classroom, Romney sought help. She turned to the principal, S" R"

!0"7"1\ "'!_t ,t:;J,. _~ ~ : /'! ...,..'" .!. ........

/

19

[Ammon] dismissed me abruptly stating that he had been informed that I hadformerly been a teacher and a principal and as far as he was concerned I couldsolve my own problems. Angry and perplexed, I returned to my classroomand began the dreary task of cleaning cupboards and organizing books andmaterials ...• I took one [of the fifth grade readers], chose a story, and put aset of questions on the blackboard. I also prepared arithmetic and languageassignments. The next day I passed out paper and pencils, explained theassignments, and told the children to go to work, hoping I could evaluate themas they did so. Nothing happened. The entire class simply sat and stared intospace. I was at a complete loss. It never occurred to me that most of thechildren could not read a word I had written and were too proud to tell meso.n

Stymied, Romney asked a colleague for advice:

At recess time I sought Out a kindly-looking older teacher who had been in theschool a number of years. She laughed and explained to me that very fewNegro children could be taught to read. A few of the brighter ones catch on,but as far as the rest are concerned, "the less you worry about them the better.Put in a day's work, close the door and go home and forget about them. nThis advice deeply troubled me and raised some serious questions. Whycouldn't they read? Was it lack of motivation? What relationship did thecolor of one's skin have to do with one's reading ability?"

}r~

It took weeks. of hard work and persistence before Romney began to penetrate

the complex barriers that stoo..:lbetween herself and her new students. When teaching

in Utah she had experienced a comfortable and affectionate rapport with her pupils,

but she knew that to achieve rapport she must first win the students' respect and trust.

The difficulty of her assignment .at Huntington became apparent when she found that

some of the children cringed when she reached out to touch a shoulder or give a pat.

Realizing that [nany of the students were actually afraid of her, she Looked fer ways

11 Ibid, 53-54~

(20

My solution to this problem came about inadvertently. The annual P.T.A.[parent Teacher Association] carnival was held on Halloween eve. I decidedto dress as a forty-niner, I marvel now that I had the courage to appear insuch an outlandish costume. But it was a great success as far as my pupilswere concerned. They began to see me as a person. Years afterward theywould laugh with me about the night r "let down my hair. "13

Rornney also brought the fest of her family to the carnival, where they first

experienced being the only white faces in a dark-skinned crowd. Romney's best

ambassador turned out to be her blonde, out-going three-year old son Clyde, who feit

completely at home at Huntington School and whose visits there became a weekly

event. Slowly the students became comfortable with their new teacher, and they. in

turn, became a group of distinctive individuals in Romney's eyes:

Now I felt that the pupils and I understood each other, and that we coulddiscuss their problems frankly. I tried to make them realize how Ga.,'1Yopportunities they w0111dmiss and how narrow their lives would be if they l_JRomney found that many of her students couid read, but that most were 'A;,';l:

!!'-;,

below grade level and self-conscious about their lack of skill. Tile school had no

library or supplemental reading books, and the available state textbooks were difficult,

dull, outdated, and irrelevant to her students' lives." To find a supply of reading

14 Ibid.

15 Even with Romney's limited knowledge of the history of America's minoritypeoples, she could see as she taught the required fifth-grade social studies curriculumthat the textbooks presented a nearly aI!-'~IJhHeversion of American history ~and thatreading books portrayed a middle-class white family life quite distant from herstudents' reality. See "The Negro in American History Textbooks: A Report of aStudy of the Treatment of Negroes in American History Texts Used in Grades Fiveand Eight and in the High Schools of California's Public Schools." prepared by a

21

materia! to use while she attempted to locate better texts, Romney borrowed primers

from lower-grade teachers, and many of the children donated quarters which were

used to build a library of "Little Golden Books." The children who could read well

independently were given individual assignments. and also worked as helpers for the

less-advanced readers.

The children's thirst for more books led Romney to the Monrovia Public

Library where she obtained library card applications for each child. She instructed

the students Ito take the cards home for signatures. and told the class that they would

walk the eight blocks to the library together to check out books as soon as ail the

applications were returned. According to Romney. the students' reaction to her

announcement was less than enthusiastic:

They looked at me dubiously."We can't go there," a student said."Of course we can. The walk will be good for you." ~-\"But we can't go there. The lady won't let colored kids use the \

"h U \fLo ra...ry & _jWith wrath I confronted me librarian a few hours later."We've never admitted those children. They can't read, they're noisy,

aT1dthey're dirty,"I was infuriated. I contacted the superintendent and the city fathers,

and a week later we had our trip. The librarian glowered while we happilyselected books. It was a magical incentive!"

panel of historians from the University of California, Kenneth M. Stampp, chairman .(Sacramento CA: State Department of :'lucation. 1964); and Michael B . Kane,Minorities in Textbooks: A Study of Their Treatment in Social Studies Texts(Cleveland; Quadrangle Books, 1971).

rs Romney, "All Children, Il 55.

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The realities of her students' lives became especially clear to Romney the day

that two of her top pupils came to school very late and visibly upset. Betty and Mimi

had been very excited about being part of a Girl Scout troop newly organized at

Huntington, and had proudly worn their uniforms to school the day before,

announcing that they were going out to sell Girl Scout cookies after school. At recess

time, Romney asked them what was wrong:

"What happened?" I asked. "Why were you late?""We crossed the line last night," Mimi answered."What line, Mimi?"

The girls looked at each other."Where the white people live, ft Betty volunteered.

I looked at her in amazement. Betty continued,"We just didn't think. Mother had told us not to do it but we were so

excited we forgot where we were. When we knocked on a door and a womanopened it and saw us she grabbed a gun and yelled, 'Get off my property youdamn little niggers!' She chased us down the street and we were g_..ared.Mother was so mad that she took us to the police station this morning to tellthem about the gun."

"What did they de about it?" I asked, fighting to steady my voice."Nothing," Betty replied. "They never do."11

i he students were no, the only ones who learned r-apidly that school year.

Although she often felt overwhelmed by the enormity of her job, ROfnney's

first year at Huntington was not as difficult as it might have been. Her class was

small: the names of twenty-five pupils appear on her roil sheet, t:allging in age from

nine to thirteen years." Romney was abo left 'liecj much to herself 1:0 experiment

17 Aimera A. Romney, "Circa 1946," unpublished manuscript (May t977); AARPapers.

13 Charlotte/Huntington (Canvon) Registers, 19iO-1969, Monrovia City SchoolDistrict, Official School Registers Microfilm Number 17 (subtitled "Only partiallycomplete"), Records of the Monrovia Unified School District, Monrovia, California,

23

with methods and curriculum to meet her pupils' needs, thanks to the aloofness of ncr

principal and the overload on the district caused by unprecedented school growth as

the first wave of World War II babies flooded the system. Fully thirty-eight percent

of Los Angeles Couiliy teachers were newly hired for the 1946-47 school year,

including fourteen in Monrovia. Acquiring 50 many ncw teachers in one year

involved "hiring many without experience, OULlCrs who have been Gut of the teaching

professions for a number of years, and even a certain number, untrained," according

to County Superintendent C.C. Tr'Jlingharil.'9 This huge pest-war expansion not

only enabled Romney to obtain her last-minute job on the basis of her Utah

credentials (at that time she had only provisional California certification), but it also

brought two other ex.ceptioual women into public school teaching at Huntington

School the same year: Iviary COOfll!Y, a Vet~l1Ul. parochial school teacher. and ~t.'1r'i:1

.,.- ~,.. ,.. 1 .•.. i ~ '.,!_ derzarten _ ......t _~"_ ........_ ..... ~J..,..1""'1 • ...,...., l.t~ ... 2,u r""'".,.."..o ...ri.'... LVlarugg, rormeny a pnva.e KlflUI;;b<t.hCIlCUIU "u~"";;'J "" .."". ~ '"'.. - ....!v .. ~J

and Marugg, both older utCUi R0111ne:Yi shared her idealism, her commitment to rnmify

and religion, and ht!i determination to bring professional excellence to teaching at

Huntington School. They were lile lii,st of many colleagues who eventually helped

Romney transform Hunlington School, dJid who provided invaluable professional and

emotional support lor one another. Cooney became ill and had to leave the school

L946-47. Since Huntington School at that time had one class per grade level nomatter how many children of color in a particular age group lived in the community,class sizes tended to fluctuate widely from year to year.

(y "Schoo! Heads Plan Revision of Course," MN-P, 2 November 1946.

20 "Nine Teachers Appointed" and "Two Teachers are Approved," MN-P, 1.7~ r 1 t.., 1'" .., f"I. A ~

May ana 1.) J une i:1'+0.

24

after three years, out Marugg played a key mit; in the sUiOOl'S oevdopuieni. during

the next decade.

Rumney [OUilO lhat lhe parent;) of some (if her students could be of great

and weil-estaoiished biack families, Liley SUPiX>fted H1mwlgioH S~hool activities, and

as their cnuoren oecame more excited about their new teacher. me families became

case of confiicts] since we were lWO doors away from, ille schooi i oOii·i..;:;a,:e

Mormon RootS

~ ~,1 .. ~ . __ ". _ _ _ ,.-t- _ _ _ i__

1 ....\;;1vC 1<;41 ~ o;;cuU';l ,)II\..

t\pru 1::.0::"'.•

c~had left a successful nine-year professional career in Utah to become a full-time wife

and mother in Southern California.

Almera Anderson was the fifth and youngest child of immigrant parents who

joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) in the 1880s in their

native Denmark. Almera was born on their small farm in Manti, Sanpete County,

Utah in 1903, a community where the only "minorities" were a few non-Scandinavian

non-Mormons. The three Anderson children who survived to adulthood struggled on

their own to earn professional degrees, shaped by their parents' commitment to

church. to education, and to the power of hard work. In an interview late in her life,

Romney remembered that she always felt "different" from other children in Manti:

I was always tall for my age, and felt myself to be skinny and unappealing ..\fy bent made n11 interests different from those of others my age.My best friends were the librarian and high school principal. I dreamed of a

(J~.j<-:..t

Manti for his entire aduir life, and was able to give he! intellectual encouragement out

iiuie rnareriai assistance. Aimera was a briiiian; siudenc Wiiii speeiai aoi.liiy in reading

-t ivfary EUcit Romney MacAfihul, ~Aimera ROfiilicy. ruu(;di,;()ll Chusc riel!"C.XDOI1t:(li. II 5 (Summer i9i9); t.

25

26

pediatrics. but, as she put it, "1 had few. if any other choices when I began teaching. 1123

Her two older brothers had married and moved away, and as the only daughter and

youngest child, she was expected to stay home and care for her aging parents.

The autumn Almera turned nineteen she became a teacher at Manti Elementary

School where she had been a pupil just six years earlier. Three years later, at age

twenty-two, she was asked to be principal-in addition to teaching a. class of more than

fifty third- and fourth-graders. She organized the staff of young teachers in a project to

earn money to buy library books by taking over the school's janitorial work for a year;

she experimented with individualized assignments that allowed the students to go as fast

as they wanted, interspersing structured assignments with "just for fun" tasks; she spent

late nights trying to stay ahead of her highly-motivated students. Her end-of-year test

results were so exceptional that the district superintendent himself administered a retest,

which yielded even higher test scores. Her successes led to "several flattering offers on

the state level," which she declined because "I was young and had little desire to be in

a supervisory position. "2~

Alrnera had been saving her earnings during her Manti years so that she could

afford to attend a four-year college. She hoped (0 go to Berkeley to attend the University

of California, but the responsibility of caring for her ailing parents made that dream

impossible. Instead, at age twenty-five, with six years of elementary school teaching and

2J Ibid.

H Almera A. Romney, untitled manuscript on teaching reading (circa 1960), inpossession of author.

_J