September 2024
Back to School at Forest and Breck
Wendy Moody, Steven Peitzman, Joe Terry
“Back to school” does not come as a happy sound to most kids, and probably never has. In this article, we are going way back to school, to learn about the schools Fallsers attended before the opening of the Mifflin School in 1936. There was in effect one Philadelphia public school–but two names–and three buildings. Of course, many children attended St. Bridget’s school.
Free public education began in Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, when the state legislature in 1818 established a school district in Philadelphia for poor children to be organized and overseen by a Board of Controllers. Its first head “controller” was Roberts Vaux, of the same family which produced a mayor—hence, Vaux Street. In 1837, the free school system was opened to all children, not just the poor, but it long remained segregated. Not until 1895 was compulsory attendance required. Many boys and girls were, of course, working in mills or other jobs. Just about the same time the Commonwealth first acted to enable public education (1818), residents of the Falls built the Falls [later “Old”] Academy (1819) to serve as school, church, and meeting hall.
The photograph labeled as figure 1 is from the Charles K. Mills Collection at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. This image shows the two early buildings of the Forest School near the (former) intersection of Krail and Crawford Streets.
Figure 2: The second Forest school, built in 1866-67, to supplement the small 1850 structure. From the Edmunds Collection, FLP.
The older building (1850) is of the Italianate “villa” style. The architect is not known. The surfaces are likely stucco over stone, and if the stucco was yellow, this was the yellow school building mentioned in various memoirs. As Falls of Schuylkill grew so did the number of kids going to school. Thanks to funding from city council in 1865, a burst of school construction occurred in 1866-1867, including the eight-room stone building seen on the left, designed by architect Isaac Hobbs, and shown more clearly in figure 2.
But in 1875 the school system had to lease part of the Falls Academy for overflow. Another unexpected flow of money for schools occurred in the mid-1880s, and again the Falls of Schuylkill benefitted, with the largest and grandest edifice so far (though any remembering it as children in its last years may not agree). The 1850 school was demolished, and the red brick building designed by school architect Joseph Anshutz took its place in 1886 (figure 3).
Figure 3: The third building to take the name Forest School, designed by then Board of Education architect Joseph Anshutz. Ignore the banner indicating school number 1. This is an engraving from John Trevor Custis, The Public Schools of Philadelphia (1897).
The 1866-1867 two-story stone building was retained, and housed the early grades. In 1913, the Board decided to change the name of the school from Forest to Breck, for Samuel Breck, an early nineteenth-century legislator, school board member, and abolitionist. At least one of us (SJP) has to admit to having no idea who Forest was, or even his first name. So the 1886 building was Forest when built, then Breck as of 1913. Although coursework of course changed along with grades supported, administratively there was one public school, Forest/Breck. The structures were demolished when the US 1 expressway was built, joining many lost East Falls buildings.
We will now move on from the buildings to recollections of schooldays within, compiled by Wendy from some of our oral histories (not “fact-checked”).
Louise Halstead (b. 1882) went to Forest School until age thirteen, then worked in Dobson Mills as a burler. She remembers: And we had two schools, we had a little school and a big school. The little school ran to the 5th grade, and then you went to the big school and you go to the 12th grade, and from there, if you were lucky, you’d go downtown and finish your education down there. Yea, we all had favorite teachers, but they were, they didn’t put up with much foolishness, as they do today. They give you a couple of raps on your fingers and that would be it. And they had a stick, a ‘pointer’ they’d call it, and it was about this long and they’d go around with that, you know, pointing to the blackboards… When I went, we learned off our blackboards – it was written there for us and then we learned from there.
Mary Webster (b. c.1910) recalls some teachers and one principal at Forest School:. She used to wear a little shawl around her, oh she was an old maid. Typical old maid. And she had first grade, Miss Walker – I don’t know her first name – she had one first grade, and she had the other. And then there was Carrie Dyson. Her father had a junk store down on the Ridge, and you could get nice things down there, you know, cheap. Then there was an old, old man with a beard, and his, I think his name was Dr. Samuels [principal?], and he was kind of cute. Laughs. He used to kid around with the kids a little bit, nice, you know, real nice.
Jean Buckley (b. 1920) recalls Breck School in the 1920s: Oh I just loved it! We walked to school. We had to be there by 9am and lined up in lines, you know. I used to walk into the classroom, and we walked home at twelve o’clock for lunch. We had to be back by 1:30, walk back. And we used to have a little Italian man who sold pretzels, salt pretzels… We had some great teachers. We really did. I loved that little school.
Edi Gotwols (b. 1921) shows a good memory for teachers: I remember all the ones – Ms. Kaid, Mrs. Wertz, Mrs. Toppen, Ms. Edwards taught math. Oh yeah it was okay, it was close to home.
Shirley Shronk (b. 1926): I went to the Breck School in the little old stone building for kindergarten and went through 2nd grade. For third grade we went to the brick building. There were nice little seats where we would go to sit for recess and a stone bench where we could sit and chat with a friend. There was no water in the stone building. If you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to go to the brick building.
Our newly rebuilt website is eastfallshistoricalsociety.org. Reach us on email at eastfallshistory@gmail.com. We welcome any recollections of schooling in East Falls in the 1930s perhaps heard from your parents. Also, any information about the East Falls Falcons football team of the 1940s. And join – you can do so easily on our website.
