Highland California Historic District

Generally bound by Nona Avenue to the north, Main Street to the south, Orange Street to the west and Church Avenue to the east, the Highland Historic District contains an interesting blend of early 1900s architecture, including Craftsman Bungalows, Victorian-influenced designs, Gothic Revival and early commercial styles. Covering 290 acres and with 99 contributing buildings, the area is recognized in the National Register of Historic Places.


In connection with an environmental report in 1990 on the extension of the Cross-town Freeway this area was designated an historic district in the National Register of Historic Sites (01000333 NRIS), depicting the old-town area of Highland’s townsite as fine example of an early citrus town in Southern California. Eighty-one homes, 20 commercial buildings, churches, and community halls are in this original historical township area.

Highland California Historic District Story Map by Colin Childs



Highland Memories

By

Marilyn Cram Donahue

 

In the early 17th century, the  English poet John Donne said that “no man is an island.” This is perhaps truer in village life than any place else on earth.

Highland was a village. A beautiful spot, tucked at the base of the mountains, surrounded by groves of navel and Valencia oranges. The blossoms filled the air with sweetness. It was traditional for brides to have a sprig of orange blossoms in their bridal bouquet. I remember my grandmother saying that they could always find a tree that had off-season blooms for an off-season wedding.

But growing oranges was not as romantic as it sounds. It was hard work, and financial success in any year depended to a great extent on the weather. When the frost report came on the evening news, the men in the family would huddle around the radio, and no one else in the house dared make a noise until they heard whether or not it was expected to freeze that night. Smudge pots dotted every grove, and when they had to be lighted to warm the trees, the whole town woke up the next morning with noses full of black soot.

One year, in the late ‘40s, we had an unusual 5 or 6 inches of snow that didn’t melt away. Temperatures dropped in the night, making smudging a necessity. What a sight it was to see the black snow covering the streets, sidewalks, and gardens of Highland the next morning!

But when smudge didn’t fill the air, it was breathlessly clear and clean. I can remember, as a child, after a night of strong north winds, looking at the mountains and thinking I could stretch out my arm and tough them with my fingertips. That’s how clear the air was – how vivid the scene.

Palm Avenue was the main thoroughfare to the mountains, and people from Los Angeles and Orange County frequently stopped in Highland. I remember hearing some of them say that they liked to drive visitors up Palm Avenue to show them an authentic example of an old citrus town.

I have always thought of our mountains as shelters, not barriers, and this valley as a kind of  Eden. And my memories of the 1930s, 1940s, and even the 1950s, are of a place I call my Highland – the village where no man was an island. We were involved in each others’ lives, and, as in all villages, news spread like the proverbial jungle telegraph.

I can remember sitting at the kitchen table at our house on Main Street and hearing a tap-tap-tapping on the kitchen window. When my mother pushed up the sash, Grace Brown, who lived next door and was known to my sister and me as Auntie Brown, would announce, “Say now, have you heard . . .?” And she would share the latest information. Somebody died. Somebody was born. Somebody had to call the doctor. Somebody had the measles, and Dr. Evans had hung the quarantine notice on the front porch. These things weren’t gossip. They were news. People cared about each other and wanted to know what was happening. There were few secrets in Old Highland!

Every now and then I make a detour when I am driving up Palm Avenue, and I drive through the streets of the old town: East and West Main, Pacific, Atlantic, Nona, Fisher, Cole, Love , and so many more. And the memories come flooding back. Memories of people, everyday happenings, special events, and I see with my mind’s eye the way places looked back then – and what went on inside them. So I invite you to take a tour with me through memories of Old Highland. And I hope these meanderings will awaken some of your own memories – things you have stored away but not forgotten.

Let’s start with Highland’s two grocery stores: Patterson’s and Eichenberg’s.

Patterson’s Grocery Store

I remember the sawdust in the back room of the meat market, which was a quality one and produced such delicacies as standing rib roasts with those little fringed paper “panties” on the rib tips. Hamburger was real ground sirloin, and pork chops were consistently at least an inch thick. During the war, we brought our bacon drippings, saved in a coffee can, to the butcher. The grocer collected the foil that we had rolled into large balls from chewing gum and candy wrappers.

The grocery clerk, May Clark, wrote each item you purchased on a pad and added it up without an adding machine. Many people had charge accounts. Free delivery was offered, and the delivery boy was a young man named Chet Hamilton, who later bought the store from Mr. Patterson and called it Hamilton’s Market. Chet, as a young man, would come to my mother’s back door, bring in the groceries and offer to help my mother put them away.

I remember how grown up I felt when my mother handed me a grocery list and sent me to the store all by myself. I rode my bicycle up the Main Street and Palm Avenue hills so that I could carry the groceries home in the basket, coasting all the way. My mother had written 5 lbs of potatoes, and Mr. Patterson had put the price on the potato display in pounds. I couldn’t figure out how to weigh 5 lbs until he explained it to me. I remember how hard he tried not to laugh, for Mr. Patterson was a gentleman – even to children.

Mr. Patterson’s house on the corner of Main Street and Cole Avenue always had a spare room for one of the teachers at the grammar school to rent. I remember that Doyeta Hutchinson, who taught music and art at Highland Junior High, and Miss Parker, who taught second grade at the grammar school, both roomed there at different times.

He also grew grapes at the back of the house, and the dried vines were the temptation of neighborhood kids who wanted to smoke them. After they got caught, the bolder kids decided to try smoking pieces of rattan from porch furniture that later mysteriously collapsed when the legs weakened and gave way.

Eichenburg’s Grocery Store

The Eichenburgs were a quiet couple. I remember one daughter who was quite beautiful.

Their store was smaller and not as well equipped as Patterson’s. It seemed to me, as a child, that the aisles were closer together. But people usually tried to shop there as well as at Patterson’s. I overheard my mother say, “We need to be fair and give our business to both places.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Eichenburg had quite noticeable accents, and it was generally thought that they were German. One might think this would have made life difficult for them in the WWII years. Instead, there was a general sense of protectiveness, and I remember hearing people say things like, “Well, this war isn’t their fault.”

Drug Store

The drug store was on the corner of Palm and Pacific Avenues, and Mr. and Mrs. Toeppler, the druggist and his wife, lived on Pacific, a few houses past the parking lot behind the store. Ed Toeppler was the earliest pharmacist that I remember, though I know there was one before him. Later, Mr. Porterfield bought the store and operated it for years. He lived in the Patterson House on Main Street with his wife and two daughters, but this was past the time of my childhood. Mrs. Toeppler, Addie to her friends, returned to teaching during the war years and taught fifth grade. She said it was special to have me in her class because she had also taught my father when she was a very young teacher.

By the north wall of Patterson’s, a little stairway of about 4 steps led up to a door that opened into the drugstore. The main entrance to both stores was on Palm Ave., and the back doors opened on the west side into the small parking lot that is still there today.

The drug store was a popular place for high school kids to gather in the afternoons .The  bus stop that took the high school kids to San Bernardino five days a week was at the corner of Palm and Atlantic – right outside the front door. The soda fountain to the right of the front door offered vanilla and cherry phosphates, chocolate, cherry, and lemon cokes, root beer floats, and a number of innovative combinations. You could also get banana splits, but they cost a quarter, and that was too much for most of us – especially when a chocolate-cherry coke combination was only a nickel.

In back was the pharmacy where Mr. Toeppler ground up powders in his mortar and pestle and measured out liquid doses of tonics. Beautiful colored glass apothecary bottles held essential oils like gentian extract (gentian violet was used to treat impetigo). On the shelves throughout the store were patent medicines, such as horse liniment, Lydia Pinkham’s tonic for women, asthma powders, various lotions and creams, astringents, and remedies. (It was legal to use the word remedy, but not cure.)

What I remember being most interested in was the brilliant display of Chen Yu cosmetics for face, eyes, lips, and nails. You couldn’t miss it as you came in the front door. It was made even more provocative by a large brass Buddha that could be purchased for fifty cents. I determined to save my allowance, but my mother said she wouldn’t have it in the house.

I decided to do what all my friends did. Visit the magazine section to the left of the front door. The usual popular magazines were there: Ladies’ Home Journal, Life, Popular Science, National Geographic, Saturday Evening Post, Calling All Girls, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, and a slew of movie magazines. Comic books were only 5 cents, and if five friends each bought a different one, we could share. It seemed like good business. My mother hoped I would buy Archie (1941) or Superman (1938). She approved of a hero who battled crime. But I leaned toward Tarzan of the Apes (1929), or Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (1938).

The drugstore not only provided remedies. It offered fellowship for those who sat on the revolving bar stools, and entertainment for those who bought magazines.

Hambly’s Dry Goods

Mr. and Mrs. Hambly were from England, and they kept their lovely accents. The store was at the southwest end of the business section on Palm Avenue. Someone once said they really sold everything dry that couldn’t be eaten.

In back was a pot bellied stove and shelves and shelves of boxes of shoes. Mr. Hambly measured my feet and provided me with sturdy lace-up shoes that I hated because I wanted Mary Janes with a strap and a shiny button. But the shoes were durable, and Mr. Hambly showed me how to tie the long laces into double bows.

The Hamblys also sold fabrics of all sorts. The bolts lined the north wall, and Mrs. Hambly would  lift them down and let you feel the material. Colorful ribbons were wound around ribbon spools and sold by the yard, which meant from the end of your nose to your fingertips. Other household needs were tools, nails, and almost anything needed to make repairs.

Mr. Hambly was a handyman and could fix anything, according to my mother. She used to say she didn’t know what she would do if he ever retired.

 

The Bank of America Building

 The large, L-shaped building was designed by the same architect who designed the Mission Inn. It was located on the southwest corner of Palm and Main and housed not only the bank, with its safety deposit vaults, but the post office and telephone company as well,

The Telephone Company had an old-fashioned switchboard, and the operators plugged in the connections after saying “number please.” When there was a fire or other emergency, people picked up their phones and asked the operator where the problem was located. The phone numbers were short ones in the early days. Dr. Evans’s phone was 1. My grandmother’s was 11. Ours was 44W. And we all talked on party lines. If you lifted the receiver and heard voices, you were supposed to hang up and not eavesdrop. By the same token, other people were not supposed to listen in on your conversations. The truth is that temptation was great, and the party lines helped spread local news.

Of course, some jokes were played. I remember watching while a friend dialed the new Congregational minister and asked, “Did you know that your water’s running?” The answer would  be, “Why, no.” To which the prankster would giggle and say, “You’d better go catch it before it gets away.”

The Post Office was a busy place. It sold not only postage stamps, but savings stamps during the war years. We pasted the stamps in booklets. $18.75 worth of stamps would be worth $25.00 in ten years. You couldn’t get better interest than that! Mail was put in the wall of boxes twice a day, but most people asked for their mail at the window because they couldn’t find their keys.

 

The Highland Woman’s Club building was originally conceived as a community building with the idea that it would be used for a variety of community functions.The Woman’s Club met monthly, and it was a grand social occasion. The ladies served tea – and sometimes light luncheons – and it was all considered very stylish. They wore hats and gloves, and the beauty parlor was extra busy for the few days before a meeting because all the ladies were getting their hair pomaded and curled. Roberts Rules of Order were strictly adhered to at meetings.

he Highland Chamber of Commerce annual dinners were held there, too, and meals were prepared in the adjoining kitchen. Young girls from the community got waitress training as they served to the left, and removed the plates from the right.

In the 1940s a youth canteen was held in the building, with ping pong tables and dancing.

The Highland Library. Adjoining the building was an annex that housed the library. There was an earlier one in the Knights of Phythias Hall on Main Street, but the Palm Avenue library is the first one I remember. Mrs. Garner was the librarian. I remember her as a kind lady in a gray sweater. When children checked out books, (and we had to sign our names on a card for each one) we were supposed to get them from the south wall, where juvenile books were kept. But my mother said if I could read it, I could check it out. I always was grateful for her wisdom in not limiting my reading material. Fees for overdue books had once been a penny per day, but they went up to 3c when I was a child. That was a lot of money, considering that I could buy a comic book for a nickel, so I was careful not to return books late.

Speaking of the Knights of Pythias, my father belonged, and my mother was a Pythian

Sister. She told me once that the lodge was the center of social activities as well as lodge activities. Many people from Highland attended conventions, which were a welcome social break from the usual routine.

The Longmire Block consisted of a number of businesses north of the library on Palm Avenue .

Sewell’s garage was multi service. Mr. Sewell would fix your car, give it a bath, and fill it with gas, all in one stop.

The barber shop was owned by my uncle, Jim Longmire, my grandmother’s brother. Shorty Barnes worked there as a barber, also. I loved to visit, just to sit in the big chairs that tipped back, and turned round and round. I think every man in town eventually visited Jim Longmire’s barber shop with the striped barber pole out front.

In the ’40s, a dress shop opened just up the street. People felt that Highland was getting somewhere now! But it lasted only a few years. It couldn’t compete with the Harris Company in downtown Redlands and San Bernardino.

For a short time, a small restaurant operated in this block, as did Stan Gow’s jewelry shop.

The beauty parlor was owned by Ruth Anderson and operated for years at that site.

Several beauty operators (now called beauticians) worked there, and Ruth used modern methods and equipment. The ladies of Highland flocked in. It was the big thing in those days to have a “standing appointment.”

But I remember another beauty parlor on Love Lane. It was located on the closed-in front

porch of a house, and it used large torture machines for permanent waves. The curlers dropped from wires and attached to the hair – perilously close to the scalp. No one came away unscathed. A lady named Grace Maxwell owned it.

The bar has been on Palm Avenue for as long as I can remember under various names.

Numerous ministers have tried to close it, but it seems to be just far enough away from church property to make it legal. Today, it’s pretty much an eyesore, but then it always was.

Mr. and Mrs. Maddox operated a store on the northeast corner of Palm and Pacific. I know a variety of things were sold there, but I can’t find anyone who knows more than that. The Maddoxes lived on the corner of Pacific and Cole.     

During the war years, a canteen was established for servicemen from the San Bernardino

Air Depot (later Norton) to come and have refreshments, listen to music, meet girls, and dance. It was strictly chaperoned and proved to be a popular social spot for a few years.

A fire wagon was housed somewhere on Center Street, behind the businesses on the Longmire Block. When a church bell signaled a fire, volunteers would run and haul it, by foot, to the flames. It had to be attached to a spigot before water could be pumped through the hose. It was less than ideal, and everyone was happy when a real fire department came to town and was located on Main Street.

Walker’s Service Station was located on the northwest corner of Palm and Main. It was popular among young bike riders because we could fill our tires with air there and get flat tires patched if we couldn’t do it ourselves.

The offices of Browning and Rule Plumbers were on Pacific Avenue. You could get your pipes unplugged for 2- 3 dollars.

The Highland Dry cleaners was owned and operated by Roy Bradley for many years. It was located on  East Main between the Congregational Church parking lot and the hotel.

The Gleason Hotel on East Main Street was made into apartments during WWII. It was used as a setting in the filming of The Fugitive, when crowds gathered to see David Janssen race out the front door and run along Palm Avenue.

The Depot: what a fine example of an early railroad depot it was! What a shock to have it torn down. We went to bed one night, and the next day it was gone. Its replacement was just a rectangle of a building that looked like an elongated shed. I remember how angry my grandfather was. He called it a glorified outhouse. Its ruin was an example of thoughtless destruction of priceless buildings in old California towns.

Highland Schools

The Highland Grammar School was located exactly where it is today on Pacific Avenue. There, the resemblance ends. The old building was a beautiful one, designed in early California style with long covered corridors and rooms with big windows so the children could see outside. At the northeast end of the campus was a kindergarten building, a cafeteria, and a small outhouse for the kindergarten children to use. In the yard were swings, a slide, and exercise bars.

Tall wind breaks of eucalyptus trees grew along the north side of the property. They were so old that their roots had gotten tangled and they rose far above the ground, sprouting new branches and joining together to form ledges and hollows that connected all the trees into a kind of jungle that smelled like Ben Gay. We used to explore there and hunt for the little eucalyptus pods that looked like round heads wearing hats. 

The cafeteria

Many children brought lunches in lunch boxes or sacks, or we walked home for lunch, but hot lunches were served in the cafeteria, under the guidance of Sopha Emerton, and you had to eat everything on your plate. Sopha was a friend of my grandmother, and I knew that if I didn’t clean my plate, the news would spread. One time I had a bit of trouble with this. I mistakenly accepted a big helping of mashed turnips, which looked deceptively like mashed potatoes. I have never eaten turnips since.

Of course, if you went home for lunch, you would get to listen to one of the soap operas like Pepper Young’s Family or Ma Perkins or Mary Martin Back Stage Wife. Soap operas were popular entertainment, and women discussed them as if they were stories about real people.

The Tennis courts

Tennis courts were constructed between the grammar school and Highland Junior High    (now San Andreas). When the junior high students weren’t using the courts, they were available for younger students. Also, the gates were never locked, so that we could go there to practice at any time. The result was that by the time we reached junior high school, we were fair tennis players, and by the time we reached high school, most of us had been playing since the fifth grade and were ready for tournaments.

Highland’s Doctors

To my knowledge, Dr. Wilmot was Highland’s first doctor. His office was in his home on Pacific Avenue, later the home of Ida and Charles Hidden. Their daughter, Gertrude, lived there for many years, and the house is still there today. She kept the doctor’s medical books intact in a little room at the front of the house, and I loved to go there and look at the pictures.

I don’t know when Dr. Evens began practicing in Highland, but he was there as long as I can remember. He was loved by all. He visited the Indian reservation (now San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians) regularly, and the children would come out to meet his car. I have fond memories of his black bag and the stethoscope that he would put in my ears so I could hear his heart and the little hammer he would hand me so that I could make his knee jump. I was particularly fond of his little bottles of sugar coated pills – blue, pink, and yellow. “Choose a color,” he would tell me. And when I chose pink, he would say, “That’s a good choice. That one will make you well.”

Dr. Evans had been a dentist at one time, but I don’t remember him practicing dentistry. I  do remember that he was often paid in things other than money, and he had a back yard filled with chickens, and a goat or two.

Later, about 1940, the Jankay family came to town. Lester Jankay was from Hungary, and his wife, Maria, was from Austria.They lived in an adobe house on Nona Street for a few years, then moved to the Wallace home on south Palm, a large white two-story house big enough for their six children. Dr. Jankay’s elderly mother lived in an apartment in the basement of his office on Palm Avenue just south of the Congregational Church.

Maria had been a concert pianist in Vienna, and soon began giving lessons. Lester played the violin beautifully. They gave frequent programs at various functions in Highland, and people were entranced by their talent. She was the only one who could accompany him, for he played without any kind of sheet music, and he said he learned it all as a child in Hungary. She said she just listened to him and followed along.

 

Churches

Highland had two churches, Congregational and Methodist. The Congregational Church was at one time located at Base Line and Church Streets, but was later moved to Palm Avenue. A portion of the original building is incorporated into the architecture of the present building. Originally, the church began as a Sunday School in 1883. Jenny Thompson, then 14, was the secretary. By 1884, it became the “Highland Church of Christ.” Of the nine original members, 2 were Methodists, 3 were Presbyterians, 1 was a Baptist, and one was a Catholic. Only 2 were Congregationalists. The rumor was that the Church was the only one who would accept all the other faiths.

When Dr. Willis Smith was minister, he thought it would be a good idea to build a bowling alley in the long underground  basement. There was a certain amount of discussion about the spirituality of bowling alleys, but it was finally built and a bowling league was started.

            In those days, the youth group had 40-50 members who came to pray a little and socialize  a lot. Many of these were from families who didn’t attend church, but came because we had skating parties and dances.

The appearance of the church changed after it was rebuilt because of a fire in 1947. The whole town stood in the streets and watched it burn, and there was not a dry eye to be seen. Only the chancel, the organ, the chimes, and some minor equipment escaped the flames. The Knights of Phythia Hall offered its premises until the church could be rebuilt.

            The Congregational Church moved to its present site at the corner of Palm and Atlantic in 1963. The bell that rings each Sunday morning is from the original building.

The Methodist Church building is an architectural style known as Carpenter’s Gothic, an adaptation of the traditional Gothic buildings of stone, but made of wood, of which there was a plentiful supply in the New World. Such buildings could logically be built by house carpenters, hence the name. Its style is to be treasured, and I hope no one tries to change this precious bit of old Highland.

In the summers, films were shown in the back yard of the church and were attended by everyone in town, Methodist or not. In the late 30s and early 40s, revivals were held in the sanctuary, and the town turned out to hear the water music – created by filling goblets with different levels of water and tapping them with silver spoons. I have to admit that another attraction of the evening was, for children my age, to see which people went up to the altar to be saved. Someone told us you had to be a sinner to do that, and we wanted to find out if the sinners were anybody we knew.

 

Packing Houses

            The Highland Citrus Association Packing house was built on Palm, just above Pacific in 1927, but the Highland Fruit Growers Association packing House dates back to 1893. Both packing houses were near the Santa Fe railroad tracks. The children loved it when the trains went through town, and stood in line to wave to the engineer.

Both packing houses were damaged severely by fires, and had to be rebuilt. I best remember the Fruit Growers Association, for I would go there with my grandfather and, while he attended to business, I watched the sorters pick through the fruit on a conveyor belt, removing damaged ones. Others wrapped the fruit individually in squares of colored paper to be boxed and shipped. I thought that must be a lot of fun. It never occurred to me what hard work it really was.

 

Miscellaneous Stories:

            Next door to the Methodist Church was the Hellyer residence. They had once lived on Main Street, next door to Doctor Evans, but they wanted more room for their animals and moved between the church and Bill Jones’s house with the big fence around it. Mr. Jones was called Old Man Jones by all those who thought they could get away with it. He was quite eccentric and often stood in his doorway with a shotgun yelling at kids to get away from his property.

            Bill Hellyer once told me that they didn’t pay any attention. They were busy with their own affairs. They owned a long arm of property than ran from east to west along the back side of the Methodist Church. They had horses and a veritable zoo of other animals, including a monkey. Their large dog and the monkey were fast friends, and Bill told me that the monkey would climb on the dog’s back every day about 3 o’clock and ride up the street to the back door of the drugstore and adjacent grocery store, where Mr. Toeppler and Mr. Patterson would be waiting with treats.

 

Law and Order

            Highland didn’t have any crime to speak of – nothing that couldn’t be handled by Gowan Evans, the Constable. He seemed to be on duty 24 hours a day, and he never complained if you interrupted his supper. One evening he was called to our house because my mother, my sister, and I were frightened by a strange sound coming from the screened-in back porch. We were ready with fireplace pokers, but Constable Evans discovered that the noise was caused by a mouse dragging a walnut across the floor. Unperturbed, he said, “Never mind. You just call me any time.”

           

Trash collection was unheard of. We burned papers and other disposable goods in incinerators in the back yard. When I was no more than ten years old, I was sent out with some matches and sacks of trash and admonished not to let the cinders fly too high. To my knowledge, no fires ever started as a result of burning trash. We didn’t have much actual garbage. Bones from the Sunday roast would go to the dogs. Greenery went to those who raised chickens in exchange for chicken manure, which was said to be “hot”  and had to be cured for a couple of months, but helped create the biggest and best sweet peas – long stemmed enough to be carried to the cemetery andplaced on graves on decoration days.

Transportation : Though most people had cars, and orange ranchers used pickup trucks, there were no traffic jams in Highland. We walked almost everywhere. We skated or rode our bikes to school. I can remember Mr. Harold Domke traveling on his bicycle from the Highland Depot to deliver telegrams, especially during the war years.

The Knitting Club was composed of a group of women who liked to knit, crochet, or embroider. They took turns meeting at each others’ houses and served wonderful refreshments that I got to taste whenever the meeting was at our house or at my grandmother’s.The women of Highland were exceptional cooks, and they loved to share recipes. During the war years, the club put together care packages for needy children in France. I remember my mother packing booties, sweaters, and leggings for winter wear. Membership in the Knitting Club was by invitation only. When someone new moved to town, all the ladies put their heads together to decide if she was Knitting Club material. This meant that (1) she had nice manners;(2) she was sponsored by another member; (3) she didn’t swear, at least in public; (4) she was adept at what was called fancywork, and (5) she was a good cook.

Entertainment

A big day out for kids was to take the bus to San Bernardino, eat lunch at the counter at Woolworths, walk to the Harris Co. and pretend to shop, go to the matinee, then take the bus home. It was a day out, all by ourselves without parents. Oh, did we feel daring! The cost? 40c would pay for the bus ticket both ways, a hamburger and coke, the matinee, and a bag of popcorn. We always saw a double feature plus the news and a serial, probably Buck Rogers saving Wilma Deering. Wilma would always, week after week, be traveling down a conveyor belt with slicing swords waiting at the end.

Simpler entertainment was found in street games, played after school until it was too dark to see in the winter and until we got called in to dinner in the summer. I’m sure many of you played the same games because they haven’t changed much over the years. Although I’m afraid that today’s children have found their after school enjoyment in computers and TV. We played Kick the Can, Mother May I, Hide and Seek, Cops and Robbers, Keep Away, Statues, Red Rover, and Red Light-- Green Light.

 

I hope these memories of Highland stir your own special memories, and I encourage you to write them down. If you don’t, an important part of history will be lost. It’s my belief that the history of a town is much more than a retelling of what happened there. It’s the way people treated each other, the interaction of the citizens, the determination to make “home” a place we were glad to be in – a place we’re happy to revisit.

 

© 2012

Marilyn Cram Donahue