Gwendolyn Davis Clark
My Winged Horse
Rees, your Mom was at Longden Avenue school, and one of the most wonderful ladies I ever met.  She would bring watercolor paper, brushes, paint to our 6th grade class, Mrs. Hansen's class.  This is at the old Longden, before any up-grades.*

I don't know if she would remember me or my name, Sandra Finkle, sat next to Richard Scott (who had his snakes in cage between our seats) in back of Don Barker and Merle Nelson.  She is responsible for my being an Artist/Reader.

I would go to the Library and check out Little House On The Prairie, Black Beauty and others.  I wanted to be artistic like your Mom...I can close my eyes today, and still see her face.

I am running the 45th Reunion of the Class of '57, the first class to be out of TCHS, and we are getting lots of feedback right now, for we are doing a 3 day cruise to Mexico. I am new to the computer world, but my husband, Bill Harris, who also went to Longden, (also) remembers your dear mom. Ah, the "Good Old Days".  I am in touch with a great bunch of guys and gals, who have run our reunions since the 25th.

She truly made a lot of difference in our young lives, and was respected and loved by many of us Ole Grads.  Those were the great teachers, they were Mr. or Mrs., or Miss... wore suits, real shoes, dresses and even on occasions, gloves and heels to school.  They had the Halls named after them, playgrounds, Libraries, they made classes like ours, going into the 50s, the real "Happy Days."

If I remember correctly, your mom chose one of my works of the Winged Horse, to go to District Office for display.  It really did get me to love the colors, the look of art, and the way it made me feel.  I liked being "the Artist".  On page 41, of the Rampage '57, the book cover was my design... I had work in Beverly Hills Gallery of Adamson-Duvanne Gallery, and one of my paintings sat next to a real Rembrandt.  Your Mom would have liked that...the plump little girl with pigtails, did okay, and she was my first Mentor.  

Thank You Gwendolyn Clark...God Bless You.

Sandra (Finkle) Harris


*Ed. Note: In the time Sandra describes, Longden Avenue School was a Moorish palace, with thick concrete walls and a tile roof supported by thick, exposed wooden beams, which extended over 3 meter wide, shady exterior porches that surrounded an atrium (the Quadrangle). The mass of the structure made it warm in Winter and cool in Summer. Wrought iron lamps hung by chains from the ceilings of the porches, and in the late 1940s two Sequoia sempervirons (coast redwoods) were planted in the center. Graduation from sixth grade was a civic event in the quadrangle, whereafter students attended grades 7 through 12 in Pasadena. Gwen's "office" in those days was in a half-basement beneath the southeast corner of the quadrangle, which in Summer was never hot. Sadly, the building had been built of unreinforced concrete, and by the 1960s was considered unsafe. The final straw was a California state law making school board members liable for damages in the event of an earthquake, which got their attention. The quadrangle was demolished around 1970 and replaced by a building that is hot in Summer and cold in Winter, whose windows don't open, even when the air conditioning breaks down, and over whose eventual demolition no one will weep. PS: At least two of the small wrought iron lamps mysteriously disappeared before the wreckers arrived.
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