dchs1955.org - Roger Peterson

     The Clifford Peterson family arrived in Dallas Center in the summer of 1938. Wife Loraine, daughter Jeanne (4), and Roger (1 1/2) made up the rest of the family, moving from Shannon City, south of Creston.

     Since I have been asked to recall (or try to) what I remember about my early days in DC, I would have to say I do not remember much until about 1940. I think one of my earliest recollections-though foggy-would be of the fire on Main Street just west of the Brenton Bank. This was the place that had a white fence around it all the time we were in DC, which was until the summer of 1951.

      Other than some memories of the summer in Iowa City where we stayed for a while when Dad was finishing up his M.A., the most vivid early memory was on December 7, 1941, when we were out at George Fox's house (where Kay Fox grew up) to pick up an old encyclopedia set for a paper drive. We heard the announcement on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese.

     I have many recollections about the period of WWII. Dad went in for his physical in April of 1942. He had just turned 36. He was basically given the option of going into the Navy where he probably would have taught math to young recruits or staying home and, as the recruiter said, "Teach math to the young men that were needed in service." Dad stayed in D.C., which made us happy; he had some second thoughts about that as I'm sure most men did who were close to draft age and were not in service. He kept busy as superintendent, teaching 5 classes, coaching all four sports, driving his car along with two others to take the sports teams to away games and being the only male on the faculty.

      The family did not like the restrictions we operated under—no bubble gum or metal toys. It was exciting on nights when we had Civil Defense drills when Dad put on his white helmet with CD on it and drove around checking to see that everyone had their lights off. Once in a while we would drive to Ankeny at night to watch the guards at the Defense Plant take gunnery practice with tracers in their machine guns.

     I think most of us knew that we were not in much danger of being bombed, though the Defense Plant and Solar Air Craft factory in Des Moines could have been targets of saboteurs, probably not many in central Iowa.

      As I recall, we had one service man killed in WWII, Pat Malone. Some of you may remember his younger brother, John. Pat was a favorite student and fine athlete for my dad. He sent a letter to Dad shortly before he was killed. Apparently Dad was a special person to Pat.

      I seem to recall my first bubble gum and first Tootsie Rolls were purchased at Zimmerman's store just west of the post office.

      As for Clifford Peterson's role in fostering a fine school system in DC, I certainly have to admit some bias since my dad was superintendent, just as the members of the DCHS Class of 1955 were/are probably not entirely objective having been very directly involved. That said, most of us feel that the schools there during the 1940's and early 50's were a notch or two better than similar schools in Iowa.

      In my opinion, there were several reasons for the good school system:
1. The community of DC supported the schools and wanted it to be a good one. My dad always felt well supported by the community as he along with the school board endeavored to do well by the students.

2. I don't remember any of the particulars that led up to the consolidation of the school system in 1947. I'm sure it was being done around the state and was timed along with lots of other societal improvements right after WWII. It was not done in Indianola until 1953, and two years after Dad became superintendent there in 1951.

3. I also don't remember any discussions leading up to the moving into town of the six former "country school" buildings. It is probably not too much of a stretch to guess that a new building was not considered immediately. There wouldn't have been enough time to build a new building to house the extra 125 new students being brought to school in town. The buildings were available without any immediate use and less than ten years after the end of the Great Depression I doubt that a bond issue to build a new building would want to be attempted. I don't remember any surrounding communities taking on new building projects.

4. The school board Dad had to work with during this period was top notch. Ralph Mortimer was the board president with other members Mrs. Paul Kuehl, Orville Fox, (Kay's father), Dale Pietzman (Mary Jo's father), and Ralph Morgan.

     Any thoughts I might have concerning how the DC school system came up with top notch faculty would just be my thoughts. Dad had good contacts with UNI (then Iowa State Teachers College) and also with colleges nearby, Drake University and Simpson College. Dad was concerned about good moral character and was a pretty good judge of that. (Except in the case of his older son!) Dad also had no problem with hiring teachers with local connections. Another good gauge of the quality of the faculty would be when our teachers moved on, they usually moved up.