On a night full of activities, P.A. Walsh Elementary students
and their families gathered last Friday to celebrate their
school
’s 50th anniversary, joined by members of the original Patrick
Augustus Walsh’s family.
On a night full of activities, P.A. Walsh Elementary students and their families gathered last Friday to celebrate their school’s 50th anniversary, joined by members of the original Patrick Augustus Walsh’s family.
“It was a wonderful evening, a great celebration of our school,” said Walsh Principal Irene Macias-Morris. “We probably had 90 percent of our families here, along with the Walsh family, and it was very special.”
Macias-Morris said the staff and the school’s Home & School Club worked hard to organize the evening, which included the school’s open house, an art exhibition, a dinner, a book fair and donation and the ceremony itself, at which a portrait of P.A. Walsh was presented, along with a quilt.
“The quilt was made by Mrs. Zappe, one of our parents,” Macias-Morris said. “Each classroom designed a square, and the office and custodial staff had their own squares, and she put it all together. It was an act of love.”
The portrait is hanging in the school office, and the quilt is on display in the cafeteria.
Walsh was a School Board trustee in the Morgan Hill School District, Macias-Morris said.
The school was pleased, she said, to have four of Walsh’s children – three sons and a daughter who used to teach at the school – and a nephew of P.A. Walsh attend the ceremony. They in turn brought members of their own families with them.
“We had over 200 people here for the ceremony, and it was nice that they (the Walsh family) could be here to celebrate with us,” she said. “They were so happy and pleased that we did it. I told them, ‘we would have done it anyway, but it was especially nice since you were coming.’”
The current Walsh students were excited about the ceremony, Macias-Morris said, and enjoyed hearing about how things were in Morgan Hill when their school opened.
“It’s putting them in touch with history,” she said. “Showing them the continuity of life. We could see from the family’s eyes what it looked like 50 years ago. They all got up and shared, what the town looked like, things like that. One (of the Walsh family) brought his report card, and it was fun to see the things that mattered then compared to now.”
Macias-Morris said the Walsh family also enjoyed seeing the school as it is now.
“They toured the art exhibition, they also went into the classrooms,” she said. “I think they appreciated how things had changed and how they had stayed the same.”
For the art exhibition, each student submitted a picture, and they were on display in the cafeteria during the evening. Students and their families visited their classrooms, the book fair and art exhibition, and enjoyed a pasta dinner.
A HISTORY LESSON
Patrick Augustus Walsh – known as Gus – was a rancher and long time school trustee. The ranch was located on Live Oak Avenue in Madrone, north of town. Third generation native, Elena Ohberg Moreno, said her grandfather sold some of his adjacent Ohberg property to Walsh so he could expand the ranch.
The Walsh family included wife Maggie, a daughter Patricia (now Shaw, living in Santa Rosa) and at least three sons, one of which is Donald who lives on Columbet Avenue in San Martin. Retired MHSD principal Jean Pinard said she grew up with Patricia. Moreno reports that Walsh was “hardworking”, that all the children were quite blonde and that Maggie was “one of the nice farm ladies”. The Pinards have lived in Morgan Hill and Madrone at least since the 1880s.
In the 1920s Walsh became a trustee for Burnett/Encinal school. This was before all schools unified into the MHUSD and each school had its own board of trustees. When the school districts unified, Walsh became a member of the unified board and continued to serve for a total of 36 years, according to John Ward.
Moreno said Walsh visited the old Burnett School often when she was a student there (it is now the King and I restaurant on Monterey Road at Burnett Avenue). He came, she said, to talk to the principal – as trustee – because there were no telephones then at the school.
“I never saw him dressed up,” Moreno said. “He wore ranch clothes with lace up boots to his knees and stuffed his pants inside.”
Moreno grew up to be a teacher as did Walsh’s daughter Patricia who taught at the school named for her father after it opened in 1953. When the school was first built it had only two wings with the patio in the middle and there were at least 35 children in each classroom. Later the kindergarten wing facing Peak Avenue was built and Moreno came over from Burnett to teach.
“I had 32 kindergarten students in the morning,” Moreno said, “and 32 in the afternoon – that’s 64 children.”
There were 32 because the room held eight round tables, four students at each.
Moreno said the morning class was for the “country” kids who came in from outlying farms and ranches and down from the hills. The afternoon class was for “town kids.”
“They were a bit privileged,” she said, “ since their mothers often drove them to school.” The cultures were different, Moreno said. “I taught two sections of America.”
Barbara Baird and Phyllis Bellet also provided details for this short history of P.A. Walsh school. Bellet’s husband Ed was P.A. Walsh’s first teacher and principal.
Staff writer Carol Holzgrafe contributed to this story
