On May 8, 2003, the Harker history committee escorted then president Howard Nichols and former secretary and board member Phyllis Carley on a walking tour of Harker’s roots to identify the sites of the original campuses of Palo Alto Military Academy (PAMA) and Miss Harker’s/The Harker Day School.
The tour, organized by History Committee chair Enid Davis, began at the Palo Alto Children’s Library, which was frequented by the neighboring PAMA cadets in the 1940s and ’50s. From the library, the group walked the neighborhood, strolling around what would have been the perimeter of the grounds of PAMA and Miss Harker’s/The Harker Day School. Nichols pointed out where the original Manzanita Hall was located and identified the locations where open fields, band cabins, rifle sheds, school buildings, admission buildings and dorms had previously stood. Nichols reminisced about bike drills, formations, sports and, most importantly, friendships made during the years he attended PAMA between 1949 and 1956.
Major Donald Nichols, Howard’s father and the owner of PAMA, lived directly across the street from the PAMA campus on Parkinson Street from 1950 to 1966. Howard noted that the house looks the same as it did during the PAMA years, as do several other houses the school owned at the time. Many of the houses that stand along the perimeter of the campus can be seen in the photos in Harker’s archives. One of the highlights was identifying a stately palm tree that graced the front lawn of the Academy as far back as the 1920s and is still standing in what is now a residential neighborhood that was developed by the famous architect Joseph Eichler when the school property was sold in 1972.
In 1966 Major Nichols moved from Parkinson to a home he built on the Harker school property on the corner of Harker and Melville. He lived there until the schools were moved to San Jose in 1972. At that time, he sold the home at 814 Melville and then re-purchased it a few years later after returning to Palo Alto. That house still stands today surrounded by the same fence and yellow rose bushes that Howard Nichols remembered were his dad’s favorites.
On the corner of Harriet and Harker Streets, diagonally across from PAMA, stood Miss Harker’s School/The Harker Day school campus. Carley, who was employed there in 1952, described the location of the main building at 1050 Greenwood Street, whose grounds were the scene of many annual Maypole celebrations. Carley recalled how Major Nichols, after purchasing the school, would change out of his military uniform into a business suit before going to Miss Harker’s. Major Nichols transformed the school from a girls’ boarding school to a coed day school in the mid-1950s and eventually merged Harker Day School with PAMA, moving the school to the present site on Saratoga Avenue in San Jose in 1972.
Sara D. Harker arrived in Palo Alto in 1907, along with her mother and aunt, to help her sister Catherine run the school she had just opened. A trained musician who played violin and piano, Sara Harker’s first job was director of the music program. She expanded the program and her own interests to the Palo Alto community, becoming a champion of the Fortnightly Music Club, which exists to this day and regularly performs free concerts in Palo Alto.
Sara’s other main interests were business, humanitarian works and traveling. During World War I, she was in charge of the California state office for the Commission of Relief of Belgium. Later, she traveled to Australia and studied in Boston at the Prince School, affiliated with the graduate school of education at Harvard. After further studying business, she traveled to Europe in 1931 and upon her return became principal of the lower school at Miss Harker’s.
One newspaper article featured Sara as she was about to embark on a European tour with four girls from the school. “There will be motor trips out from Nice and Rome, an excursion to Capri and Pompeii, swimming and tea at the Lido, a lake trip to the castle of Chillon, attendance at plays in Interlaken, and Munich trips to the Isle of Marken and its famous cheese market, a day on the Rhine and an airplane journey from Heidelberg to Paris,” the story reads. The article is undated, but the trip took place when a “5 room modern bungalow” rented in Palo Alto for $60 a month.
In an undated brochure published after Catherine Harker’s death in 1938 showing Sara as headmistress, the first aim of the school is thus stated: “The first objective is to inspire every pupil with high ideals, not only of scholarship, but of character, and to awaken the desire to make the greatest possible use of life and talents.”
During the 50th celebration of the opening of the Harker School for Girls, an associate wrote of Sara: “Her leadership is one of enthusiasm, sincerity, and high ideals. Always she is interested in the individual, with her talents and potentials … She places strong emphasis upon high academic standards, but above all, she values the building of character.”
Sara Harker ran the school until her retirement in 1951, at the age of 84. Hospitalized after a series of strokes for nearly three years, she was 89 years old at the time of her death.
Frank Cramer founded what is now The Harker School under the influence of David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford University. The school was a feeder school for the new university, which opened in 1891.
The school was first and briefly known as the Palo Alto Preparatory School for Boys. It was both a day and boarding school located in the home of Rev. W.D. Bishop on Waverley Street in Palo Alto. In 1892, the school was renamed Manzanita Hall.
Some years later, Cramer moved the school out to the town’s Alba Park “fringe area” of the late 1890s. By this time, the tiny campus was comprised of two buildings, Manzanita Hall and Madrone Hall.
J. Leroy Dixon, a well-known educator in the area, purchased the school from its founder in 1902, sold it, then bought it back it for a brief time. Dixon owned Manzanita Hall for a total of seven years. He once stated that while the school was under his ownership, “Manzanita Hall had students from all over the country and sent more boys to Stanford than any other school in the state.”
According to newspaper reporter Rosa Jensen, Manzanita Hall was not a military academy under Dixon’s ownership. Rather, the school “stressed cultural subjects, which he [Dixon] still feels make a good background for any career.”
In June 1919, ownership of Manzanita Hall once again changed hands, this time to Col. Richard P. Kelly. Under his leadership, the school altered its curriculum and was later moved to Parkinson Avenue. A boys’ camp was also established. In 1925, Manzanita Hall became known as the Palo Alto Military Academy.
Sarah Ellen Polk Harker was the mother of Catherine and Sara D. Harker, the women who founded and ran Miss Harker’s School for Girls in Palo Alto.
Mrs. Harker was born in Indiana on Oct. 28, 1845. She was two years old when her family embarked on the Oregon Trail. While on the trail her father, Adam, died of pneumonia after being exposed to bad weather while crossing a raging river.
Adam was a cousin of President James K. Polk. He came from Kentucky with his three sons to La Porte, Ind., and served (it is believed) as foreman for her grandfather, Nathaniel Winchell. Sarah’s parents married in 1842 and had two children together, Sarah and her sister Caroline.
Years later, Sarah married James Bartlett Harker, a native of New Jersey. He died the same year Catherine Harker opened her school. Sarah and James had three daughters: Catherine, Sara and Caroline. Tragedy struck the family again on June 18, 1893, when Caroline, the youngest daughter, committed suicide by drowning during a state of depression at age 22.
Sara D. Harker eventually left Portland, Ore., where the family had settled, to work at Miss Harker’s School. In 1902, Sarah’s sister Mrs. Caroline Wellman joined her. Together, the Harker women put all their energy into Miss Harker’s School.
Sarah Ellen’s daughters never married, but their much-loved students became their legacy.
The foundations of what would eventually become The Harker School were laid by Frank Cramer, one of the earliest residents of Palo Alto. After graduating from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wis., in 1886, Cramer worked as a teacher in his home state before moving to Palo Alto to attend Stanford University. A biologist and lifelong lover of the sciences, Cramer earned his master’s degree in zoology from Stanford in 1893.
In 1891, Stanford president David Starr Jordan influenced Cramer to open the Palo Alto Preparatory School for Boys. The school was renamed Manzanita Hall in 1892, and by September of 1894 the school had enrolled 24 students.
Palo Alto was a young but growing community at the time Cramer founded the school. In 1890, the city boasted only six buildings and 12 residents. Four years later, the number of buildings had jumped to 165 and the city had a population of 700.
Catherine Harker was born to a pioneer family in Portland, Ore., on March 2, 1865. She was the daughter of James Bartlett Harker and Sarah Ellen Polk. The family was of English, Scotch and Dutch ancestry. Catherine, known as “Cassy” to family and friends, was the oldest of three sisters. Middle sister Sara became Catherine’s right-hand woman at Miss Harker’s School for Girls. Sadly, Caroline, the youngest, became despondent while in her early twenties and ended her own life.
Young Catherine attended Portland Oregon High School. Before she went to Palo Alto to open her school in 1903, she was a substitute at Portland High School, had private students, taught at Curtner Seminary in California (1895-1898) and at Mills College in Oakland, California (1890-1893; 1898-1901).
Catherine opened her school for girls in 1903. It began on the corners of Kingsley and Bryant in the vacated Castilleja Hall. Eighty students were enrolled and seven graduated the first year. In 1907, the school moved to a six-plus acre spot in an old vineyard. Cows, chickens, potato patches and vegetable gardens could be seen from the classrooms. Board and tuition in 1903 was $500; the day school cost was between $50 to $90.
Headmistress Harker, who taught Latin and mathematics in addition to her administrative duties, has been described in a variety of sources as a dignified woman with a strong sense of the importance of academics, who often laced her lessons with humor.
The 1952 edition of the Miss Harker’s School Yearbook, “The Echo,” wrote, “Miss Catherine Harker… was not only a meticulous scholar whose daily lessons were carefully organized in neatly penciled notes, but she was a strongly attractive teacher, usually dressed in the dignity of white shirtwaists and long black skirts of her day, who re-assured her students with a contagiously delightful sense of humor.” The October 1952 edition of local magazine Tall Tree said, “Her faculty of combining humor and scholarliness made her courses a delightful experience.”
The motto of Miss Harker’s School for Girls was non ministrari, sed ministrare: “Not to be served, but to serve.” In 1923, the City of Palo Alto changed its street signs to reflect the school’s presence. Katherine and Central became Melville and Harker, respectively.
Catherine Harker passed away Dec. 12, 1938 at the age of 73 after suffering a heart attack while on the school grounds.
The Harker boarding program, which moved to the Saratoga campus in 1972, officially closed on Thurs., June 6, 2002, due to the growing space needs of Harker’s expanding K-Gr. 12 program. The decision to close the program at the end of the 2001-02 school year was extremely difficult for then president Howard Nichols, who was once a Harker boarding student.
Caring, capable staff took care of the health, academics and social lives of approximately 1,377 school year boarding students and approximately 2,100 summer boarding students when the program was active. Study hall, meals, recreation, shopping, haircuts – all the daily needs – were met by the enthusiastic, dedicated dorm staff.
Staff who have lived and/or worked in the dorm include Terry Walsh, Joe Rosenthal, Pam Dickinson, Pat Walsh, Cindy Kerr, J.R. Del Alto and Andrew Hansen. Many of the dorm staff were coaches, teachers and bus drivers by day, and dorm staff by night. Some started out at the Harker dorm and went on to be teachers.
The dorm provided a family element to the school over the years, and with breakfast and dinner served each day to the boarding students. Harker encouraged faculty to come early or stay late and spend time with the boarders. The boarders always enjoyed seeing teachers outside of the classroom, and many of the teachers developed special bonds with this “extended family.”
As the program ended, former dorm staff members shared some of their favorite memories:
“I remember that we would play capture-the-flag before study hall when daylight savings time commenced in the spring. We had a great time.”—Howard Nichols (1940-2008), former head of school
“Drive-in movies on the lawn where Dobbins is, big pool parties and whale-watching with 24 sick kids and three sick staffers. And I’ve got a million more!” —Pat Walsh, Gr. 5 teacher
“One of my fondest memories when I was a houseparent in the dorm was the Major’s dog, Dutch, a 140-lb. mastiff. Dutch was the unofficial school mascot, and as such, had the run of the dorms and the campus.”—Dan Gelineau, former asst. head of school
“Staying up all night with the kids reading fairy tales after an earthquake; hiking through the hills to cut down the perfect Christmas tree and then having a party to decorate it with handmade ornaments; making bag lunches for the girls so they could have ‘home’ lunch; sewing on untold numbers of patches on sweaters; knowing that kids like Marta, Theresa, Jessica and many others felt like they were ‘home.’” —Cindy Ellis, middle school head
“I’ll never know who really had more fun in the weekend boarding program — me or the kids!”—Pam Dickinson, director of the Office of Communication
“Sitting in the dorm office with a bowl of fruit on my desk and having boarders stop by after school for a snack and a chat. The younger kids would plop down on my lap for a little TLC. It will be strange after 23 years not to have children asking me for a key to their room or a dollar or two to buy snacks.” —Terry Walsh, archivist
“I have the greatest respect for the boarding students. Boarders become independent and self-reliant and remember the kindnesses shown to them and know how important kindness is in their lives. I am a much better person because of what I have seen these children do and the expressions of friendship and kindnesses shown to each other. Only if one lived it would one be able to know how meaningful and important the boarders have been to each other.” —Joe Rosenthal, executive director of advancement
The women for whom The Harker School is named came from strong pioneer stock. Catherine and Sarah Harker, who founded and ran Miss Harker’s School for several decades, were the maternal grandchildren of Otelia Winchell Cullen Polk De Witt, a pioneer who joined the Oregon Trail in 1847. In 1909, De Witt was elected “first Mother Queen” of the Oregon Pioneer Association at 95 years of age. The ribbons she was awarded are still stored at the Harker archives.
De Witt died in 1911, and the obituary (probably written by her daughter, Sarah Ellen Harker, and published in a San Francisco newspaper) also sits in Harker’s archives.
According to the obituary, Otelia Winchel (sic) was born on Jan. 14, 1814, in Brookville, Ind. She married John Cullen in 1835 and produced a boy, John W. Cullen, the following year. John Sr. died shortly after. In 1842 she married Adam Guthrie Polk.
Otelia and Adam had two daughters, Caroline and Sarah Ellen. Both sisters eventually moved from Indiana to Portland, traveling along the famous Oregon Trail. The head of their wagon train was Samuel Markham, whose wife, Elizabeth, was Otelia’s cousin. According to Linda Markham Curry, a descendant of the Markham family, Elizabeth was the mother of noted Bay Area-based poet Edwin Markham.
Adam Polk died while crossing the Columbia River, leaving his widow and children to survive the harsh winter alone. They arrived at Oregon City, Ore., sometime in November or December 1847. Upon their arrival, they moved into a cabin on First and Morrison Streets. The family later moved to Portland, into a frame house built by Captain Nathaniel Crosby, the great-grandfather of singer and actor Bing Crosby.
Otelia married cargo ship officer Francis G. De Witt 1848. They had three children together: Marie B., Francis M. and Otelia V. Caroline and Sarah Ellen eventually arrived in Palo Alto, where they joined the staff at Miss Harker’s School. Sarah Ellen was the mother of Catherine and Sara Harker.
On March 23, 2002, Miss Harker’s alumna Gloria Brown sat down for an interview at a Harker gala event. Brown, a Palo Alto resident, graduated from Miss Harker’s School as a high school senior in 1945. The interview was held to honor the 100th anniversary of the founding of Miss Harker’s School in 1902.
Brown answered questions about life in the Palo Alto boarding school during World War II. She described how Miss Sara Harker went shopping armed with over 50 ration books. There was little help in the kitchen and on the grounds, but the small, devoted staff worked very hard to make life comfortable for the students. Brown spoke about the war efforts of Miss Sara and the students. For her efforts, Miss Harker received a letter from General Douglas MacArthur, thanking the headmistress for her work to improve the life for underprivileged children of Japanese leper parents.
Brown went on to describe the delightful Sunday dinners and the parties with boys (from schools approved by Miss Sara, of course). She spoke about her admiration for Sara Harker, calling her the “most influential person” in her life. This, in spite of nearly being expelled for tossing her Latin book out of the bus window as she left for summer vacation.
Brown closed the interview with an explanation of the school’s motto: “To serve, not to be served,” and a recital of the school’s anthem. She also told the appreciative audience that she “will always be a Harker girl.”
Historic goundbreaking event held May 30 for Harker’s new Science & Technology Center, athletic field and pool was a school wide celebration that included over 500 parents, faculty, staff, students and alumni. After viewing student-created science and technology displays, taking a virtual tour of the coming facilities and bopping to the Harker Jazz Band, the crowd feasted on barbeque and witnessed the official groundbreaking in front of Dobbins Hall. All attendees went away with a mini-beaker keepsake filled with dirt from the groundbreaking to commemorate the occasion. It was an exciting and proud afternoon for the entire Harker community — many thanks to all who attended!