View more class photos here. Read more about Sunnyside School here.
Some early class photos that have been generously shared with me by Gayle Junkin Hermann and Mary Lucid.
The photo was mounted on a board with the studio name (Frances Thompson Studio, San Francisco) and the year. Ms Thompson appears to have encouraged the girls to bring their dolls for the photo shoot.
The 1939 class photo above, taken on the Auditorium steps, reminded me that the original entrances, to the school and to the auditorium, were once adorned with decorative tile work typical of the era. (The school was built in 1927.)
The photo below shows the original front entrance steps, with decorative details that were later removed—pillars, an elaborate cornice with an embossed ‘Sunnyside School,’ and a wrought-iron balcony above with a large ‘S’.
An ADA-compliant ramp, bottlebrush trees, and the highly photogenic tiled mural from the 2010s dominate the entrance now (below).
This photo below from 1949 shows a May Day celebration, with a May Queen at center. Photo belonged to Eileen O’Callaghan (b.1942), and comes to me courtesy of Mary Lucid, who recalled her own May Day celebration:
“My memories of May poles are so incredibly fragile but I seem to recall that in the early grades we still did them…ribbons around a pole usually used for ‘tether ball’ in the rather sad and cracked tarmac of the Kate Kennedy school yard! We prevailed over all that sadness with our young enthusiasm and the whimsy of our dear sweet older teachers…bless them.”
.
We did May Day in the early 50’s