In the spring of 1932 the school district at Crystal, the dry-farm settlement in the high basin where Rattlesnake and Midnight creeks rise, got ready for a smaller and poorer year. On Tuesday, May 3, the Pocatello Tribune printed a short column from Crystal under a headline about a cut in the teacher's wages. In a few lines it recorded a planned school closing, a pay cut, a new school board and a graduation of two.
A settlement emptying out
District 14 was Crystal's school district. In 1912 it built the 28-by-48-foot Crystal Central School for $1,750, and over the years it also ran small schools in the farther neighborhoods. In the winter of 1923–24 the Crystal schoolchildren reported a meeting that closed the Lapland school for a time. Lapland was a neighborhood on the Crystal side of the valley; the children's columns of 1923 gave its school two different district numbers, 18 and 14.
By 1932 drought and debt were emptying the settlement. The site's account of the move to Salmon tells how, after mid-1931, about a dozen Crystal families, among them those of Bishop Lorenzo S. "Len" Whiting Jr. and his brothers, left for a ranch on Kirtley Creek near Salmon. A stake report quoted in the family research says the bishop, his family and three other families had gone by March 30, 1932.
The May column shows what that meant for the school. The three men replaced on the Central school board were Len Whiting, John Meyers and Floyd Denning. Len Whiting was almost certainly the bishop: the Tribune of March 9 listed "Mr. L. S. Whiting and children" among the guests at a party at Crystal. John Meyers was probably John H. Meyers, who had married Mabel Butterfield, and Floyd Denning the Crystal farmer married to Rissie Fannin, whose parents the ward record transferred to the Salmon Ward in December 1931. The column does not say whether Meyers and Denning were leaving too.
The trustee who announced the cuts was Martin Hayden, a Swedish-born homesteader of the Hayden family, whose wife Margary kept the Crystal post office in their home from 1923 to 1937. The "Mr. Hayden" elected to the board was probably Martin as well, though his brother John had served on the District 14 board in earlier years.
Two girls and a teacher from Buhl
The Whiting school's two graduates were probably cousins. Helen was probably Helen Ruth Whiting, born in 1917 to Ralph and Irene Whiting, who lived on Crystal Creek. Florence was probably Florence A. Whiting, a small daughter of Forres and Margery Whiting in the 1920 census. Their teacher was Virginia Payne of Buhl. The March 9 party took place at the Ralph Whiting home, where a big crowd turned out to surprise Miss Payne and Helen Whiting and spent the evening dancing and playing games. The paper did not give the occasion. Nothing in the papers ties Virginia Payne to the Payne family of Arbon.
By the family's account, Ralph Whiting's family left for the Salmon ranch in October 1932. Which of District 14's two schools closed that fall the papers read for this post do not say. It may have been the Whiting school, whose families were leaving, but that is only a guess. A family account also tells of a winter school held in Flora Whiting's house on the north end from 1925; whether that was the same school is not known.
The last item in the column, a farmyard accident with a bull, concerned George Bradley, almost certainly George Willard Bradley of the Bradley family on upper Rattlesnake Creek, whose family's land lay near what a family account places as the Lapland neighborhood. He died five years later, in 1937.
On this site: Eight pupils, three families: the Armstrong school tells of District 6, where Ethel Hansen was hired to teach in 1932, and Schools of Arbon Valley lists the valley's schoolhouses.
The story as reported
Pocatello Tribune, May 3, 1932, page 8. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
School District 14 at Crystal, which had two schools, would keep only one of them open when the fall 1932 term began. Trustee Martin Hayden made the announcement on Monday, May 2, and gave saving money as the reason. Which school would shut was not stated.
The district also lowered its pay for the teacher at its Central school, to $66.50 a month. Eight people had already applied for the job.
Two other schools had their teachers signed. The Lapland school went to Virginia Payne of Buhl, and the Armstrong school to Ethel Hansen of Pocatello.
Last week's school election put three new men on the Central school board. Tom Dickerson, Perry Hatch and a Mr. Hayden took the seats that Len Whiting, John Meyers and Floyd Denning had held.
Miss Payne sent word of an eighth-grade graduation at the Whiting school on Friday, April 29. The school had just two pupils, Helen and Florence Whiting, and both completed the eighth grade.
The last item concerned George Bradley, a well-known farmer at Lapland. A bull attacked him in his farmyard, hurting his right arm and leaving him bruised. Harold Munk, who worked for Bradley, scared the animal away with a crowbar, and the paper judged that Bradley's injuries would likely have been worse without him. He was reported to be getting better.