SANTA MONICA CANYON : At 100, School Is a Rustic Reminder of L.A.’s History

All that remains of Angelina Marquez Olivera’s childhood in the rustic Santa Monica Canyon of 70 years ago is the fragrance of jasmine blossoms, the family’s cemetery plot and the schoolhouse. And her memories.

“Miss (Theresa) Slatten, the principal, gave me my first job--clapping erasers and cleaning the blackboard,” said Marquez, who is the oldest living descendant of Pascual Marquez, who donated the land for Canyon Elementary School. “She gave me a shiny nickel and a kiss on the cheek. I was so happy.”

Olivera still lives in the house where she was born in 1916, next to Canyon Elementary, the site of the second-oldest school building in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Built in 1894 and still in use as a library, the one-room schoolhouse is the focal point of the school’s centennial celebration, which started with alumni visits in May and will continue with a barbecue on Sunday.

The land on which the school sits was part of a 6,656-acre Mexican land grant known as Rancho Boca de Santa Monica, which was given to Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes in 1839.

Typically, said Betty Lou Young of the Pacific Palisades Historical Society, those who got gifts of land from the Mexican government “were people who had served the government or well-born men who had connections.” Marquez had lived on the land since 1831.

Once including much of Santa Monica Canyon and the Pacific Palisades, the land was subdivided in the 1880s, but the property on Entrada Drive and San Lorenzo Street, where the family cemetery is located, has been continuously owned and occupied by members of the Marquez family.

Going to school at Canyon Elementary in the 1930s was a remarkable experience, said alumnus Masaru Matsumura, who visited the school in May. “There were no houses, no nothing around here. I used to run through the corn fields,” he said.

The original schoolhouse, built on Sycamore Road in 1894, was used until the 1920s, when two wood bungalow classrooms were added to accommodate the growing population of the canyon.

By then the school had moved to what is now Amalfi Drive, where the old schoolhouse served as a multipurpose center.

“It was used as an auditorium, but we had sewing classes there,” said Jane Waterman Blackwell, 75, a graduate who still lives in the canyon.

The old schoolhouse had a belfry, and today, the students ring the bell at the end of the school day.

Those who attended the school in the 1930s have vivid recollections of teacher Verna Webber, who taught reading, writing, arithmetic and more. “Miss Webber taught us to play tennis, how to waltz and fox-trot. She taught us the high jump, and the hurdles,” said Harry Gesner, an architect who lives in Malibu.

“When George Gershwin died (in 1937), she was very upset,” Gesner said. “So she played ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ on the piano.”

The memories of historian Ernest Marquez, another descendant of the land grant family, are bittersweet. His mother and stepfather, who lived on property next to the school, were forced to move in 1954 when the school district took over the land in an eminent domain proceeding.

“With the money she got, she couldn’t afford to buy, so she was forced out of the canyon,” Marquez said. The family relocated to Inglewood.

The remaining Marquez land grant acres were sold to a developer in 1979.

But the old schoolhouse remains, recently restored and painted a soft yellow.

“Every time I drive through the canyon my eyes always go to the school,” Gesner said. “It would be sorely missed if they tore it down. It should always be preserved.”