BE rn Weber State College COMMENT January 1985 page 6 as > Weber State College COMMENT January 1985 eae page 7 mene “their” school mbers WSC file photo and of it bei ting event to. oe to attend Weber. ou won t fed six “people very Their ‘memories include visits from often who are first generation from the various celebrities, such as Helen names—Heber Grant and ie Smith 1847 pioneers,” said Smith. Neither is Keller. facobs). “My husband was chairman of the it likely that those same six people They are, in 1 fact, only one generawould all have attended Weber bet- committee (that brought lecturers to. tion removed from the pioneers who ween about 1912 and 1925. “We're all both Ogden and Weber) and I met in our eighties now—except for the Helen,” recalled Mary, continuing, baby here (referring to Sent he s on- “We were in the Little Theatre.. cand __ she walked around the stage to get her _ly 76,” said Heber. Each member of the farnily was ac- bearings before she gave her lecture tively involved with the school, each of — When she got right in front of the pit, the four sisters served as either student - she put her hand out and touched the al And i the vibraor class. officers, ae both ry was ‘raised in the fone. of oe > | ham Young, and worked as a brothers were cheerleaders. _ Each of them | have fond youm : Joseph Smith Jacobs recalled, “I was assistant cheerleader to Heber during my first year at Weber.” He worked as a janitor, sweeping the halls of the Moench Building, which then housed the young school. ~ Among his memories of classmates, teachers and visitors to Weber are such notables as Bertha Eccles Wright, Moroni Olson and J. Edmund Evans. “Jane Burroughs, the daughter of Edgar Rice Burroughs, came to Weber to discuss philosophy,” he said, “she was a very genteel person.” Smith remembered that J. Willard Marriott served as temporary treasurer for Weber while he was in school. 44 Or of the most glorious days of my life was when I was old enough to go to Weber,” remembers Mrs. David J. (Mary Jacobs) Wilson. She began the eighth grade at Weber Academy in 1912 and remembers, ‘1 just felt all the time like I was in heaven, I just had such a good time. Everything was so wonderful.” She remembers President James L. Barker who brought to the college |David J. Wilson (whom she later married), and Aldous Dixon, who later became a president of the college. Harvey Taylor, who later became a vice president at Brigham Young University, was a classmate of Mary's. “He and I started school at the same time, but he had to stay out of school a year because of working, and my mother was ill so I stayed out a year also,” she recalled. During their last year at Weber, they. were again classmates, “Harvey was president of the student body and I was nominated as vice president. So we started our schooling together and we finished ee “The students played basketball more than anything else,” she said, “Always after the basketball game, if Weber would win, they would bring in these large barrels of peanuts and those were our refreshments. “Weber was a family school. It was a beautiful school,” she recalled. “...it was a school that was very close. We (the students) loved each other and we loved our school.” He but I was very particular to give all the time that was coming to the college—although sometimes I got a little drowsy,” she confessed. Emma was the student body vice president during her senior year, while Ernest L. Wilkenson (who later became a president of BYU) was president. “David Wilson, who was J. Smith Jacobs—still the baby oof the far the halls of the Moench Building which ste the deseret Gym now stands. worked as a janitor while in school, sweeping h Street, east of Washington Boulevard, where he sad. Mary’s husband, was Ernest's inspiration to go ‘through college and become a lawyer,” remembered Emma. The second of the Jacobs’ girls to attend Weber, Emma (Mrs. Carlisle Hinkley), remembers that the boys in her class weren't very sociable. “They were the slowest—maybe it was the bunch of girls that were there that made them that way—they never dated us or anything.” Emma enrolled in science and art courses, after she had completed the required courses that every student took. After her graduation in 1917, she went to work in a bookstore in Ogden. Later, President Aldous Dixon asked sue to be his secretary. “I was really just an office girl,” she said. “I recorded all the grades. I was in the office alone, Vilate (Jacobs) Thatcher was vice president of both her sophomore and junior classes. She remembers that “everything we had (in a held devotionals) was choice.. While there were many guest performers and lecturers, students “We were so poor in those days that they didn’t have uniforms or anything,” said Heber Grant Jacobs as he showed off the cheerleading uniform he had had made at his own expense. The pants are made of a dark purple corduory, trimmed in a lighter shade of the same fabric. “IT went into Weber as a mid-year also participated in the devotionals. Vilate, recalling her two performances at Weber said, “One was a very sad one.” She had a neighbor who was taking piano lessons and in turn teaching her to play. Her friend, Letty, was asked to play a solo in a devotional and agreed to do so on the condition that Vilate join her and make it a duet. When Vilate hesitated because of student in 1919, and boy, was thrilled to get there,” said Heber Grant Jacobs. her lack of experience on the piano, her friend assured her that she would be able to master the left hand of Humoresque without too much difficulty. “And we practiced Humoresque oa hours, day after day,” she recalled.’ got so I could read that music an well. The day came for us to perform and we got up there and got through just fine until the second page. I got excited and lost my place—we had to stop. Letty had to point to it and I suffered through the rest of it,” she remembered. “But we finally got through playing Humoresque and I've hated that song ever since.” Her other performance was a little more fun at the time. Her class had put together a vaudeville show and taken it “out to the country.” ..it was a horrible show, but a girlfriend and I had a little act and the audience just loved us. We blacked our faces and made wigs (out of unravelled Oa (Jacobs) Cannon was the last of the Jacob's both brothers followed her through school. og to attend Weber, sichough black wool stockings). We burnt cork and blackened our faces. I played a ‘ukelele and we sang and swayed to the music,” she said. “And that was all of my talent—(I used it up) that one day.” Vilate (left), Oa (comber) and Mary pron their school days. “Vilate was a year ahead of me and Emma was three years ahead of me, so I had to be very nice for fear I'd run into one of my sisters,” recalled Oa (Mrs. Paul B. Canon). She was the vice president of the freshman class the same year that Emma was student body vice president and Vilate was vice president of her class. (Heber said he “never knew there was so much ‘vice’ in our family.) “Dr. Jenson was our biology teacher, and I remember him because if he was ever caught in an error, he would say, ‘That is the first error I've ever made!” “One day we were cutting up a cat and one of the football boys, Bill Jep- son, was in our class and he just fainted ers memories as the family reminisced about dead away —we used to kid him about that,” she said. Oa took chemistry one year and was the only girl in the class. “As a result, I didn’t learn very much because the boys all helped me with my chemistry,” she said. She remembers that all of the girls used to take domestic science under Lydia Tanner “and we all just loved her classes.” Oa recalled, “School was right across the street from a park and we'd take our sandwiches (over there) and there would be big crowds sitting out during the noon hour.” Oa graduated in 1920 then went to work for Mary’s husband (David Wilson). She answered the phones, did typewriting and took shorthand. said that in 1922, Heber’s class climbed Mount Ogden and planted a flagpole. He also commented on the closeness of the student body, “Weber was a great school. Everyone loved it,’ “They had so many opportunities to do things—I sang in the choirs and quartets all the way through school. We had some really good teachers too. “One of the worst things you could do in school in those days was to be found in a pool hall,” he said. “It was really a crime—every once in a while one of our athletes would be found ina pool hall and they'd just about: expel them. “Red Nichols (of Red Nichols and the Five Pennies) took a bunch of us down to a pool hall that he had a key to and we shot a game of pool late at night. “T never let my studies take the place of drama and entertainment and I sure did have a good time, "he remembered, “and I loved the teachers. I think the religion part of it really drew us together a lot, because we all thought about the same things.” (The original Weber Academy was founded by the L.D.S. Church). About his 50 year class reunion the octogenarian said, “It was great to see my classmates—but some of them got so old I didn’t recognize them.”