Coseboom School

 

            It was one of the last acts Dora Coseboom would participate in before her untimely death at age 53, in October 1913. Dora had been ill for some time, but had rallied in April 1913 to support a cause close to her heart – the Coseboom school at St. Louis and Arabella on Signal Hill.

On April 15, 1913, a grove of twenty trees, one for each child in the Coseboom school was planted on the school grounds by mothers of the students.  On that spring day in 1913, the women did their own digging and placed the trees, and the name of each youngster who agreed to care for the tree until it had grown enough to provide shade for the schoolground, into the earth. The Parents Teachers Association, organized in the fall of 1910 when the school opened, met monthly and besides discussing school affairs, celebrated member’s birthdays. This month Dora Coseboom was honored. The women PTA members sewed while they talked about events, and this April morning they pieced together rag rugs for Mrs. Coseboom. At noon lunch was served and guests were told they could roam the large poppy field by the Coseboom home and gather an armload of flowers to take home. Little did they realize they would be delivering flowers to Dora’s grave four months later.

The Michigan native had lived in Long Beach 17 years with her husband Clarence, whose family was one of the first to settle in the area. The two had married in 1897 when 38-year-old Dora wed 42-year-old Clarence. They brought 9 children into the marriage; 7 from Clarence, whose wife Nellie had died in 1896; and Dora 2, following the death of her husband James Metcalf.

Burnett school 2015.
 Now Bobbie Smith.
Source: Author

Several of the Coseboom children attended the Burnett elementary school before the new Signal Hill school began classes in 1910. The Burnett and Signal Hill areas had grown considerably since the Burnett school opened in 1888 and the school was in desperate need of an upgrade. By 1908 there were 177 students, taught by 4 teachers in a building that consisted of three rooms and a shed. On windy days the walls moved and the windows were often blown from their casements. Besides the 177 students there were another 88 children who couldn’t attend the school because there wasn’t enough room for them. They were forced to travel a distance to the Alamitos Heights, Pine Avenue and Daisy Avenue schools. A bond election passed and soon there was a three story, brick school, with a shingle roof.  

To accommodate the influx of students to the area, the middle section of the old Burnett school building (20 x 50 feet), was transported to a 100 x 150-foot corner lot on the north slope of Signal Hill, two blocks west and one north of the Coseboom residence in September 1910. Another 22 x 38-foot section was moved to the Alamitos Heights school at Temple and 17^th Street to serve as a home economics classroom.* The third section was given as partial payment to the moving company, Bucey & Huckstep, along with $300 ($8,830 in 2021). The moving company thought they could convert and sell the third section as a residence.

Some believed Clarence who offered to donate the land in May 1909, was doing so to help the family name. It had been tarnished when his 18-year-old son Walter was sent to prison in December 1903 for stealing confiscated liquor from Long Beach city hall. Clarence was not free of sin himself. In 1896 he was elected as a City Trustee, giving his word he wouldn’t interfere with the operation of McCarthy’s saloon as long as the business was conducted in an orderly fashion. As soon as he was elected, however, he voted to close the saloon. The next day someone hanged an effigy in Pacific Park (now Lincoln Park). The straw stuffed figure had no name, but it had only one leg. Everyone knew it could only be Coseboom who, too, only had one leg.  The city was now without a saloon tax, which was the major source of funding for the town of 550. This led to the disincorporation of the city and a fight to keep Long Beach alcohol free, which I discuss in detail in my book Murderous Intent.

It was certainly a blow to teetotaler Clarence that his 18-year-old son Walter took to alcohol, and became brazen enough to try to steal confiscated booze from city hall, along with friends J.S. Saunders and Carl Jordan. To make matters worse, Carl Jordan was shot trying to escape. Carl later died of blood poisoning while still hospitalized. 

            Coseboom’s offer of land for a school was accepted by the Board of Education in August 1910 and the school building soon became a center for Signal Hill community life. In 1914, it was used by the Signal Hill Union Sunday School, where Clarence’s daughter Nellie acted as both librarian and teacher. In 1916 it became home to the Signal Hill Neighborhood Club, where meetings were open to all women who lived in the area. Also that year, the Cucumber Growers Association donated $10 ($255 in 2021 dollars) to the school to install rings and other playground equipment “for older boys.” A $28 ($715 in 2021 dollars) slide had been provided that same year by the school district. (Long Beach Press 12/13/1916)

The population in the Signal Hill area continued to climb. Overflow attendance at the Burnett and Temple Avenue schools was transferred to Coseboom school in September 1920, when a bungalow addition was added to the Signal Hill school. By March 1921 the Coseboom school had 43 students. A bond issue to enlarge the school by adding a new six room school building was in the works in June 1921 when oil was discovered. Finding liquid gold changed life changed forever on Signal Hill. It became unsafe for children to attend the school as more and more wells found oil, which gushed forth a gooey tar, covering everything.

First oil well, 1921.
Source:
Long Beach Public Library

In September 1922, the school district abandoned the school site, sold the buildings, and leased the land to the Transport Oil Company, the highest bidder. The oil company agreed to a $4750 ($76,800 in 2021) cash bonus and pay a 20 percent royalty on the lease. By then a large number of families had left what many now called “Porcupine Hill,” because of its prickly appearance from all the oil derricks. They were tired of regularly being routed from their homes by blowouts from the oil wells. Houses, streets and sidewalks were covered with sticky tar; rocks that came up with the gushers hurdled through roofs and windows. Fortunately, many who left had made money leasing or selling their Signal Hill real estate, including the Cosebooms.

Oil made Clarence Coseboom a rich man. Witnessing the changes around him, he wondered if the wealth oil brought was worth the price. In April 1925, oil worker Henry Burton perished while working on the Shell Coseboom Well #2 after a plank fell 80 feet and hit him. Was sacrificing a human life for oil riches, worth the price? Coseboom knew the pain Burton’s family suffered. All three of Clarence’s wives passed away before him – Nellie in 1896, Dora in 1913, Elizabeth in 1924. He lost his 16-year-old son Fred in 1898, and the miscreant Walter in 1909, who was electrocuted following a car accident. Then there was daughter Pearl, who didn’t want to end up with one leg like her father. She had broken her leg in 1922, but it never healed properly, resulting in her death on March 3, 1924.

Source: Author

        Seventy-year-old Clarence joined his three wives, daughter and two sons in death on February 26, 1926. But they never left their love of Signal Hill behind, all buried on its slope at the Long Beach Municipal Cemetery. Eventually sons Tom, Lloyd and Ralph would join them there not far from the land they loved.

*Three original Long Beach schools, first called Alamitos, Alamitos Heights and Burnett,  still exist on their original sites, though the names have changed. The Nieto Herrera (Olivia Nieto Herrera) school was originally the Alamitos Heights school, at Temple and 17th Street. It changed its name to Temple Street school in 1910 and  Robert E. Lee in 1934. In 2016 it became the Nieto Herrera school.

Confusion resulted with Alamitos being used in the names of two of the schools.  In 1908 the Alamitos school (at 4th and Junipero) became the Carrol Park school, later changing to Luther Burbank school in 1922. 

Burnett school (Atlantic and Hill), originally named for railroad man Thomas Burnett, was later changed to Peter H. Burnett school in 1933. It continued as the school name until 2014 when it became Bobbie Smith.