United Church Ministry Sunday School primary students and teachers at St Johns Woods Community Center, circa 1944.
City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2001-025.412.
St Johns Woods Community Center, circa 1944
Vintage Portland
United Church Ministry Sunday School primary students and teachers at St Johns Woods Community Center, circa 1944.
City of Portland (OR) Archives, A2001-025.412.
Vintage Portland 
I like the light fixtures.
I’m sure glad that overalls for boys had gone out of fashion by the time I came around.
Not a smile anywhere to be seen. No fun here! Cute bunch of kids though. Oh, and no children of color either, what the heck?
The girl in the front row, right, is the wisest being in the room.
Excellent post- Would like to see more. I lived in St. Johns Woods war time housing property. On Mapleleaf Drive. Went to Oregon Ship Grade school, broke my wrist on the parallel Bars in Pier Park. My sister went to Sitton High school. She was a year older than me. I can’t get to the Portland area that much so I really enjoy this sight
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Looks like some of the older kids in the back are singing, or at least answering in unison. Might explain the blank looks on the others: shyness about being asked to sing in front of a cameraman.
Teacher’s hairdo is one for the ages.
Are we havin’ fun yet?!
What are the two big black rectangle things?
@Susan – Gen1 iPads?
Those black rectangles are big video monitors. Or chalkboards.
@debrald re: color – most of the commenters here prefer it that way.
A church event at a (City-owned?) Community Center?
Doug–it’s possible that the church rented the space.
I will never understand why those kind of light fixtures went out of style. They are super cool.
Just looked at this because I wanted to see more about St. John’s Woods. Looked like a war housing project in today’s post (10/29/20) but I wasn’t sure. Remarks here sound like it was built by the shipyard owners and/or the Housing Authority.
It was interesting to see people have “forgotten” about blackboards being a fixture in most public spaces. Also, my grandmother adopted that hairdo sometime around 1940 and wore it like that until she died in 1972!
Kent Wilson, My family lived there too at 10854 N Mapleleaf Drive when my Dad came back from the war. My sister remembers not wanting to leave the Oregon Ship school when we left in the summer of 1950 to move to Woodlawn where I started kindergarten that fall. In the census record I found that one of my future classmates at Woodlawn also lived on Mapleleaf Drive. The map for St John’s Woods is online also.