Carol Blake-Byle Hall Bruce:  

The Story of My Life I was born in St. Louis, Missouri. I still remember the house my dad built. We would run down the hill and jump across the creek, then run down stream to the woods and play all day, building forts and such. When I was almost four years old we moved to South Whittier, California. I started school at Loma Vista Elementary School. Mr. Mosley was the principal, and he knew every student and their parents names. I played in the Orchestra in third grade even though normally they did not let anyone in until fourth grade. I had Mrs. Caudill for my teacher. I played the Violin and Viola in the Youth Symphony. It was something you had to try out and be picked to be able to play. They gave me a piece of music I had never seen before and I played it perfectly. I practiced with them after school, week-ends and during the summer. We played at the Los Angeles Civic Auditorium the day they opened. They made records of all our performances. I had my first male teacher in fifth grade, Mr White. I started sixth grade at Carmela Junior High School. We had six classes and six different teachers every day. In the middle of my 7th grade year we moved to Dolan Springs, Arizona where I attended a one room school house with the same teacher all day, just like in grammar school. The second half of 7th. grade we had 6th, 7th and 8th grades all in one area. Chloride School was for grades Kindergarten thru 8th grades. The school house was one long building, with five foot tall partitions dividing it into three classrooms. One class was K-2, the second was 3-5 and the third was 6-8. When I started 8th grade the eighth graders moved to the Town Hall. They built a movable wall and made a small room for 8th. grader classroom. When it came time for our graduation, they moved the wall to the side and we graduated in the full size "Town Hall". Around the end of the school year, we always had a field trip up the mountain to white wash the "C" for Chloride School. We carried all the buckets of white wash and took our lunches and made a day of it. The C was about 50 feet tall and 3 feet wide so it could be seen for a long way. They stopped letting the kids hike and paint a few years later because they were afraid the School District would get sued if one of us got hurt and they didn't have funds for things like that. We lived in Dolan Springs from 1966 through 1969. The "C" is still visible from Highway 93. Roy Purcell, the curator of the Museum in Kingman Arizona painted some beautiful murals on the rocks behind Chloride. He painted the murals and glued broken pieces of colored glass onto the rocks in the late 1940s or early 1950s. He re-painted the Murals in the early 1970s because people had chiseled off the glass for souvenirs and there were none left. After we moved away, I used to visit the murals when I visited my dad in Chloride until he died in 2001. Now you need a 4-wheel drive vehicle to get there. After I graduated 8 th. grade from Chloride School Elementary School, I attended Kingman High School for two years. It was about 45 miles one way to go to school. We walked four miles to the bus stop. Our dad worked at Duval Mine and left around the same time we did but he would not give us a ride. He said it was good exercise. One winter I got frost bite above the inside of both knees, but we still had to walk every day. Just had to dress warmer and undress before school. I have no photos of these years because we never had money to buy year books, but I do remember a lot of peoples names from that time in my life, if you want to correspond. We didn't have a camera, but someone took a picture of my sister and I at the Ranch House ping pong area and sent it to us, or I wouldn't have that one. Just after I finished my Sophomore year, in May of 1969, we moved to Boulder City, Nevada where I attended Boulder City High School. My Junior year there I got married and still finished school and graduated. When I was sick I got to write my own notes, just because thats how the system is set up. They had to have a paper trail. I had two children in Anthony in 1973 and Christina in 1975. We bought a house on New Mexico Street. About ten years later, we added an 11 year old girl named Bonnie Fuller to our family. Even though her parents would not let us adopt her, she is still my daughter in every way. I was a den mother for ten boys including my son, and enjoyed the experience as much or more than they did. I taught Wood Shop I, Arts and Crafts and Physical Education at the Christian Center Junior High School for three years. I also worked at the Experienced Merchandise Thrift Store , all the proceeds benefited the Christian Center School, and still do today. After my son graduated eighth grade, I quit teaching. I went to work as a Secretary for Eagle Electric Company in Boulder City. I worked there about 12 years. While I was there I learned the Electrical trade by working in the field when they were short handed. This came in handy when years later I joined the I.A.T.S.E. Local 720-Stagehands Union in Las Vegas, Nevada. I moved to Las Vegas in 1989. I had several jobs before I got a job at Lockheed Environmental Systems a...Expand for more