RG02_Miss Harker’s School, 1904 - 1955

Catherine Harker graduated from Vassar College in 1889. She subsequently taught Latin and Greek at Mills College in Oakland, California. One of her colleagues at Mills, Edith Jordan, was the daughter of David Starr Jordan, the then president of Stanford University. He encouraged Catherine to open a women’s preparatory school in the Palo Alto area. She moved to Palo Alto and opened the school on Kingsley & Bryant Streets in 1902. It was called “The Thoburn School, The University Preparatory School for Girls.” The school was named in honor of Wilbur Thoburn, Stanford professor of bionomics, whose daughter was one of the first graduates of the Thoburn School. As principal, Catherine brought her mother, Sarah, and her sister-in-law Caroline Polk Wellman to manage the girls’ residence. In 1903, the school’s name was changed to the Miss Harker-Miss Hughes School, when Elizabeth Hughes became principal. The 1903 graduating class consisted of seven students. In 1904, Miss Hughes left, and the school was renamed to simply “Miss Harker’s School. In 1907 Sara D. Harker, Catherine’s sister, became a silent business partner.

Miss Harker’s School became incorporated in August of 1915. Discontent between Catherine, Sara, and their mother led Sara to propose the idea of incorporation in May, 1913. Sara D. threatened to leave the school due to strained family communications, according to May 3, 1913 meeting minutes. However, she stayed on and presumably incorporated the school, in part, to bring in outside expertise on the board of directors. It was Sara’s keen business acumen that later proved an asset to the school as it maneuvered through difficult financial conditions.

The aims of the school were three-fold: to “inspire every girl with high ideals…to awaken in her the desire to make the greatest possible use of her life,” to “develop sound and healthy bodies,” and to “maintain a high degree of scholarship.” The school motto, in Latin, was “Non ministrare, sed ministrare” – “not to be served, but to serve.” Throughout the decades Miss Harker’s students participated in service projects, some directed toward international causes, perhaps reflecting Miss Sara’s worldliness and travel. However, Harker school life was characterized by its simplicity and every effort was made to create a home-like environment for the girls.

By 1906, the school occupied three rented buildings: two on Bryant and one on Ramona, and they began looking for a permanent site for the school. In 1907 they purchased 6.25 acres of pasture in the Alba Park section of Palo Alto. They erected one 35-room main building initially and three more before 1921. A pool, three tennis courts, and a combined art and chemistry building were later added to this campus at 1050 Greenwood Avenue. During World War I, Sara took a position as California State Officer for the Commission for the Relief of Belgium under President Herbert Hoover, and traveled widely for several years. However, upon her return to Palo Alto, she assumed responsibilities as principal of the Lower School. Her careful financial management of the school, to include leasing Harker School facilities to Stanford as girls’ dormitories, preserved the school. Sometime between 1903 and 1921, Miss Harker’s added a Lower School program, for primary, pre-primary, and intermediate boarding and day students. The 1928-1929 general brochure indicates that the Lower School students lived exclusively in Alumni Hall, which accommodated twelve girls, ages 5-14 years. An article from 1939 refers to “Miss Harker School for Boys and Girls,” though the inclusion of boys may have been sporadic based on financial need or pressure from parents to take siblings. The intermediate students produced a school newspaper (“Gold and Gray”) as well as a Shakespearean play at the end of each year.

Miss Harker’s offered a high school program at least through 1953 (newspaper clippings imply the program terminated with grades 9 and 10 after the ’52 – ’53 school year), as referenced in the meeting minutes of the Board of Directors. However, by 1955 the school program only extended to sixth grade. It is unclear when the boarding program ended; it appears to have been terminated by June 1955, perhaps coinciding with the reorganization of the school in 1955. The Board of Directors minutes from June 1954 include a motion to close the boarding program in the fall of 1954 and Board of Directors minutes from August 1954 refer to amending the closing to upper school students and to retain boarding for middle and junior high students. It appears that the program might have been kept open with very few students. Catherine Harker died suddenly in December 1938, and Miss Sara carried on until her retirement in June 1952. Laura Simpson became Academic Head, and Mary Waterous became Administrative Head. Mrs. Alice Williams, a former Harker math teacher, was promoted to principal and the school was reorganized to become a coeducational day school in 1955. The school brochures indicate that the name of the school was changed to The Harker School during the reorganization. Miss Sara died in 1956. Florence Terlinde became the Director of the school after Sara’s death. Mrs. Williams continued as principal of The Harker School, and then Harker Academy until her retirement in 1979. There is little insight into the actual sale of the school, as records of the Board meeting minutes extend only to 1953, three years before Miss Sara’s death and six years before the sale of the school. The Harker name prevailed as the school became “Harker Academy” in 1972, when Harker Day School merged with Palo Alto Military Academy and moved to San Jose, and finally “The Harker School” in 1992. Phyllis Carley was employed by Miss Harker’s in 1952, and served in many capacities. She continued at the Harker Day School and with Harker Academy after the move to San Jose. After 37 years with the school, she retired in 1989. Mrs. Carley joined the Board in 1981, and remained an active member until her death in 2009. Sara’s will was contested after her death in 1956, by former Academic Head, Laura Simpson, who filed suit against Florence Terlinde, non-academic administrator who was named the sole heir to Sara’s estate according to Miss Harker’s last will drawn in 1955. Simpson contended that Catherine Harker, in Sara’s presence in 1938, had wanted her share of the school to go to Simpson eventually. Simpson was awarded $25,000 by a San Jose court judge in 1958.

Donald Nichols, owner of the Palo Alto Military Academy located across the street from Miss Harker’s, purchased the school in 1959, and in 1966 incorporated them under Palo Alto Private Schools, Inc. Miss Harker’s school had grown to approximately 160 students in nursery through sixth grade at the time of the purchase.