Ted Stampfer of Waring School, 1940. Courtesy/LAHS
A holiday card depicting the Waring School in Pojoaque (date unknown). Courtesy/LAHS
By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society
History relates to the passage of time that creates change and, with it, loss. We could learn a lesson from our neighbors at the nearby pueblos who have honored their elders by listening to their stories for generations and who hold on to the past through those stories, much of it from a time when things were not handwritten. If we haven’t honored our own elders by listening and asking questions, we have lost all that they knew and experienced. Invariably, a time comes when we want to know.
I have researched the history of the Los Alamos Ranch School (LARS) for the past couple of decades. Information about the school is available in books, and there is a wealth of photographs in the Historical Society archives. In addition to those resources, there were two Ranch School “boys” still alive in New Mexico during those decades who shared their memories with me and other researchers. I was fortunate to know Ted and Allen Church, LARS students and the grandsons of the school’s founder, Ashley Pond Jr. Ted died in 2011 and Allen, a few weeks ago. Whatever memories they had that weren’t shared with me or other researchers are now gone.
The latest phase of my research has concerned the Waring School, an offshoot of LARS, but the history of the Waring School was not well documented. In 1939, Master Tommy Waring decided to leave LARS and start his own school for younger boys of middle school age. He first located his school on upper Canyon Road in Santa Fe. It was there for two years, 1939-1941.
To gain more space and be able to provide horses and more outdoor activities for the boys, Waring moved the school to a site in Pojoaque, taking over an old hacienda. The design of the curriculum was patterned after the Ranch School, as were the expectations and activities. While LARS was taken over for the war effort, the Waring School in Pojoaque survived. Two of the LARS masters—Hup Wallis and Oscar Steege—came back from the war to teach there for a time, but the school closed in 1949 after only a decade.
Beyond those facts I hit a dead end. Then, unexpectedly, a break! A longtime friend in Santa Fe revealed that her brother Ted had been a student at the Waring School. This information had never come to light despite the fact that I was close to the family. We simply hadn’t shared that part of their history.
I met Ted Stampfer when he was in his late 80s. As well as his connection to the Waring School, he had ties with the LARS history through his brother-in-law Hup Wallis. Stampfer was pleased to help preserve some of that history.
He had kept an old photo album from his school days and allowed our archivist to scan the pictures. He shared memories of the classes and activities, and on a sunny afternoon, he took me to the location of the Waring School in Santa Fe.
There is a private home there now, but as Stampfer walked the property nearby, he saw in his mind a different setting and painted a verbal picture of it for me. His words were as close as I could come to actually being at the Waring School. Stampfer died recently, but I will always have the memory of that afternoon and the description he shared to help me understand that piece of history.
This article, as you may have realized by now, has a dual purpose. It informs you of a bit our Los Alamos area history that you may not have known, but it is also my hope that I have encouraged you to seek your family history as well as leaving your own behind for people who will have questions in the future and be appreciative of the answers!
Lastly, this article is dedicated to the Church brothers—Ted and Allen—and to younger brother Hugh Church, who I am grateful to say is still with us, and to Ted Stampfer. These men enriched my life and helped us all by preserving pieces of our history.
