When I entered the high school in Clayton, Missouri in January of 1936, I was asked a question about my course preparation. The basic premise was that if you were going on to college, Clayton High School would equip you to handle college work. If you were not going to college, you were assigned to courses that had a general appeal. I had no hope whatsoever of going to college, so I wound up in the general category.
Among the courses offered in the general category were shop and mechanical drawing. This was no real drawback to me because I liked working with my hands, and for the first time I had access to a lathe. I stayed with the mechanical drawing for four years and it eventually was the underpinning for my getting a job with AT&T, where I stayed for 43 years.
The teacher in the shop work was named Sam Hall. He was a tall lanky fellow who liked absolutely no nonsense from his students. Sam Hall simply would not put up with horseplay. This was fine with me because I was intent upon learning something. Early in the course with Mr. Hall, we were obliged to make a hall tree. A hall tree is a simple device that rests upon a platform and at the top has either arms or hooks on which a garment or a hat may be placed.
Each day we only spent one hour with Mr. Hall. It was an enjoyable hour even if the teacher was strict and brooked no nonsense. As I said, early in our adventures in the ways of shop, there was a project to make hall trees.
At that time in 1936, it was assumed that everybody wore a hat and in the wintertime an overcoat. Current houses ordinarily have a closet near the front door in which the coats of visitors may be placed. But in 1936 prior to the popularity of closets, there was a “hall tree” placed in the hall outside of the living room. That tree was used to store the outer clothing of the visitors to the home.
Building a hall tree is not a magnificent engineering achievement. First is the use of a lathe to construct the tree part of the hall tree. Then lumber is assembled in a rough form and is turned into the base. I can still remember the instructions about using a plane on what would become the base. It went something like, “Plane a flat surface smooth and true, and mark it one.” Then the wood was to be turned over and the same procedure followed. It was, “Plane an edge, smooth and true and mark it two.” Over a period of time, the parts, such as a trunk and a base, were assembled and put together. Then came the staining process, and my first project in shop was then completed.
I took the hall tree home to my parents and they used it for many years. My mother went out of her way to point out to visitors that the hall tree had been constructed by her youngest son.
One way or another the years passed, and the hall tree disappeared and no one seemed to know where it had gone. And so if we fast forward from the 1936 time period to a period some sixty years later, we can make an astonishing discovery.
For many years, Judy and I have kept a metal hall tree in our gymnasium in the basement to hang sweatshirts and that sort of thing on. The hall tree was old when I found it and over time it became unstable and it was decided that it should be replaced. I did not think that hall trees would be easy to find. But Judy, my wife, who is an inveterate on line shopper, located a hall tree at the Target store. When it was delivered and we assembled it, there was a note permanently attached which said that it was a “product of Vietnam.” I suppose that there are some who would say that Vietnam was our enemy and that the hall tree should be destroyed. I take an opposite view. The way to make friends is to converse with people and to trade with them.
The hall tree has been here for perhaps four years, and performs admirably well. At the end of each arm at the top of the hall tree, the Vietnamese have placed a bit of a cup that tends to prevent the garment or cane from slipping off. The hall trees that Mr. Hall instructed us to build had no such device. And so it is that I am pleased to report that the Vietnamese hall tree is in daily use and I find many reasons to praise it. It is clearly superior to the one I built under the direction of Sam Hall.
And as for Sam Hall, the shop teacher, I would be pleased for Mr. Hall to see the Vietnamese hall tree. I am reasonably certain that Mr. Hall would praise the workmanship of a hall tree that was constructed so many miles from our home. Mr. Hall also would find reason to praise the sturdiness of the hall tree and to admire the fact that it is in daily use.
As this essay has proceeded, it is clear that it is nothing more than another exercise in nostalgia. I like hall trees and, as it turns out, I liked Sam Hall as well. When I feel or touch the Vietnamese hall tree, I think back to the days of January 1936 when Mr. Hall instructed us to build a hall tree that we could take home at the end of that year. I again submit that this is truly an exercise in nostalgia. If anyone wishes to use the Vietnamese hall tree, I will be delighted to explain its function and its care. I believe that everyone should have a hall tree, either in the living room or in a hall adjacent thereto.
As for this essay, it gave me a chance to remember Sam Hall and the project of constructing a hall tree which occurred in January of 1936.
You can’t do better than that!
E. E. CARR
August 15, 2010
Essay 485
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Kevin’s commentary: Stories like this tend to make me feel pretty useless. My generation had shop classes, I guess, but they were in middle and high school and I sincerely doubt that many if any of my friends could assemble something like a hall tree today and have it turn out well. We’re great at Googling things, though… we would no doubt have a great set of instructions to botch in no time flat.