Things Have Come and Gone at CSDR

CSDR will celebrate its platinum anniversary (75th) anniversary in 2028.  If today’s students go back to the 1950s and the 1960s to observe what we had on campus. They would not recognize familiar objects the oldtimers enjoyed. The following examples of object transformed by time or simply disappeared.

This is a black rotary telephone from the 1950s. It now sits on the Superintendent’s desk in the school museum.

With a rotary phone, it was necessary to make a circular movement with a specific number. It took a little time to complete the whole telephone number. Rotary phones began disappearing from campus in the late 1960s and 1970s in favor of the push-button “Touch-Tone” phones for quicker dialing.

The floppy disk is inserted halfway in the early Apple disk drive. In the late 1980s.

A floppy disk is an older type of portable data storage device that was widely used from the late 1970s through the early 2000s.  A floppy disk is a thin, flexible magnetic disk stored inside a square plastic casing.

Floppy disks became obsolete because they could hold little data.  CDs and DVDs as better alternatives replaced them.

This is a typewriter from the 1960s sitting on the small folding table with wheels. It is in the Superintendent’s room inside the museum.

A typewriter is a mechanical or electric machine used to produce printed text on paper for reports, letters and other documents from 1953 to the late 1970s. The Vocational Department offered a typing class from 1955 to the early 1980s.

A film camera is a camera that captures photographs on a strip of light-sensitive film. Before digital cameras became popular in the late 1990s and 2000s, nearly all photographs were taken with film cameras.  This explains why the CSDR archives room houses staggering 32 boxes of 35 mm pictures dating back to the 1940s.

A vinyl record player is a device that plays sound recorded on a  black vinyl record. The vinyl record is a flat plastic disc with tiny grooves. When the record spins, a small needle rides in these grooves for sound.

Record players were the primary way people listened to music from the 1950s at CSDR until cassette tapes came out in a small plastic casing for ease of carrying it around in the 1970s.  We have a TV set with a record player in the museum. How cool!

Matthew Brandfield, ’76, had a good amount of residual hearing. He found a boombox to be helpful for him to stay focused on his homework in his dorm bedroom.

A boombox is a portable music player that combines a radio, speakers and one cassette tape deck in a single unit. It became popular during the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.

The archives room has a long stack of VHS tapes waiting for conversion to today’s storage medium for preservation.

A VHS player (VCR) is a machine used to play movies and recordings stored on VHS videotapes. It was the most common way to watch recorded video at CSDR from the 1970s through the 1990s.

A fax machine is a device that sends and receives copies of printed documents over a telephone line. Before email became common in the 1980s, fax machines were used in campus offices.

The Yellow Pages book was a thick printed telephone directory used to find businesses and services.  The Yellow Pages were popular for finding local businesses. The internet’s popularity replaced The Yellow Pages.

Even the blackboards were available in all dorms. In the 1960s, Dorm Counselor Seymour Bernstein (1958-1981) used the blackboard on the general principles of dating for high school boys.

A blackboard is a flat writing surface that teachers and students use for writing and drawing with dusty chalk. From 1953 to the early 1990s, blackboards were a standard feature in classrooms and dorms.

We have a couple of overhead projectors in the school museum.

An overhead projector is a classroom device that displays enlarged images of transparent sheets onto a screen. Overhead projectors were replaced by computer projectors and PowerPoint projectors.

In front of the girl on the desk is a filmstrip projector. The old time students remember fighting for the honor to help the teacher with the projector. When the teacher says to turn the knob, the student complies. He/she also remembers feeling the warm air coming out from the back of the projector. We are fortunate we have several projectors along with rolls of filmstrips in the containers in the museum.

A filmstrip projector is a classroom device that shows a series of still images (like a slideshow) from a strip of photographic film.  Filmstrip projectors were common at CSDR from the 1950s to the 1980s. They were used for science, history, vocational training and driver education.

The Class of 1971 made a donation of the full set of World Book encyclopedia volumes to the library.

An encyclopedia set is a collection of large, printed books that contains organized information on many subjects, such as science, history, geography and people.  The set could be 10 or 20 volumes in total. 

In 1970, Kevin Sfruxness, ’76, proudly posed with the new body hearing aid for the California Palms newsletter.

A body hearing aid is an older type of hearing aid where the main electronic parts are carried in a small box worn on the body—usually clipped to a shirt or placed in a pocket. Nearly all students at CSDR wore such an aid from 1953 to the early 1970s.  With the advent of behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids in the 1970s, the body aids gradually disappeared. Digital hearing aids and cochlear implants were later introduced as new options for hearing amplification.

A handkerchief is a small square piece of soft cloth used for personal hygiene, mostly for wiping the nose or face. Men kept it in their back pockets.  Women held it in their purses.   They washed them with their laundry for repeat use. Beginning in the 1960s, disposable tissues like Kleenex replaced handkerchiefs for convenience and single use.

From 1953 to 1973, CSDR Residence Halls required all residents to have their clothing pieces sown with name labels. The premise for this requirement was that many students stayed on campus for the weekend. Their dirty laundry were taken to Chino State Prison 30 miles away for free laundry and folding for a new week. My mother spent hours sewing name labels while watching the Walter Cronkite News or I Love Lucy shows. I keep the old clothing pieces for sentimental reasons. I will donate them to the campus museum.

Name labels on clothing for dorms are small tags used to identify a person’s clothes in dormitories because students’ clothes were washed for free at a nearby state prison.  Items can easily get mixed up or lost.

The dorms for senior boys and girls had a fireplace each. The girls made popcorn in front of the fireplace. See the black soot inside. Circa the late 1950s. The Bummy Student Center has the remaining fireplace, down from four.

CSDR had a telephone booth placed on the side of the Brill Administration Building from the 1950s to the 1980s

The telephone booth is not there anymore. Editor Kevin Struxness, ’76, has a secret gift to be given to CSDR in the near future. He thinks the corner flower bed is a fitting place for the everlasting gift.

This antiquated Western Union teletypewriter (TTY) was converted to telecommunication for use between deaf TTY users with a coupler and a telephone, starting in the late 1960s. It has a home for public display in the museum.

The Class of 1973 gave a wonderful analog clock gift for the high school walkway near the HS principal’s office. Unfortunately, most of today’s students don’t know how to read the analog clock as shown in the picture. They recognize only digital clock like 10:30 using the straight numbers.

In the early years at CSDR, dorms had bulky TVs with antennas as shown in the picture. The old TV had limited numbers of channels. Nowadays, all cottages have flat TV screens with hundreds of channels available hung on the wall.

Here is the newspaper clipping from March 1953 on the donation of the black-and-white TV set from San Diego. The new school just opened the previous month.

This tub was in the DMHU dorm for students with special needs. The Pachappa III dorm also had a tub in the pink tile restroom. Today’s cottages have no tubs.

CSDR offered barber service one evening a week for boys from 1954 to 1973. The full-time barber came from Chino State Prison. In 1970, the haircut was 75 cents.

The barber pole was hung on the wall. See the gray circular seal in the middle to cover the hole with old wiring inside. The barber pole was removed in the late 1960s. We will buy an antiquated barber pole for display in the near future.

In support of the aural-oral training from 1953 to 1968, students across all grades were required to wear headphones for class time. The volume box was attached to the corner of the student desk with the headphone hung on the desk side when not in use. The microphone hanging from the ceiling picked up sounds. The teacher is Mrs Levere Quinn, one of my favorite teachers.

In the 1950s parents were responsible to pick up and drop off their children on Fridays and Sundays. As a convenience for parents, charter buses (Greyhound and Trailways) were arranged to provide rides both ways at parents’ expenses. Due the Public Law 94-142 in 1978, the State agreed to pick up the tab for weekend rides. Wendy Calhoun Korn, ’82, recalls having to stay on campus three weekends a month because bus fares were beyond her parents’s ability.

In the early years, CSDR operated on tight budgets. To furnish dorm living rooms and offices campus wide, the upholstery classes under Teacher Evan Ellis (deaf) (1955-1970) produced upholstered chairs and couches. We are proud to have several in our care in the museum. Sorry, you can’t sit on the couch.

The CSDR old timers remember corporal punishment was occasionally meted out from the 1950s to the early 1970s. The California legislature enacted a law to do away with corporal punishment in 1986. Some states in the Dixie South still allow such punishment. The paddle swatting is sometimes referred as the Board of Education.

CSDR once had three pianos on campus in support of the aural-oral approach as the communication policy pushed in 1950 by CDE Deputy Superintendent Dr Herbert Stolz. One piano was stored in the Social Hall back room for plays. One in the Lower School. One in the rhythm room in the Seely Center. In the 2000s, Dorm Counselor Jens Rechenberg, ’81, bought one piano from the CSDR warehouse for $100. He stored it in his garage for 10 years before bringing it back to campus for a permanent home in the museum. Thank you, Jens!

This picture was found in the early years yearbook. As the school historian, this is the first physical evidence that the piano was used with high school students for aural and oral training at CSDR.

Javelin was originally offered as part of the track and field activities. Brother Duo Bill, ’ 62, and Dick, ’64, Ramborgers were track stars and participated in the javelin event. After their graduation, the javelin event discontinued for safety reasons.

As time progresses, we will continue to see changes or disappearance of things on campus and off. The museum curators keep an eye on aging artifacts for permanent adoption.

Kevin Struxness, ’76, MA

Editor, CSDR Old Times

1 June 2026