August 6, 1973
Mary Dowell Phillips, who in the 1930s jotted down her memories of early El Paso, was one of the first school pupils in the little town.
She recalled that her first teacher was named Wright and that she also went to school to a Frenchman, Peter Lafayette, who taught in English and Spanish.
Schooling was erratic during Civil War days when the family sought refuge in Juarez.
In 1867, she recalled, there was “an old lawyer. His name was M.A. Jones; he was a Southern aristocrat. He was nice and he taught school and the scholars were the two Gillets, Johnny and Jimmy, Fred Percy, the Conniff children, Anny, Marry, Mike and Henry. They were the older Conniff children.”
Later in 1867, a Mrs. Reed, whose husband had died in a smallpox epidemic, taught here. She stayed about a year.
When judge and Mrs. Gaylord Clarke came to town in 1869. “Mrs. Clarke was a college lady and she had a little girl that had to go to school. There was no school so she started to teach school so as to teach her little girl so then we all went to be taught by her.
“She had a large school by that time. There were other families, Mr. David Abraham had come with his family of two boys and a little girl. Their names were Hyman and Louis and Sarah Abraham. Another family had two boys, Tom and Owen Burnum. Willie Marsh, the son of the collector of customs, Dr. D. C. Marsh. (also attended).”
When Parson Joe W. Tays came to El Paso in 1870, Mrs. Phillips recalled, Mrs. Clarke turned the school over to him.
“By that time the school was well attended; a lot of Mexican children attended. Mr. Tays at that time lived where the Angelus Hotel is right north and across the street from San Jacinto Park and there was where the school was.
“Mr. Thomas Massie lived on one end of the house; that property belonged to Mr. Massie.
When the public schools became compulsory Parson Tays was principal of the schools in El Paso, wrote Mrs. Phillips. He “appointed me teacher of the girls because the Mexican people would not send their girls to men teachers and it was compulsory to go to school.
“So Parson Tays said to me, Mary you can teach this school.” So I took the school for the girls. Some of the girls were as old as I was. I taught for a year.
“Charles Kerber from Ysleta was inspector of the schools and would come and inspect the school and examine the progress of scholars.”
The quality of education must have been satisfactory, even for a wild frontier town, judging from the clarity of her handwriting in her later years and her attention to detail. After she had married Warner Phillips and they lived on the Dowell ranch in the present Country Club area, Don Jesus Escobar, the Mexican consul of Juarez, used to visit them. He would “talk to Mr. Phillips on all kids of subjects. We had all kinds of newspapers and magazines. And he would say what a pleasure it was to talk to educated and intelligent people. He would not think they could be found on a ranch.”
Parson Tays, Mrs. Phillips related, started the first church in el Paso. St. Clements’s. He was an Episcopalian minister.
“He had that old bell cast over the river by somebody by the name of Giron. Eugene Van Patten, who could speak Spanish as well as a native, arranged for it.
“Mrs. Clarke was so surprised to think that people her in this out in the sticks country knew how to cast, I went to the call of that bell many a long time to school.
“One time in 1922, coming from town, I had to come by St. Clements’s church on my way home, and I was hot and so I looked in and it looked so cool I went in and the first thing I saw as that old bell.
“Well, you have no idea the feeling that came over me; it was like meeting an old friend. I wanted to cry. I put my hand on it with a caressing touch. It brought back so many old memoirs of my younger days.
“I sat there a while, the church was empty but so cool and restful. I turned to go out and on the side of the door there I saw a framed plaque telling of Judge Clarke being instrumental in Tays’ coming to El Paso. The Clarkes were other old friends of mine and Mrs. Clarke, my old friend and teacher.”
Dowell School in Northeast El Paso was named in honor of Ben Dowell and also commemorates the pioneer teaching efforts of his daughter, Mary.
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