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Sept. 13, 1948 - Grades 1-5- Teacher Mrs. Paula Smith
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First Lutheran Venice Elementary School
1948-2008
During the Second Word War the rapidly developing war industries of Southern California attracted thousands of people from the East, including hundreds of Lutherans. Because the local pastors could not begin to follow up on all of these Lutherans moving into the area, the Southern California District of Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod called three pastors into the District to work as “war-time conservation missionaries.” In January 1943, Rev. Eugene O. Smith brought his wife Paula and daughter Yvonne to southern California. Pastor Smith was commeced pastorate at First Lutheran Venice on November 12, 1944 service with 24 children and 10 adults attending Sunday School, and 50 people, including some well wishers from Pilgrim Lutheran in Santa Monica, attended the 10:30 a.m. church service. Interesting to note that it rained on Friday and Saturday, but Sunday morning dawned with only scattered clouds and the sun shone enough to make the weather very inviting. After the service the people had hardly reached home before it started to rain again. It rained all day Monday and Tuesday, to break a 1900 rain record.
In July 1946 –Title was received to all lots of the triangular property at 815 Venice Boulevard which is the present location. It is also bounded by Meade Place and Victoria Avenue. A building committee (E. W. Hicks, John Khoury and Norman Petersen) was appointed. Architect J. H. Fleming was engaged to design a plant consisting of church, parish hall and school building.
September 13, 1948 - Parish School was opened by Mrs. Paula Smith, Pastor Smith's wife, with 25 pupils in grade 1 through 5. Mrs. Betty Petersen Hedge Van Patten was in that first first grade class. Rick Hicks was in the second grade,and Michael lannce was in the fourth grade.
March 12, 1949 - Construction on a two-room school building was started. This building was erected on a pay-as-you-go basis with most of the labor provided by our members. Fundraising included holding paper drives, recycling aluminum cans, bake sales and many other fund raiser projects. We had special members and friends who brought special offerings and gift toward the erection of this building and who so freely donated more than 5500 man-hours towards this project. And we thank the ladies who served meals each Saturday for so many months. And last, but not least, we would like to acknowledge the prayers that ascended to the throne of grace in behalf of our building project, without which we would have been discouraged many times. The building was dedicated on April 11, 1948.
September 11, 1949 – We held a dedication of school building. Miss Bonnie Hale Littmann was engaged as teacher of grades 1 and 2nd grade while Mrs. Smith taught grades 3 through 6.
September 1951 – Mr. Henry W. Steinweg was called to teach the upper grades and became the principal of the school. Miss Janet Miller Niedens was engaged to teach the lower grades. The school now had 3 classrooms with 8 grades.
Soon after our Parish School was started, the Mothers Club was organized to aid the teachers. They helped to maintain health records, serving hot lunches twice a month, providing refreshments for 4 parties, supplying transportation for game and field trips.
October 3, 1954 – A two classroom addition to the school building was dedicated on September 29, 1957.
In 1983 A call was extended to David LeRoy Rusch and he accepted the called with an enrollment of 94 students in our school.
Tragedy struck on September 11,1998 with an electrical fire in our Sanctuary. Smith Hall and our Kindergarten classroom were also included in the remodel.
