By Donald H. Harrison
TRACY, California – Back in 1874, California pioneer Henry Ebe donated two acres of land for the school that his and his wife Susan’s 11 children would eventually attend. At Susan’s insistence, he made a condition of his donation that the school be called the “New Jerusalem Elementary School.”
John McVey, president of the Tracy Historical Society, commented that Susan was more religious than Henry, and after settling in, she compared the region where they made their home east of Tracy as a “peaceful valley,” which she likened to the Jerusalem she read about in her Bible.
“You can see the hills out there and it seems like a peaceful valley and in the late 1800s, I’m sure it was, especially coming from the Midwest when they had just gotten through with the Civil War,” McVey said. “So, that’s how it happened.”
The first school, built in 1875 or 1876, had just one room, and according to historical documents written in 1991, “there was a tank house, outside toilets, a horse barn and a corral. The second building was built in 1926 and 1927 of brick, with two classrooms, an auditorium, kitchen, and restrooms. The third school built the first two classrooms in 1952, the second new classrooms in 1961, four classrooms and a library in 1967, and an auditorium and kitchen in 1968.”
In 1985, the 5th grade class taught by Cathy Meyer researched the history of the school by interviewing alumni who had attended as long before as 80 years.
Then-student Patrick Jose described the first wooden school as having been “built with square nails. In the front of the room on a platform was a teacher’s desk. On three sides there were windows to let in light because they had no electricity. For heat, they had a pot-bellied stove that burned coal that the biggest boys would shovel into it. The students had wooden desks on tracks with ink wells on the top side. Outside there was wild grass and dirt. When it rained, it was muddy. … In front there was a porch… For water, the students had to go to a horse trough. The pump was powered by a windmill. Separate outhouses for the boys and the girls were across the field.”
The school gave its name to the New Jerusalem Elementary School District which expanded through San Joaquin County to include a number of other schools, including one named for astronaut Jose M. Hernandez, who was a member of the crew for a 2009 Space Shuttle mission.
Ebe served as a trustee of the school district and over the years a son and a daughter followed in his footsteps. Another daughter taught at the school in 1890.
In addition to the school district, the “New Jerusalem” name spread to the nearby “New Jerusalem Airport,” an un-towered public airport with a single runway measuring 3,530 feet by 62 feet. It was one of the venues at which the 1989 Steven Spielberg movie Always was filmed, according to Wikipedia.
The airport was “connected to the Trinkle Brothers, who had a crop-dusting business,” McVey said. “During World War II, it was used for flight training. More recently, it is used for charter flights.”
During the filming of Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws, the famed movie producer and a fellow Jewish community member, actor Richard Dreyfuss, used to schmooze about one of their favorite films they had grown up watching on television. Called A Guy Named Joe, that 1944 World War II movie told the story of a fighter pilot who was killed in combat but as an angel monitored and eventually welcomed a romance between the girlfriend he had left behind and a fellow pilot.
Always followed essentially the same plot, but instead of being about a fighter pilot, it was about an aerial firefighter who dropped chemicals on brush fires. Always starred Dreyfuss as the dead pilot; Audrey Hepburn, in her last film role, as an angel who explained to Dreyfuss’ character that he had died; Holly Hunter as the girlfriend; Brad Johnson as the new suitor; and John Goodman as a firefighting supervisor.
Ebe, the original donor of the land, was a member of the Dunkard sect of Anabaptists, who had been transplanted from Germany to Iowa. Ebe settled in California approximately in 1865.
Anabaptists believe adults should be baptized after they make a conscious decision to choose Christianity. If a person already had been baptized as an infant, they call for that person’s re-baptism. Dunkards “dunk” or immerse the initiate facing forward three times in accordance with Christian belief in a “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Members of the sect typically wear plain clothes, are conscientious objectors to warfare, refrain from swearing, and eschew litigation, even if they think they have been wronged.
The name “New Jerusalem” has remained a fixture in San Joaquin County, which also includes the larger City of Stockton. As far as McVey knows neither the airport nor school district, which predated the establishment of modern Israel by 74 years, has initiated any kind of programming or relationship with “old” Jerusalem in Israel—perhaps for no reason other than inertia.
McVey said there are some Jewish families living in the Tracy area, but not enough to support a synagogue. Those families wishing to be affiliated with a congregation drive to Stockton, about 20 miles away. When Tracy incorporated, its first mayor was a Jewish merchant, Abraham Grunauer, who served to 1910 through 1914.
On its website, the New Jerusalem Elementary School describes itself as a “country school, both geographically and culturally. We adhere to traditional values, including emphasizing student responsibility and resourcefulness, treating one another with dignity and respect, involving and communicating with parents, and maintaining high academic standards with a caring and thoughtful environment.”
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com