By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—Jewish pioneer Louis Rose, who wondered upon his arrival in 1850 why the dusty little village of San Diego wasn’t more water-oriented like his hometown of Neuhaus-an-der-Oste in Germany, might have smiled with satisfaction on Monday, May 6, if he had witnessed a modern-day result of his successful campaign to build a community along the shore of San Diego Bay.
Two teaching interns from Germany – Laura Brog, 28, and Silja Griese, 25, – were introduced at a meeting of the Point Loma Cluster of public schools, at which members represent one high school, two middle schools, and seven elementary schools in an area of San Diego where Rose had a major influence.
Brog and Griese, along with credentialed American teacher Rose Andres, are helping to build a German-language enrichment program at Cabrillo Elementary School, one of the schools in the Point Loma Cluster.
In 1869, nearly 20 years after he arrived in San Diego, Rose built Roseville, a 30-block long community that included a hotel and a pier for seagoing ships. He had hoped that like his native Neuhaus, Roseville would become a busy port and that shipping and commerce would spur the San Diego area’s growth. Elsewhere along San Diego Bay, other developers had similar ideas, including Alonzo Horton, a friend and rival of Rose’s, who built the area that evolved into San Diego’s modern downtown, and the Kimball Brothers, who developed what became National City.
After Rose died in 1888, Roseville grew to such dimensions that an elementary school was erected there. And his daughter Henrietta Rose in 1894 became Roseville Elementary School’s first teacher, before transferring to other schools in a 45-year-long teaching career. The name “Roseville” later was subsumed under the name of “Point Loma,” although it still can be found in deeds and on old maps. And tiny Roseville Elementary School was replaced by the larger Cabrillo Elementary School, named for Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the explorer who sailed into the bay in 1542 and claimed California for Spain.
Nestor Suarez, principal of Cabrillo Elementary School, told the Point Loma Cluster about a meeting he and I had in April 2010 in my capacity as a member of the Louis Rose Society for the Preservation of Jewish History. I had inquired whether he would be interested in establishing a sister school relationship between his school and one in Rose’s hometown based upon the historical relationship of the two areas. He responded that he was indeed interested in such a relationship, and so too, it turned out, was Doris Henningson, the principal at the Grundschule in Neuhaus an der Oste.
Meanwhile, Bobby Greene, a retired French-language teacher active in the Louis Rose Society, approached the language faculty at the Catholic-run University of San Diego and asked if there were any future German language teachers who would like practice working with elementary students. Among those who answered her affirmatively were five college students whose schedules permitted them to work with kindergarteners and first graders each week.
Anticipating becoming a Sister School, pupils from Cabrillo Elementary School on March 24, 2011 participated in the unveiling of a plaque officially designating a site on San Diego Bay as Louis Rose Point. The ceremony was held on Rose’s 204th birthday. Behind the small monument, Cabrillo pupils planted two rose bushes – symbolizing the sister schools.
Scott Barnett, an elected member of the San Diego School Board whose district includes Point Loma, that same month successfully sponsored a resolution formally authorizing the Sister School relationship. In October 2012, with the financial help of the Louis Rose Society, Henningson and teacher Dorothee Fetz from Neuhaus came on a two-week visit to San Diego to learn more about the area and the school.
Meeting with Suarez and Cabrillo’s language coordinator Skye Oluwa, they suggested some activities in which pupils at the two elementary schools could engage. These included exchanging letters with pen pals, and participating in joint art projects. These two activities are now underway, and Oluwa is preparing to make a return exchange trip in June to Neuhaus.
Bridget de la Garza of the San Diego Unified School District’s world languages program meanwhile prepared an application for a $500,000 Department of Defense grant to teach two “strategic” languages—Mandarin and German—respectively at Dewey Elementary School and at Cabrillo. Point Loma is an area neighboring numerous Navy and Marine Corps installations and these two schools within the Point Loma Cluster, in particular, are impacted by the flow of military dependents in and out of their student bodies. The DOD awarded the grant, which finances for three years the cost of half-time credentialed teachers of Mandarin and German as well as the expenses for interns and supplies.
Selected through the Amity Institute, Griese and Brog came to San Diego in January 2013 to work alongside Rose Andres, a local teacher who had gone through the regular San Diego Unified School District interview process to obtain the position. The fact that her first name is “Rose” was a happy coincidence. Currently, German language and culture are taught to every class in the K-4 school. While Brog and Griese come from different parts of Germany than Neuhaus, by teaching German to the pupils at Cabrillo, they and Andres are helping to solidify the Sister School relationship.
As part of the internship experience for Griese and Brog, hosts had to be found. Pamela Tecca told the Point Loma Cluster on Monday that she heard by word of mouth that Cabrillo was looking for a host family. In that she and her husband were living in a large house near the school, with all four of their own children away at college, they were quite interested. They told the school district they’d be interested in hosting one of the interns. “How about two?” came the reply.
They agreed and the experience, she told the Point Loma Cluster, has been remarkable. They and the two interns have sampled each other’s foods; learned about each other’s national histories; have attended a Super Bowl party and a San Diego Padres baseball game; and have toured various local points of interest. One of these was Old Town San Diego, which was the focus of settlement between 1769 when Franciscan Padre Junipero Serra celebrated San Diego’s founding mass on Presidio Hill, through 1872, when fire prompted many merchants to abandon Old Town and move to Horton’s New Town.
Tecca told the Point Loma Cluster that although she and her husband are “empty nesters” –living in a home from which their children have gone away to college– hosting German teaching interns would, in her opinion, also be an enjoyable experience for families with public school-aged children still living at home.
Suarez asked cluster representatives to help him publicize to area residents that host families will be needed when the next school term begins in September, after Brog and Griese return home and new teaching interns come to the United States for an unforgettable experience in person-to-person diplomacy.
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Harrison, editor of San Diego Jewish World, is the author of Louis Rose: San Diego’s First Jewish Settler and Entrepreneur. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com