Vancouver’s new school superintendent, Charles Shumway, and his wife traveled from Milo, Iowa, to Vancouver in 1895. Passing through towns named Hope and Paradise, Mrs. Shumway commented they’d indeed left both behind, saddened to leave the town where her husband spent a decade as an elementary school principal.
They arrived in Vancouver to find the city still suffering, two years after the 1893 Panic. Considered one of the most severe financial crises to hit the nation, the value of gold dropped by half, and caused runs on banks. On seeing its effects in Vancouver, Shumway commented, “The town was so dead that nobody had the life to bury it.”
In 1895, Vancouver schools had 757 pupils with about 70 percent daily attendance. Shumway noted the town had 15 teachers taking care of students and 32 saloons taking care of soldiers’ pay. The Shumways moved into an unfurnished rental house for $13 a month. His starting salary isn’t known, but by 1923, he earned $300 a month. That year elementary teachers made $50 a month; high school teachers $70.
The press called him Professor Shumway, and he held the city’s school superintendent position for 35 years, missing only one week of work in 1927 due to illness. He was athletic, and the Vancouver Independent reported his bicycling long distances, once from Vancouver to Gladstone, Ore., to attend the 1900 Chautauqua. The Columbian reported on his tennis competitions during the early 20th century and of his umpiring ball games. In 1907, he called a game where the Washington School for the Deaf defeated Ridgefield.
