HAVERHILL — Seventy years ago, 13 girls and boys gathered every day at a farmhouse on North Avenue for their first experiences in a formal educational setting.
Many of them were privileged children from local families that had enough money during those waning years of the Depression to send them to a private kindergarten — one of the first in the area and one of the first to be run by a woman.
Children like David Baker, whose family owned a market in the downtown, were the first to graduate from the new kindergarten. Baker went on to become a contractor and a multiple-term city councilor in Haverhill. And there was David McLaughlin, whose father was a manager for The Haverhill Gazette.
"They used to take us on field trips to the farm to pick apples," said McLaughlin, who spent 43 years working for The Gazette's advertising department before retiring in 1998. "That was a big deal back then."
Over the years, Ann Crane's Kindergarten earned a reputation as being "the place to go," McLaughlin said.
Today, kindergarten by law is a must for children in Haverhill and elsewhere in Massachusetts. The farmhouse on North Avenue is gone, but the philosophy of Anne Crane lives on at 22 Pinedale Ave., and through the work of her daughter, Mary-Ann Scott.
A day spent at Ann Crane's Kindergarten is like a day at grandma's house.
Children bake cookies, memorize the alphabet, read books, and learn basic rules such as not interrupting others when they are speaking. If a child is in need of a hug, they get it. And it's been like this for 70 years, or ever since Ann Crane opened her little school in the north part of Haverhill.
"Children need to feel safe and know their parents have sent them to a place where people care about them," said Scott, who took over the business when her mother retired six years ago.
During those early years, Ann Crane's Kindergarten catered mostly to young children from Haverhill; now it also attracts children from surrounding communities. A staff of eight includes licensed teachers and assistants, with Scott serving as the director.
Children seem to love attending the school and especially enjoy taking part in hands-on projects.
"We make experiments that are fun," said Lindsay Kesslen, 6.
"We do fun things here," said Ainsley Corriveau, 5, of Bradford. "I was here last year and my mommy signed me up again."
It's the kind of school where old-fashioned values are still in style. Manners are important, and so is getting along with others.
"We try to teach them about feelings," Scott said. "We find that children really get turned on to the concept and we end up with a classroom of children who are more aware of their classmates' feelings."
Kindergarten teacher Michelle Joubert not only works at the school, but she enrolled her daughter, too.
"I love the fact that we can offer small class sizes and lots of one-on-one attention," Joubert said. "And we try to interact with children as much as possible."
Ann Crane — then Anne Scribner — grew up on her family's farm on North Avenue. Her mother was a teacher, nurse and farmer's wife.
"Education was very important in their family," Scott said.
After graduating from Haverhill High in 1933, Crane tried nursing school but didn't like it. So she switched her studies to early childhood education and earned her degree at Lesley College.
In 1937 she opened her first kindergarten — which was unusual for a woman to do at that time in American history. Her new business was located in her parents' home on North Avenue. She enrolled 13 children her first year in business and found most of her students by knocking on doors of homes in Haverhill — where she noticed front yards filled with bicycles and toys.
She married William Crane in 1942, and the couple settled down on Woodmont Avenue — and Crane relocated her kindergarten there.
"Women were teachers, many stayed at home, and few were owners of businesses," said Karen Ehresman, a former employee of Ann Crane and an avid supporter of the school.
When Interstate 495 was built in the early 1960s, the Cranes moved their house to its current location on Pinedale Avenue.
"This is where I grew up," Scott said. "I was their child and I was a student too. And as a student, I had the use of every toy in the world. It was great fun growing up here."
In 1975 Scott began working as a teacher assistant at her mother's school.
"She made us start at the bottom," she said. "When I was a kid my mother used to pay me to wash the floors. I'm still washing the floors."
Crane's husband died in 2002. She now lives with Scott at her home in Atkinson, N.H. In 1999, Crane was named Woman of the Year by the YWCA's Academy of Women.
><p>
Ann Crane's Kindergarten
Opened: 1937 by Ann (Scribner) Crane
Now run: By Crane's daughter, Mary-Ann Scott
Address: 22 Pinedale Ave., Haverhill
Number of students: 55 children attend the nursery, preschool and kindergarten programs.
