Extracts from the Supplement to Slab Hut to Red Brick: the history of Ivanhoe Primary School (2004) compiled by Theresa Casteltevetere, Dianne Fox and Louise Ryan, including recollections of former students & staff and articles from Ivanhoe Primary School Memories. Access at Yarra Plenty Regional Library
Nola Buzza (nee Booth): 1949-1954
I have very happy memories of my years at Ivanhoe Primary School. My name when I attended was Nola Booth. The school was then called Ivanhoe Central. I started there in Grade 1 in 1949 and left at the completion of Grade 6 in 1954. My parents and I lived at … Beatty Street, Ivanhoe and in my first year I walked down Waterdale Road to the school with my mother. For my first few weeks during the hot weather. Mum would bring my lunch down to the school and we would go across to the little park opposite the school to eat. The park entrance was rather narrow, (near the school traffic lights) opening up to the area which still fronts onto Ivanhoe Parade.
We received free milk which was never refrigerated. We would sit in the shelter shed to eat our lunches. We were allowed to go out of the school-grounds and I often went to a friend’s place for lunch or went to my home with a friend.
I remember Mrs White (a wonderful teacher); after she retired from teaching she had a little gift shop called “Juanita’s” in Seddon Street. Mr Cummings and Mrs Snowball were also my teachers. Mr Dunstan was Headmaster.
One year (possibly about 1952) we had a talent quest as a fund-raising activity. It was held in the school grounds during school hours.
When I joined the Junior Red Cross we sent parcels to Korea for the victims of war. Mrs Snowball had some Korean students at her home one evening and I remember going there to meet them. Mrs Snowball also organised for some Korean pen-pals and I wrote to a boy called Myung Tok Pae. We exchanged photographs and wrote to each other for more than a year but then his letters stopped. I believe he was a victim of the war.
I always looked forward to school holidays – we often went to stay with friends who had holiday houses – one at Seaford and the other at Mt Martha! We had an Austin 7 car and would be able to go for lovely drives.
I was an only child, my father worked for the City of Melbourne and my mother was a full-time Mum. My mother still lives in our family home.
In 1955, along with a number of other Ivanhoe Primary pupils, I went to Heidelberg High School. We were the foundation pupils there.
I left school in 1958 after completing my Intermediate Certificate and went to work in local government for the City of Melbourne.
