Learning To Swim

I woke up a couple of days ago thinking about learning to swim. It is something I have already blogged about (June 20, 2010) so I won't repeat that, only add some to it. It was in 1957, the same year the Corning pool opened and the summer before I began high school. I was thirteen, Betty, eleven. Up until then we hadn't needed swim suits but obviously we would have to have them to take lessons so Mom ordered us some inexpensive cotton ones from a catalog. Mine was pink and Betty's was blue. They had ruffles around the bottom - much more like little girl's suits than one for someone who was going to be 14 in exactly five months. Our first lesson was on Tuesday, June 18. The next day Mom took us to the pool so we could practice what we had learned the first day which was how to float. I mastered that and was ready for the second lesson on Thursday which was learning the crawl. By July 2, the 7th lesson, the instructor had us in the deep end of the pool. July 20th was our last lesson. I would have lived at the pool that summer if I could have. On August 11 I passed my swimming test (swimming back and forth across the width of the pool twice) and was granted permission to be in the deep end. My favorite thing was diving off the low board, swimming over to the ropes, climbing out and going back to dive again, and again and again. 

A picture of Corning's pool the summer of '57. Was I in this photo somewhere?  The other thing I remember was that Dad worked, helping finish the pool house, so the pool could open. But why? It was almost done and he only worked a few days - the only time I remember him working off the farm.

I could remember where Betty and I learned to swim, but what about my children? My brothers? Where/when did they learn? I couldn't remember except for my big brother. Ron took lessons out at Lake Binder. At one time there was a high wooden tower with a diving board there. (Both photos are from the 1957 Corning Centurama booklet.)

Younger brother, Les, also learned at the Corning pool. He started lessons the summer between first and second grades and continued with lessons until after 6th or 7th grade when he achieved Junior Lifesaver status. Good for you Les, you're most likely the best swimmer of any of us. 😎

We were living near Johnston by the time my children were old enough to take lessons. The Camp Dodge pool was completed in 1922 - one of the largest pools ever built. It measured 150' x 350' and held almost three million gallons of water and between one and two thousand swimmers. It closed in the fall of 2001 and never reopened. It has since been filled in. 

It was a great place to go swimming except it was a bit hard to keep track of your children. Doug started lessons there and then continued lessons at the YMCA camp near Boone. Kari and Preston both started lessons there and finished with lessons at the Corning pool after we moved back to SW Iowa in 1978.

The important thing is that we all learned to swim. 

(I had to ask Les, Doug, Kari and Preston where/when they learned to swim since I could not remember.)