Evelyn Dawn Thomas was born the youngest of seven children in Long Beach on July 8, 1907.
The Thomas family moved to Glendale, and Evelyn graduated from Glendale High before attending USC. Her specialty was dance, and by the 1930s she had become a dance instructor. (She also had dropped her last name, becoming just “Evelyn Dawn.”)
By 1946, Dawn had become affiliated with Chadwick School on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and had begun offering children’s dance instruction in Rolling Hills.
Unsing the name “Miss Dawn,” she moved fully into childhood education when she started up a preschool in Manhattan Beach in 1951. She would be known as Miss Dawn for the rest of her life, even after marrying and having two children.
Miss Dawn’s School proved popular with both its 60 students and their parents, and a second location opened at 215 Avenue I in Redondo Beach in 1953. The addition of a pool a couple of years later allowed the school to also offer swimming lessons during the summer. Its enrollment eventually reached 135 students.
Miss Dawn had a broader view of early education’s purpose than merely focusing on the rote learning of facts. The Palos Verdes Peninsula News quoted a speech of hers in 1956:
“Our part should not be limited to baby sitting, nor should it represent a pre-mature forcing of formal education from tests. It should be the introduction of the child to one of the most important things he will ever learn . . . how to get along with other people.”
(Credit: Looking Toward Portugal blog)
The popular school would expand again, this time to a 300-student capacity, when it moved to the Palos Verdes Peninsula in 1961.
In March of that year, the Rolling Hills United Methodist Church asked the city of Rolling Hills Estates for a zoning change that would allow it to build its new church on a six-acre site it had purchased on the northeast corner of Crenshaw Blvd. and Palos Verdes Drive North.
Half of the parcel would be used for the church, with the other half dedicated to the construction of a new school which would include preschool and elementary grades.
At first, the Peninsula News gave its name as Miss Dawn’s Country Day School, but the name became Rolling Hills Country Day School before it was completed.
The plan for the $300,000 private school was approved and Pasadena architect Lee Kline was hired to design it. In the meantime, Miss Dawn moved her school from Redondo Beach to four classrooms at the closed Rolling Hills School, sharing the space with the Rolling Hills Estates city offices, in time for summer school classes in 1961.
The new school would contain 14,000 square feet of floor space. One building would house the cafeteria, kindergarten and pre-school areas. It was designed with movable walls for indoor and outdoor activities, as well as the capacity to transform into an auditorium seating 300. Elementary classrooms for grades 1-6, the library and administrative offices would occupy a second building.
Ground was officially broken for the new school on April 2, 1963. As in Miss Dawn’s previous school incarnations, Its curriculum would stress the basic communication skills for reading, writing and speaking English but also includes Spanish for all classes, French, beginning typing and laboratory science for fifth and sixth graders.
Rolling Hills Country Day School officially opened on Sept. 23, 1963, and a dedication ceremony and open house followed a month later.
Three years later, the school began planning a major expansion. Two more acres of land were purchased for the addition of a recreational building and a swimming pool, with Lee Kline again hired as architect. Also, the school announced the addition of seventh and eighth grade classes aimed at preparing its students for high school.
In 1981, Eveyln Dawn founded a secondary school, Rolling Hills Prep, that originally shared quarters with Rolling Hills Country Day School. (More on Rolling Hills Prep in a future post.) She also had helped found Canyon Verde Schools in Torrance in 1977, a program that assists children and adults who have learning disabilities or emotional problems.
Dawn also actively supported the Peninsula-based nonprofit Help the Homeless Help Themselves through school fundraisers and other activities.
She died in her sleep at her Redondo Beach home on July 16, 2000, eight days after her 93rd birthday. Her educational philosophies have lived on, however.
In 1975, she told the Daily Breeze, “We’re not preparing them (students) for high school, rather we’re preparing them (for) forever.” The philosophy continues to serve its nearly 400-student population to this day.
Sources:
“About Us,” Rolling Hills Country Day School website.
“The Best Potato Crusted Salmon,” by Lori Lynn, Taste With the Eyes blog, July 10, 2010.
Daily Breeze archives.
“I Am One of Miss Dawn’s Little Sponges,” by Steven B. Rogers, Looking Toward Portugal blog, Oct. 22, 2014.
Los Angeles Times archives.
Palos Verdes Peninsula News archives.
