Staring through jars filled with brilliantly hued liquids, digging happily at a knee-high sandbox or sitting cross-legged on the rug singing a song, the children of Great Beginnings Preschool in Long Beach seem unaware they are the keepers of a fragile tradition that, for decades, has started every morning.
The tradition is a mantra, started by the school’s original teacher and founder, Marian Stocking.
“It’s another beautiful day in Long Beach, California, and we’re lucky, and happy, and thankful to be here,” they recite.
It’s a saying without a clear origin. Those close to Stocking — the daughter of a local educator and outdoorsman — say she came back with the line following a trip abroad, but the trail stops there: It might have been after her excursion with the wild horses in Mongolia or beluga whales in the Arctic. There’s also the possibility it was after her visit with the orangutans on the South Pacific island of Borneo, among her favorites.
If you’re from Long Beach, the chances are good you’ve crossed paths with someone who attended Great Beginnings, where generations of budding minds were shaped by Stocking’s nature-first approach.
There are no computers, televisions or iPads. But there are plenty of animals, dirt, sand and a garden with milkweed plants covered with caterpillars that will turn into Monarch butterflies.
“Her philosophy was, kids can learn math and all that stuff later,” Peter Stocking, Marian’s son, said. “At that preschool age, it’s important to get their interest in science and nature and learning about the world.”
This summer, 48 years since opening, Stocking’s vision was at risk. After a fall at her home, the 86-year-old has ailed, unable to teach or even lead the morning mantra.
Without its matriarch, Stocking’s family decided it was time for Great Beginnings to end. They penned notices, letting parents know to make plans elsewhere in the coming year.
They were laid out on Stocking’s desk, ready to be sent, when a local couple, Adriana Webster and her husband, Christian, intervened.
They’d seen the value of Stocking’s school first-hand when their daughter attended. After watching her develop there, “I can’t imagine this place not existing,” Adriana Webster said.
“Great Beginnings is one of those places,” she explained. “I have friends who went there as kids, neighbors who attended in the 1980s, and now second generations are there, and I’ve heard story after story from people who light up when they hear its name.”
So on a tight timeline, they purchased the school for $900,000 in May. During the weeklong summer recess, the two put in another $100,000 in repairs, tearing down playsets, propping ladders, sanding chairs and applying multiple coats of paint. In the backyard, the two added astroturf, shade structures, a playhouse and mud kitchen.
“We literally had to move every single piece of furniture and toy that had been there for 50 years, out and clean, and we did new windows and lights and paint and floors and everything in a week.” Adriana Webster said.
“In a week.” Christian Webster reiterates.
In renovating the school, its new owners insisted that it maintain the character of Great Beginnings at its best. Scrapbooks kept in Stocking’s drawer show that even much of the same playground equipment has been there for at least 20 years. The Websters’ efforts ensured Stocking’s spirit still imbues the school even as her physical presence recedes.
Born to a huntsman and a high school teacher, Stocking spent her youth swimming in the Alamitos Bay, hiking Big Bear Mountain and watching “Wild Kingdom” segments in a Belmont Shore home that had come to resemble an outfitters store.
Her father, Tharon Hodge, was an outdoorsman, hunting deer and duck with the local Elks Club, and killing enough rattlesnakes to keep his daughter well supplied with rattles with which to terrify and impress her friends. Venison and jackrabbit were always in the freezer, and racks of antlers on the walls.
From him, Stocking developed a deep connection to the outdoors, and from her mother, a connection to teaching. But she didn’t follow straight in her parents’ path. She forwent the hunting — befriending animals instead — and detested the idea of teaching teenagers.
“She wanted to focus on the young kids,” Peter Stocking said. “I think she felt that that is probably the most important time in a child’s life, because that’s when they’re learning about nature and science and the natural world.”
With the help of friends, she purchased land on Fourth Street in 1977, where an old bungalow sat atop it, and built a zoo of sorts of her own. She called it Great Beginnings.
There, her animal kingdom — extended, to be sure — amounted to an ex-husband, about 2,400 children, two of whom are her own, two tortoises, a coop of chickens, a corn snake, bunnies, hundreds of dinosaurs, a wandering duck and, at one point, a tarantula in a bag.
Instead of antlers and venison, Stocking brought back a different kind of trophy; scattered on the countertops, shelves and desk drawers are turtle shells, calcified starfish, whale thresh, bird nests, molts, bones and scales, binned and bucketed for children to hold and examine at their leisure.
They came from her trips around the globe, from the outback in Botswana, the desert sands in Egypt and the island of Borneo, and are incorporated into the curriculum.
In 1992, she was among the 60 graduating fellow docents at the Los Angeles Zoo.
From every Saturday thereafter, she traveled to the zoo, introducing guests and spending time with the animals. Eventually, her son started driving her as she became too old to drive herself.
Just as with the zoo, Stocking would have worked at Great Beginnings “to her very last day, gone home, went to bed, and not woken up the next day,” said Teri Moreno, who’s worked at the school since 2000.
But as her health declined, Stocking slowly receded from both. Moreno increasingly took over her day-to-day tasks until Stocking retired. At the Websters’ insistence, Moreno stayed on at the school, recently assuming Stocking’s role as director.
And while she may not frequent the Galapagos and bring back pencils like her predecessor, she has slowly taken over the traditions Stocking left behind.
She wears her special apron during the holidays. For birthdays, Moreno will showcase a science lesson with candles and jars. She teaches the children some of Stocking’s favorite songs — Build me a House, Nora’s Room, Baby Beluga — as well as her famous morning mantra.
She took over the feeding schedule for the now-aging tortoises, Charlie and Cece, leaving them romaine — sometimes with cucumbers and watermelon — between the faded rungs of the outdoor playset.
“It is just a really magical place,” Moreno said. I want to keep that going. … The goals she established from the very beginning are still pertinent today.”
Recently, Moreno was waiting at an airport gate when a woman sat down next to her.
“She goes, ‘I know you.’ And I said, I know you. And we both said, ‘Great Beginnings.’”
After a few minutes of chatting, the woman said her daughter — who attended preschool 20 years ago — is no longer a little girl, but a grown woman with a burgeoning career.
Moreno asked which field she is in.
“‘Science and animals.’ And I said, Oh, Mrs. Stocking would be so pleased,” Moreno said.