Heston Beaudoin

From Palo Alto Wiki

Heston Beaudoin owned with his wife, Florence, Beaudoin's Dance Studio in Midtown. He came to Palo Alto in 1924 from Ogden, Utah.

[edit] Memories

Beaudoin's various memories were printed during the Palo Alto Centennial in 1994.

"We drove into Palo Alto at night and came down University Avenue. The streetlights were arches. It was like driving through a tunnel of lights. It was fascinating to see all these lights.

"It was a beautiful town. We fell in love with it because of the trees.

"There was a streetcar that went down University Avenue from the stadium and down Waverley Street to Oregon. Every night the Stanford 'roughs' would pick up the car and take it off the tracks. Every morning the crew would have to put it back on the track."

In high school, "I bought two acres of land for $1,000 each acre on the corner of Colorado and Cowper. I worked for 50 cents an hour digging. My parents owned a grocery store. Bread was a dime, milk was a nickel a quart, coffee was 39 cents a pound. When the Depression came along I was making $65 a month. I had more money than I knew what to do with. I bought my mother a Maytag washing machine, tailor-made suits. My first income tax was 27 cents."

In 1931, he was laid off from the railroad. He says he didn't know how to do anything except office work and tap dancing. He built a dance studio on the property he owned. At first they taught just tap, then they got into ballroom. They've had about 35,000 students over the years.