While Placerita Junior High School was under construction in 1959, the new street between the campus and Newhall Park needed a name, so William S. Hart Union High School District trustees unanimously voted for Dalbey Drive. The honoree: the late Lester Charles Dalbey (1891-1955), “Father of Hart High”. Dalbey was born in Placer County, CA and worked as a schoolteacher and/or principal in various NorCal towns beween 1910 and 1930, when he was hired as principal of Newhall Elementary. He and his new bride Margaret a.k.a. “Rita” (1890-1982), a nurse originally from Canada, arrived that September. In 1945, seeing the need for a local high school but not wanting to be part of LAUSD, Dalbey established Hart High under the aegis of its own district. He then served as both principal and superintendent before abruptly resigning in December 1950: he claimed he was simply “worn out” but a later report called him “disappointed and embittered”. The Dalbeys returned to Placer County and Lester spent his final years in real estate. Margaret, with whom he had one child (Mary Catherine, who graduated from Hart High in 1950), was his second wife – he divorced first wife Edith in 1925, claiming that she threatened to kill him.
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