52 Ancestors Week 36: Back to School

From Amy Johnson Crow:

Week 36
It's back to school time here in the U.S. Many school districts in my area have been back for 2 or 3 weeks already! This week's theme is "School Days." Have you used school records or yearbooks to find out more about your ancestors? Do you have photos or memorabilia from their time in school? How about any teachers or school staff in the family tree. Write about it this week!

June 13th, 1997. A day that will live in infamy....

Oh, man. Don't I look so happy in that picture? Like every picture, there's a story behind it. I graduated high school on June 13th, 1997. It was a Friday. It was also pouring rain. We're talking buckets! People were driving home in boats it was so bad! My parents took me home after a very quick ceremony and naturally we had a party with cake and all my relatives were there. My grandfather insisted that we take pictures of me in my cap and gown while it was soaked. I was ,of course, hesitant to do so. I wanted to change. I wanted to be dry! And I wanted food! That wasn't going to happen. At least not yet.

My grandfather took several pictures and took his time because photography was a hobby of his and he liked things to be perfect. There was another picture where my parents were making these "Can ya hurry up?" looks. Being a teenager, I was rolling my eyes. It didn't help that my brother and my cousins were laughing off camera. That one hasn't been scanned. I don't know if it WILL! So, now I have this drenched pic as my graduation picture. My actual yearbook photo is tucked away somewhere. On closer inspection of this pic, I swear those glasses are Harry Potter glasses. The first book came out that year, if I remember correctly.

Week 36 comes at a very interesting time. I don't know if Amy planned it like this or not. At the time of this blog's posting, it's the last day we can freely access yearbook photos on Ancestry.com. I've been making good use of the archive and I've managed to find a few photos that I will talk about. A bunch of my friends in the genealogy community have even found some pics of themselves in the yearbook. Me? Not so much. I think Ancestry may have thankfully skipped my class of 1997. I've seen other classes of 1997 in there. Those poor people! HAHA! They just haven't gotten to mine, yet. It's probably for the best because, like comics and movies at the time, we were "EXTREME!" The book basically encapsulated everything from 1990-1997.

I could talk at length about how odd the '90s were. Instead, let's instead go back in time to the 1930s with my grandmothers, Olympia Carrabs and Natalie Felker.

One of the first people I looked up during Ancestry's free weekend of yearbook goodness was my paternal grandmother, Olympia and her sisters. This picture on the left is from her 1939 yearbook and I learned many things about her that I never knew before.

1. I never knew her with dark hair. When I was growing up she had short, blond hair. Ollie's sisters were like that, too. If I was shown a picture of them with dark hair, I always had to be told who was who. When they were younger, they all looked very similar. Except Aunt Josie. She had HUGE glasses.

2. I didn't know Grandma Ollie was in the Glee Club or a Philomathean. I had to Google what that was because that was mentioned on more than a few students in the book. The even had a section dedicated to them. Philomatheans are people who love to learn.

That actually made sense because she ended up teaching my brother and I a lot of things about Italy, cooking and all sorts of things. After I read that bit, it dawned on me that this was why Grandma Ollie always wanted us to learn about everything. She was very happy to hear about whatever grade I got in school and wanted to hear about what I learned. She was a very hands-on grandmother when it comes to education. Sadly, she never became a teacher. She worked for the phone company. Looking back, I think she would have been an amazing teacher because we learned so much from her.

That bit about the "laughing eye" and "smiling face"? Yeah. That was Grandma Ollie alright. She would make jokes and have fun while she told her stories. No surprises there. Still, I don't know why anyone would have called her "Limp" when "Ollie" would have been FINE. "Limp" doesn't seem like a good nickname and I highly doubt she'd have tolerated being called "Limp". That's just me, her grandson, talking.


My maternal grandmother, Natalie Felker's yearbook photo comes from 1945. Like Grandma Ollie, graduated Haverhill High. Getting the picture cropped for this week's blog took a little bit of concentration as the layout was a little wonky. I guess they wanted to go a different direction that year. Whatever!

I learned a few things from her entry as well. Next to her name on the far left was the word "nurse". What did that mean exactly? Did she go into nursing school? Did she eventually become a nurse? I'm not sure. I asked my mother to explain and she wasn't sure what it meant, either.

However, I should note that my mother DID go into the medical field and became a lab technician. Perhaps her mother encouraged her to get into the medical field? I'm not entirely sure. It does open up a few possibilities!

One of the last things I noticed while I was digging through the yearbooks was that my grandfathers were nowhere to be found. That, to me, was interesting. Then again there were probably good reasons for it.  When you're digging through yearbooks there are a couple things you need to keep in mind.

1. The time period in which they lived in could be rife with economic turmoil. My grandparents grew up in the 1920s and 1930s. The Great Depression didn't offer much in the way of education. As a result, many people had to work (assuming there WAS work) or stay home and take care of younger siblings. You also have to take into account that not many families had the money to pay for pictures. Things were tough in those days.

2. If you want to look for someone, be sure to cross-reference the person you're looking for with the US Census. In the 1940 census, my grandfather Robert was sixteen and living with his mother Clara and his sister, Doris in Newburyport. Clara worked as a seamstress while the kids went to school. There could be a number of reasons why I haven'd been able to find his picture in the yearbook. Money may have been an issue or the yearbook hasn't been put online.

Grandpa Marco was fifteen in the 1940 census. His highest education at that point was 8th grade or so. There was no indication that he was at school. He did, however, enlist in the army in 1942. Perhaps that was why he doesn't have a yearbook entry.

There are many reasons why someone may not be in a yearbook. You never know and chances are you'll discover many things about your ancestors. Just be sure to cross-reference them with everything else you've learned. Information we collect is but a piece of a puzzle. Once it's complete, we can get a better understanding of who our ancestors were and the time in which they lived.

As far as memorabilia goes, my parents' yearbooks are in the attic. I'm not sure where Grandma Ollie's is. I'm thinking it's in the attic, too. One of my aunts or uncles may have my other grandmother's yearbook somewhere. The scans are nice and everything. But, I like physical copies of things. That includes comics and DVD/Blu-Rays!

I will say this before I close. I look through the yearbooks and compare them with my own and see that while time has changed, one thing remains the same. High school was an awkward period for a lot of people. Some think back fondly. Some may not. In the end, they show the kind of people we were and hopefully show the kind of people we eventually became.