52 Ancestors Week 4: Education

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 4

The theme for Week 4 is "Education." There are lots of ways you could approach this theme: teachers, yearbook photos, tales of being a good (or bad) student. You could also highlight an ancestor who got their education at the "School of Hard Knocks." As always, there is no wrong way to interpret the theme!

Doesn't quite smell like teen spirit. Give it a few decades.

    Education is very important. Where would we be without a great education like the kind you'd recieve at a place like Haverhill High School? Last year, I wrote a blog about my grandma Ollie's yearbook from 1939 and talked about how things seemed oddly optimistic in Haverhill, Massachusetts during the closing days of the Great Depression. Then again, they didn't have the benefit of hindsight like we do in the 21st century even though newspapers were reporting on the turmoil in Europe and Asia at the time. What do you say we skip ahead a few years to 1945 and see how my other grandmother Natalie was fairing as the second world war was coming to very dramatic close?

    The year was 1945 and things were quite tulumptious to say the least. The Allies were closing in on the Axis Powers in Europe and Asia. Many superheroes of the age made their debut on the silver screen and like their comic book counterparts they promoted the Allies' war effort despite literal Nazis coming after the likes of comic book legends Joe Simon and Jack "King" Kirby since they created a certain sentinel of liberty and future Avenger, Captain America.That's just one example because MANY cartoon characters also took potshots at the Axis powers for Uncle Sam. To list them all would take some time. Some attempts, I dare say, were a little controversial by today's standards. Looking at you, Donald Duck.

 

     You can bet that the war was definitely on my grandmother's mind as she attended high school in the 1940s. After all, her older brothers, Austin and Norman were serving overseas while she was in school. Do you think she was distracted? Probably. Then again it's a safe bet that she was far from the only one with an older brother fighting in Europe or in the Pacific. She likely did the best she could with the help of her sisters and of course her friends.

    Natalie's yearbook photo is pretty good. I've never known her with dark hair because by the time I came around in the 1970s her hair was as white as snow and she had glasses. Unlike Ollie she opted not to dye her hair at all and that's fine. She made it work! She looked like the typical grandmother to ten grandchildren complete with a collection of creepy dolls. That's a story for another time. Those things were so creepy.

Let's zoom out a bit and see what her whole page looks like. Computer, zoom out!

This asthetic seemed to happen on every page.

    Oh, my. That batch of photos plays with my sensibilities a bit because of the angle those nine photos are set on the page. Just above it there's another cluster of nine photos and they're perfectly aligned with the page. Some editor was clearly trying to be fancy!

    I'm kind of sad that the caption under my grandmother's name doesn't have anything amazing like grandma Ollie's  did. If you recall, her caption talked about her smile and her sense of humor. Here, it just says "nurse". I think that was mentioned as a future profession she wanted to have.

    However, there is a juicy nugget of information since her street address was mentioned. You definitely don't see that in yearbooks today. I suppose this yearbook could double as a city directory as every student has an address attached to them. Great for genealogy and probably a little weird. Natalie at the time was living with her parents, Austin and Henrietta at their home on Margerie Street. Info I already knew. But, it's good to have some confirmation. The house, by the way, still stands!

    The other jobs mentioned on the page are pretty telling. Look at Vincent Paul Eule and see for yourself. Normally the last name is spelled "Iuele".  According to the book, he wanted to be in the United States Navy. I should make it a point to see if I can find out what happened to Vincent. The Iueles hailed from a little Calabrian town you might have heard me mention a few times called San Pietro a Maida.

    Just a few pages later we get a series of tributes for those students who left school because they were drafted into the service and thus never had the chance to graduate with their class. Some of these young men didn't make it home. Some did. It's hard to say who without some serious research. I'm not about to research and draw red x's on some people. Only supervillains do that.

    However, it's clear to me that the war was on everyone's mind as expected. So, it's only fair that they'd pay tribute to the men who served in Europe and the Pacific. 

    The Yearbook staffer who wrote the section made it a point to say just how proud they were of the men who left school to fight for the Allies during what was no doubt a difficult period in our planet's history. If you think that the war is going to be the theme in this yearbook, your hunch is correct. It looks like optimism got a hard dose of reality and that's frankly a shame. Unfortunately, it's part of life.

   Thankfully, it wasn't all doom and gloom for our Haverhill High students! They

I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet.
But, your kids are gonna love it.

    Despite events happening around the world, life went on in Haverhill because you can't let global events dictate your life. This is especially true today. Students in Haverhill High still took part in activities like band, theatre,  played sports and more in the attempt to distract themselves from global events. 

    In the end, the war took its toll and there were events such as donation drives where people could buy bonds and donate precious metal such as tin for the war effort.

    I'm not sure what my grandmother was doing at the time. But, I'm sure that she was doing her part to help with the war effort. After all she was going into nursing and the armed forced definitely could have used all the help they could get.  This next part of the yearbook is especially telling of what life was like for teenagers in the 1940s.

    Oof. Right in the feels. The class can hardly remember what it was like before it was interupted by war. Many future generations will feel the same way they did and now I have Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" in my head. 

    I digress because that's a very potent piece and it brings up a very good point. That generation had to deal with so much strife and unfortunately history has a way of repeating itself. Time may seem like a straight line and yet it can be cyclical. At least these students had a measure of hope for the future. I hope.

    I'd like to think that they did. After all student life went on despite what was happening outside those walls. They had dances, sporting events, plays and everything else you'd come to expect from a high school that didn't have students living in one of the darkest periods of human history. The students talked about turning the gymnasium into a night club. That actually made me laugh a little because Prohibition was a recent memory for their OWN parents. Can you imagine the conversation?

Student: Mom, Dad. I need a tie for the dance. We have a....theme.

Dad: Oh? What is it, son?

Student: 1930s night club. Oh! I found your old tie! BYE! *student grabs it and leaves*

Dad: Sigh...He's gonna do what I did in the '20s isn't he?

    All in all my grandmother Natalie's yearbook presents a fascination glimpse into what the world was like near the end of the second world war. The student body went about their lives partaking in their usual activities and yet war was still on everyone's mind. It echoes the sentiment had by many who has attended high school in the last twenty years or so and yet one thing remains clear. They try to keep their head up in the face of unbelievable adversity. The last words of the yearbook is especially telling. 

"We face the imediate future with a peculiar unity. The course upon which we will all embark admits of no choice---and no hesitation; now that the pardonable jubilation of V-E Day is over, we dedicate all our resources to the successful completion of this war."

 Thankfully, they didn't have to wait that long. The war ended and  the entire planet was never the same again. High school in the 1940s must have been a difficult time and yet they perservered like future generations did. History may repeat itself. But, one thing is clear, we humans try very hard to make do while facing impossible odds.

See ya next time!