Westfield State University - Tekoa Yearbook (Westfield, MA)

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1909 ll'ESTFIELD .YOHJL-lL. 11 interested in the spot because it recalled days spent in child study, where Fannie always shone in spending more time in preparation and writing longer papers than the rest of us. Alma Root had become a tiorist. taking roses as her specialty, and met with great success in their method of tzrining. This was not surprising' for Alma was always good at twining.- whether roses. baskets or hearts. After hearing Alma's fate. we were ready for that of an- other diminutive person in our class-none other than Abbie Johnson. Xvhile at school, she was always so near the sky that she became interested in the stars. so she was now an astronomer, and one who could be relied upon forthe truth of a statement, because what others saw through telescopes Abbie could perceive with her naked eye. Two more Springfield girls now claimed our attention- Beulah and Ruth Randall who were famous chemists. They had analyzed so many foods that they found the adulterations of all, and were having great success in making the public use only pure foods. A fact which added to their renown was that they used a picture of themselves as an advertisement of the effect of pure foods. One 1l12.911lbG1' of our class had especially profited by their labors. for Tessie Barry would never be now recognized as a large woman of innneasurable width and height who lived at last in peace and happiness in a distant land where she was never called to account for things she might but I1 ad not done. Monica Roche who. as everyone knows. has always dearly loved babies. was in France where she was at the head of a day nursery. Here she was ill her element. and was never content except when helping in this fine educational work of France. and she could ever be seen. surrounded by myriads of babes who were always happy in her presence. Now we found the whereabouts of Lena XVells. She had be- come a missionary among the natives of the Figi islands. where the men especially tlocked about her. for she won as many con- verts just through her beauty and her pleasant manner as through her preaching. Next the old man told us of Jessie Hildreth. She. as every- one knows. was always ready to help the girls in any way possi- ble and they had many a good feed at Jessie 's. The custom with

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10 IVESTFIELD XURJI.-IL. 190.9 Poor Irene Squires! She was the only classmate that was still teaching. and her ambitions never rose higher. for she was still hunting for her mate. Here the old man paused. looked sad. stroked his beard and informed us of Anna Dalton who had studied in Germany at a hospital which if named would be easily recognized by all her classmates. Anna became a faithful nurse both to the institu- tio11 and her profession. although she did lose her first case by sleeping over and forgetting to give the 111edicine. But who would ever think there were so many talented peo- ple in our class. There was Miss Parker whom we always thought very sedate. writing funny stories and contributing largely to Puck. Agnes Dowdall had edited a newspaper entitled The Label. with a clever phrase of advertisement preceding it, namely. Keep an eye on -The Label. Agnes found this fact especially valuable in chemistry. To this paper Marian Bridg- man contributed Lively Gossip and always drew the informa- tion maps. The latter must have come quite easy to her as she had every reason to be quite familiar with maps for she was al- ways looking up places that were not o11 that dear old Orbis Romanus. ' ' He then told us of Claire O'Neill and we were surprised be- yond measure at his words. Claire was gaining a reputation of renown by giving exercises to young hopefuls by the noble work of instructing at a skating rink. The old man paused for breath and as my pencil was by this time worn down. and contrary to Mrs. Knight 's earnest solicita- tion--that we should always carry fountain pens-I had none with me. but Margaret who acted upon her advice was in posses- sion of one and took up the old man's words when he began again. Mrs. Knight may question the truth of the statement that I had a fountain pen, as she realized I took a trip down stairs one day for the ink to save time. yet as I needed it for literature, I at last did one thing that was suggested. The next '09 girl we heard about was Frances Egan who was touring Europe. She spent a considerable length of time on the Rhine, especially at the place where many years before Cae- sar had proposed to bridge it CBridgetD. She must have become

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12 TVESTFIELD NORMAL. 190.9 her had so grown that she had finally set up a restaurant, where the girls might have luncheons at any time. This, of course, served the girls to a very great extent after the new rule of Get down to the dining room ten minutes after the gong, or go with- out your meal was established. r And what had become of Tessie Tucker, the girl of so many whims and fancies '? Strange enough, she was in Paris, reveling in the art of painting, though never with extreme success, for al- though slie was now free to give vent to her sentiments with the brush, yet she had so many ideas constantly seeking for an out- let, that she did not have the time to see to the completion of any one, as she would have liked to in her own quaint way. As this was a well known trait in Tessie's character, we were not at all taken back with her fortune. Charlotte Richardson had invented a new soap which ex- celled Bon Ami, for from chemistry experiments, she had found the harm of adulteratious, and so eliminated them. Charlotte was always bright, so no wonder the soap had the quality of brightness. Marcella Carmody had gone XVest to Montana. where she was enjoying herself immensely, teaching the little rustics and play- ing the part of a Shy Anne in her life on a fine ranch which she now possessed. Then we learned that Ottilie Ludwig had become a. poetess shortly after finishing her course at Xvestfield Normal School. Ottilie was always fond of romance and spent many happy hours in 'tdreamland surrounded by her countless fairies, but the strange fact about her now, was that she had suddenly turned to adventure and was always composing blood-curdling tales. Our attention was next called to Clara Harrington, who had done so well while at school that we all expected great things of her. But Clara had after a few years' teaching given it up as something too hard, for she never liked anything but easy work, so was content to remain at home in idleness, dreaming ever of what might have been. ' And Dollie Allaire,-why Dollie was a 'demonstrator and American, Ladies were her specialty. Dollie was always good in this line, and her gestures and fantastic movements aroused great interest and admiration in all her audiences.