Augustana College - Rockety I Yearbook (Rock Island, IL)

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His critics oftentimes referred to him as an iliustrator rather than an artist. They cited a lack of subtiety, nuance, and depth. But to the millions who viewed his works on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post between 1916 and 1963, Norman Rockwell was an artist in the truest sense of the word. For although his works Were often ide- atistic, they evoked an image of a van- ishing chapter in American history; that of small-town America. Norman Rockwell was born in New York on February 3, 1894. Having real- ized his artistic ability at an early age. he Ieft school at 16 to attend an art institute in New York, where he re- mained for nearly two years, after which he began his career. At the age of 22, Mr. Rockwell achieved what wouId become the most important commission of his life: the cover for the Saturday Evening Post. Forty-seven years. and some 317 cov- ers later. he had become firmly estab- lished as America's storyteller. Norman Rockwell's canvas mirrored the tranquility of small-town America. From his first Saturday Evening Post cover. depicting a disconsolate boy shoving a baby carriage past jeering friends who were suited up for base- ball; through his Four Freedoms se- ries; to his comical Triple Self-por- trait. Mr. Rockwell painted the Amer- ica that lived in the dreams and memo- ries of her citizens: not what existed in the harshness of reality. Artist. illustrator. or dreamer. Nor- man Rockwell's works depict the en- during ideals and values of a nation as it struggled to overcome the Depres- sion, war, and indifference. In 1960. he remarked: Maybe I grew up and found the world wasn't the perfectiy pleasant place I had thought it to be. I uncon- ciously decided that if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be. and so painted only the ideal aspects of it. pictures in which there were no drunken fathers, or seIf-centered mothers. in which. on the contrary, there were only toxy grandfathers who piayed baseball with the kids. and boys who fished frorn logs and got up circuses in the backyard. If there were problems. they were hu- morous problems. Norman There is a type of woman who can- not remain at home. she once wrote. i'ln spite of the place her family and children fill in her life, her nature de- mands something more; she cannot di- vorce herself from the larger sociat life. She cannot let her children narrow her horizont For such a woman there is no rest. For Golda Meir. there was no rest. Golda Mabovitch was born on May 3. 1898. in Kiev, in the Russian Empire. With unrelenting determination, she endured programs in Russia and pover- ty as a Milwaukee schoolteacher, oniy later to become the fourth prime min- ister of Israel at the age of 70. A woman of many talents, she was often catted upon to raise money for the Israeli cause. Soon after the estab- lishment of the Jewish state in 1948. Palestinian Jews. fearful of war, dis- patched Mrs. Meir to the United States of try to raise $25 million for arma- ments, She returned with pledges for twice that amount. Mrs. Meir had served Israei in virtuai- ly every post e head of the potitical department for the Jewish Agency for Palestine, minister of labor. foreign af- fairs minister. and finally, prime minis- ter. The war in October of 1973 marked the greatest crisis of her years as prime minister. Having accepted the reassurances of her military leaders that an Egyptian attack was improb- able. she later watched as Israei initial- ly staggered under Egypt's crossing of the Suez Canal into the Sinai. We say 'peace' and the echo comes back from the other side. 'war, ' she once la- mented. We don't want wars even when we win. Her often-stated ambition was to see Israel accepted by its Arab neighbors and living in peace. You always called me an old lady. I want to live to see that day of peace, she told her old adver- sary. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, on his historic visit to Jerusalem in No- vember 1977. On December 8. Golda Meir died at the age of 80. She was less than four months away from her dream of seeing the Jewish state sign its first treaty ever with an Arab state. Egypt. Introduction 11

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Events 13