Brook High School - Talisman Yearbook (Brook, IN)

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Dear Class of 1953: Our Brook High School was commissioned in the year of 1906. There were only six of us to graduate that year--namely, Blanche Hess Gast of Warsaw, Indiana, Maude Adair Smeak of Crawford, Nebraska, Jennie Harry Beagley of Brook, Indiana. The other three members of the class are deceased. They were, Elsie Noble Eastburn of Sheldon, Illinois, Charles Lyons, Sheldon, Illinois, Clifford Harry, Tulsa, Oklahoma. We were not as fortunate as you are now, in having a complete library. In fact our Superintendent, Mr. E. E. Vance(deceased), made his library available to us and later donated it to the school. We took four years of Latin, and had to take two sciences in our Senior year in order to commission the school that year. Our first Alumni Banquet was held in the present United Brethern Parsonage in May 1906. Those present were the six graduates, our taithful Superintendent, Mr. E. E. Vance and our Principal, Mr. Fred Longwell, who is now a retired Methodist Minister. Sincerely yours, Jennie Beagley, 06 Greetings Class of 1953: Congratulations on attaining another milestone on the road of Success. To some of the members of the Class definite plans for the future have already taken shape; to others the future may seem uncertain and obscure. It is an assured fact that the future of this country will depend upon the manner you people shoulder your responsibilities. Your class may never have among its members a president of the United States; a five star general, a minister of a Fifth Avenue Church, or an Ambassador to the Court of St. James---if each individual accepts his daily tasks, and fulfills these obligations to the best of his ability he has attained his goal--SUCCESS. God Bless your every effort. . may each become one of the distinguished Alumni of B. H. S. Sincerely,

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ALUMNI NOTES Foreword The students that are now enrolled in this school--particularly the ones that are about to leave this year--thought it would be nice to hear from some of the former students. We wrote to members of some of the classes from the first graduating class to the present, picking at random members and asking them to write something of what they have been doing since they walked down the aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance and were presented with diplomas, and how they have come to appreciate the years they spent in Brook High School. We pass on to you some of the replies which we have received. To the Class of 1953, from the Class of 1916, Greetings, Congratulations on the successful conclusion of your High School work, and Welcome into the ranks of the Alumni Association. It is indeed a pleasure and an honor to have the privilege of ad- dressing you in this manner as spokesman for the Class of 1916. Having completed this important phase of your education as a group you are now ready to take off, each on his, or her, own chosen course, in pursuit of the individual objectives selected. You will find, for the most part, that your flight paths will become increasingly more divergent as the years progress and that the home bases which you eventually establish will be well scattered and some will be far distant. Even so, the close friendships, established by association through your grade and high school years, you will find to be forever lasting. In regard to reference to far distant places, it must be remembered that the world has gotten much smaller in recent years due to modern means of travel and, of course, I am referring to the airplane. Therefore, in matter of time you can be close to home in Paris, Rome, or Tokyo now that one was in 1916 if living in Los Angeles, and on this basis distance in miles is rather insignificant. Looking backward through the 37 years which have passed since my class graduated, and trying to arrive at some reasonable comparison of the situations then and now, I would say emphatically that the world is much more your pigeon than it was ours. There have been great advances made along all lines in the interim and it may seem to you that there are no more areas available for exploration or exploitation in any field. Actually, a lot of us have just been doing things the hard way through these years to furnish the knowledge, tools and equipment to make possible more rapid progress from points of take-off for you than we ever dreamed of. In another 37 years you will be looking back- ward over a period of much more fantastic progress than we have seen in the years since 1916. Whatever your chosen field, it is my observation that you will have to work hard and long to arrive at the goal desired, for regardless of the improved tools to work with, there is ever present the competitive efforts of others striving for the same thing and your eventual position must be won by excellence over others. This is as it should be, for it is the process of the Free Enterprise System which made this country the greatest on earth. The world is yours - go take it in true Jet Age manner! Don R. Berlin 23

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I Lear Class of 1953: For the class of 1908 I am happy to write a note of greetings for the B. H. S. yearbook, The Talisman, and to say “hi to all those “fore and aft . Not many were before us as our class was the third one to graduate from Brook High after it was commissioned. We were a class of 9-7 girls, 2 boys--perhaps most of us strangers to you, so may I present Leila Foresman Hanson, Hazel Laurence Hess, Frances Hays Lyons, Ida Sell Kindig, Mae Whitmyer----2 , Mary Ballard, Ina Sunderland Peirson, Charles Conn, and Everett Hess. Both boys are now deceased. We were all of average behavior and intelligence, never failed “to pass’’--but back in 1908 we were very sure that we were very much above the average, a Senior complex. The years have deflated our 1908 egos but think I may say, in no one statement, that all have found useful places in life as average citizens, and we have kept, through the years, our devotion to B. H. S., and an unfailing interest in its students and their activities. We have watched with pride and pleasure the development and progress of our Alma Mater and are happy to extend proud best wishes to the students and faculty of this year of 1953 from the Class of 1908. Sincerely, Ina Pierson, 08 To the Class of “53 It it were possible for you grads of ‘53 to obtain a television set which could back- fire and pick up the events taking place at B. H. S. back in 1914, some of the things you would see flitting across the snow-speckled T. V. screen would make your eyeballs whirl in amazement. But you are concerned with the future, not the past. You are fortunate to be grad- uating at the beginning of the atomic age. In a few years, by the time you have settled down in a plastic home and started buying baby rattles, the standard of living in the good old U. S. A. will have advanced to that push-button stage. You will have more leisure time in which to enjoy living. However, in spite of all the scientific advances that are to come, human nature will remain the same so if you want a happy future make all the friends you can, and be a friend to all. Other members of the Class of ‘14 join me in extending congratulations and best wishes to you. Art Irwin, 1 4 25