East Haven High School - Pioneer Yearbook (East Haven, CT)

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£ducciti on The education of East Haven boys and girls reaches back to and beyond The homes taken for granted in childhood's happy years, In the vivid changing moments of '42 and '43 Suddenly and vitally appreciated. It reaches a village green lying near to rocky shores and sandy beaches. Lafayette camped there, and there the yellow school house stood. Nearby the Old Stone Church for which the worshippers Cut, dressed, and laid the stone themselves, close by the graves Of the pioneers whose fires burned there before. Library, Town Hall, Fire Station, Post Office, perhaps these meant less to ’hem Than that the Green was their own place to play, where grass grew, And freedom. Sometimes in play, evanescent, rare, that bright flower bloomed, Democracy. Sometimes when might made right, they learned to hate, and fight oppression. Their lives revealed their own home town as part of larger New Haven And its Green where, in open air, three hundred years ago, worship came first. They saw its towers that rise on monuments that mean revolt against the tyranny , That would curb the free spirit of man, and happenings there that have Changed the history of the world became their heritage. 'Twas there they knew That long ago a Yale boy spoke the words they, wondering, repeated: My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my country. Between these Greens that stand for all New England means The Boston Post Road and Highway Number One become their own Main Street. There life takes on its real significance to them. Against the background Of their history, each life unfolds its radiance and mystery.

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East Haven High School East Haven Connecticut

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. and £alt -fjavan Up Center each goes daily. The trolleys, bowling alleys, skating rinks. Town Hall, the Dime, and more prosaic stores all become part of them And are their education. In the drug stores that are their social centers They sip, not cokes, but Life itself, eat ice cream and candy bars That are nectar and ambrosia. The churches, Old Stone, Christ, St. Vincent de Paul minister to their spirits. Thus in September, 1942, Ayr, Ahearn, Bombriant, Costanzo, McManus, Clancy, Heffernan, Shoemaker, Malliaris, Struzynski, Strickland, Bowden, Piombino, Rossetti, Bryant, Malcolm, Jones, Iezzi and the rest, Names Scotch, Irish, English, Polish, Italian, French, Norwegian, Swedish, Greek, Russian, German present themselves For their last year in their beloved school. They are keenly aware of what they mean in East Haven, Foxon, Momauguin; They know as well the happenings in lands afar from which their forbears came. Events have taught the lesson that if any nation hold aught more dear Than freedom, it will lose that thing—and freedom, too. They take in stride Blackout, Air Raid Alert, Scrap Drive, USO, and rationing. Above their heads the airplanes drone, And sharp stacatto of machine gun practice punctuates their study. These teach them swiftly that East Haven is Connecticut and That a part of one great land, my country ; that no man May live for self, or by bread alone, that only he that loseth life may find it. Class mates threescore take, steady-eyed, their oaths of allegiance. They go to fight, if need be, die, for freedom. Each knows, In blinding flash, that education and East Haven Come to full fruition, in their clear purpose, pointing steadily Like Old Stone Spire, To give—or live—each his one life for freedom's sake. Frances Hunter