Lawrence High School - Lawrencian Yearbook (Falmouth, MA)

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The Lawrencian THE OPPORTUNITIES OF SOME GREAT AMERICANS Salutatory : Members of the school committee, our superintendent, our principal, members of the faculty, parents, friends, and schoolmates: It is my pleasure on behalf of the graduating class to welcome you to our graduation exercises. We wish to thank you for the never-failing interest and help that you have given us throughout our school life, and we hope that you will enjoy our program tonight. If the foreign accusation that Americans are natural-born hero- worshippers be true, we might right- fully answer that we may well be, for we have heroes and heroines about which any nation could boast. To read their lives is to d iscover that each took advantage of his opportunity, whether it be in poli- tics, literature, invention, or any other field; for in the life of nearly every great American there has been some outstanding thing that has brought him fame. Let us briefly see what the opportunities of some of our great men were. Passing over a few of our presi- dents briefly, we know that most of them were bom of poor people and during their early life suffered hardships and received but little education, their great opportunities coming in various ways. Washing- ton’s great opportunity came when he was but twenty-one from carry- ing out successfully the dangerous commission of repelling the en- croachments of the French. Then followed his military career, which later won for him the title of “Father of His Country”. Abraham Lincoln’s stand on slavery and his debates with Douglas made him known throughout the country. Andrew Johnson was the son of a poor sexton and never attended school a day in his life. It was his wife who later taught him to read and write. He became a hero in the eyes of the nation when he stood firmly against secession. The untir- ing efforts of Ulysses S. Grant toward the reconstruction of the Union after the Civil War added much to his popularity. Grover Cleveland was the son of a poor minister and was compelled to go to work while he was still very young. His first job was clerking in a coun- try store for fifteen dollars a year. He was comparatively unknown un- til he won a name for himself as the “honest veto mayor” of Buffa- lo. McKinley gained his fame through a military career. Let us not forget our own beloved Calvin Coolidge, whose stand on the Bos- ton Police strike brought him prom- inence. People in the United States who had never before even heard of Coolidge read in their news- papers of his telegram to Samuel Gompers proclaiming: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any- time.” Not for years had a single utterance by a man hardly known outside his own state so thrilled the entire nation. It immediately raised Coolidge to national stature. Herbert Hoover was the son of a blacksmith and an orphan at ten. With an ambition to be a mining engineer he worked his Way through Leland Stanford Univer- sity. His rise as a shrewd and ex- pert technician was rapid. Hoover’s record of public service is long, but perhaps the thing that brought hjm his presidency was his efficiency as

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Lawrence High School LAWRENCE HIGH SCHOOL — CLASS OF 1934 MERTON LEWIS BAKER FELIX EDMUND BARBOZA ALVA MORTON BARSTOW ESTHER LOUISE BORDEN ELIZABETH REBECCA BRONKHORST ELLA LOUISE CAHOON ELSIE FLORENCE CARLSON GENEVRA CARPENTER J AC IN A LOUISE COSTA RUTH CAROLINE COWEN LESTER JOHN DAVIS EDMUND EDDIE DeMELLO JEAN DENSMORE MARY DONALD SELENA FRANCES EDWARDS CHRISTINE FERNANDES JOHN FIGUERIDO ROY JAMES GARCIA HERBERT FREDERICK GARDNER ALICE CHLOE GIFFORD ROSS WENTWORTH GREEN WILLIAM HARRY HAUSTON RALPH ERNEST JOHNSON ANITA JORDAN FRANCES CLARK KNIGHT MARGARET ELIZABETH LAWRENCE ANNE LEATHERBEE ROBERT LEALAND LEIGHTON REIGNFORD CECIL LYON SARA MARKS ANTHONY MARTIN GEORGE WILLIAM McDONALD FRANCIS EDWARD McINNIS MARY ANN MONIZ GEORGE RENAULT MORIN THELMA ALICE NICKERSON ARMAND PARENT MARGARET PERIS HENRY RODERICK PETERS LEONARD ANTHONY ROGERS KATHRYN ELEANOR SCANNELL FLORENCE SCHROEDER EDWARD JAMES SHEEHAN, JR. MARJORIE SIMMONS MARGARET EMILY SMITH MARION ETHEL SMITH ALICE SOARES ELEANORE VERONICA STEVENS HELEN CLAIRE SYLVIA DAVID ESSON TAIT JOSEPH REGO TOWERS, JR. NATHALIE BRIGHTMAN TURNER RODNEY CHARLES TURNER JOHN GODFREY WAYMAN VERA MARY WELSBY PHILLIPS BROOKS WILDE, JR. Honor Pupils

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Lawrence High School Food Administrator during the World War. Now, to shift from the field of politics to the field of literature. John Greenleaf Whittier’s family were hard working and deeply re- ligious Quakers. His days were spent mostly in work, but in his spare moments he wrote poetry which he hid from everyone except his sister Mary. One day when he was helping his father mend a fence, the postman, passing his gate, tossed him a newspaper, and to his great surprise Whittier saw one of his own poems in print. He could scarcely believe his eyes. Later he found out that his sister had secretly sent the poem to the Free Press, a paper published by that famous foe to slavery, William Lloyd Garrison. Not long after this, Garrison came to see the poet and urged his father to send him to some higher school. There was no money for the purpose; there- fore young John learned to make ladies’ shoes and slippers. With the money he made from this, Whittier put himself through two years at Haverhill Academy. He realized that such an opportunity comes but once, so he grasped the first chance he had to make good. William Cullen Bryant was the son of a country doctor. He was sent to Williams College; but his father was too poor to permit him to finish his education at college, so he continued his studies at home. It was during this period, when he was still little more than a youth, that as he was wandering alone through the woods one day, his thoughts framed themselves into the famous literary achieve- ment, “Thanatopsis.” Having writ- ten the poem down on paper, he laid it aside and forgot it. It was not until several years later it was accidentally discovered by his father, who took it to Boston and had it published. It produced a decided impression, for no Ameri- can poet had written anything equal to it. All war songs have come from the hearts of the writers. When Francis Scott Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner, he could not have foreseen that it would become the national anthem of his country and that it would be played every night when the flag is lowered, at every fort and on every flagship in the navy. Key’s opportunity came through his being a prisoner on board a British ship, during the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. When dawn revealed the flag still waving above the fort, he knew that the British attack had failed. In his joy and relief, he drew an old letter from his pccket, and on the back of it wrote the first stanza of The Star Spangled Banner. In the fiel d of invention, Edison, Ford, and Goodyear are a few who have made use of their opportun- ities. Thomas Alva Edison was the son of poor people, poor because his father did not keep a settled oc- cupation. As a boy, he was a quiet but observing lad, extremely in- quisitive — always wanting to know the why’s and wherefore’s of things. In school he was considered stupid because he asked so many questions. At twelve he started out in the world for himself. His first job was as a newsboy on a train. He was given a corner in the luggage car in which to keep his stock of papers and magazines. To this corner he moved his little laboratory and his library of chemical books. One day