Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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SOMANHAIS @EVENTS “ EARL THOMAS TROTTER IRENE ISABEL CROCKETT “What a voice is here now!” “T ought to have my own way in every- thing, And what’s more I will, too.”

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SOMANHIS EVENTS 19 Somewhere in France, April 10, 1918. To S. M. H. S. Class of 1918: Having a little spare time while we are resting up in a little town behind the firing lines, I thought a very good way to spend some of it would be to write. I want to tell you and the rest of S. M. H. S. scholars who have anything to do with Somanhis Events how much the book cheered me up on my recent trip to and from the trenches. It was sent me by my mother and it was the December issue. I don’t know what possessed me to carry it with me but I carried it in my little kit bag all the way. I threw away many a thing to lighten my load on my back but still I hung on to Somanhis. Many a night when we were lying in our dugout, we would begin to think of home, as you know any fellow will, I would have Somanhis and would put off my loneliness by reading the jokes and other stories written by some of my old schoolmates whom I knew well, When we are in the first line trench, we don't get any papers and only once in a while do we get our first class mail. ‘Times when I have been reading Somanhis, | would suddenly hear the most hated word there is, Gas ! Everything goes flying then and everyone hurries to get masks on. Oftentimes I would find Somanhis five or six feet away from me, because when we hear that word we think of nothing but get- ting that mask on. And that little book has been out around No Man's Land with me. I happened to be on a patrol one night that had to go out to look for informa- tion, I didn’t know it, but the book Somanhis was in my coat pockets all the time. If we had met a Boche patrol that night there would have been some- thing doing. It is no joke to be out and have anything from a little thing the size of a bean to a House Hale building flying over your head. One never knows when one is coming over with your name neatly engraved on it. They will be landing in back and on all sides; down in front will be the little machine guns going a mile a minute. It certainly is a great game and the chances are pretty slim sometimes. I have slept in mud and water and even on concrete floors. The rats have played tag with me. I have been covered from head to foot with mud. I have gone to sleep soaking wet from being out around the trenches on guard, and such things, but the book has come through unharmed, And I, while up in those trenches, made up my mind the first chance I got to write and tell you all about it. Sometimes IT have considered Somanhis as a good luck token. I think that with it I could go through the worst and come out without a scratch. In the book, I read letters from some of the boys at Camp Devens. But I think that Somanhis has seen more with me than what it has up in Devens. Not only I, but a great many other fellows, have spent happy hours reading it. So now as we can’t write as much as we want to, as the censor officer would get after us, I will close. I will end my letter as | end them all lately, not knowing when we will be able to write another. We never know when one is coming with our name on it. So goodbye everybody ; and to the class of 1918 IT wish you all luck after you leave the good old S. M. H. S., next June. . As ever, Tut Martin, (An old member of '18).

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SOMANHIS EVEN MILDRED ANDERSON “Her charm lies in the fact that she, At need can gay or serious be.” LILLIAN MAY CRAWFORD “How sweet and fair she seems to be.” ANNIE LAVINNIA ARMSTRONG “An angel? Well, perhaps!” MARTHA EVELYN CROCKETT “Bless my Soul” but you're good- natured, “Sister Martha.” JAMES DONAHUE BURKE “Of thoughts political, And, Oh—how critical!” URSULA JOSEPHINE EDGAR «pg wicked, I is. I's mighty wicked; Anyhow I can't help it.” HELEN FRANCES CARR “She seems so near and yet so far.” MARY CHRISTINA FARR “T'll not budge an inch.” MARGARET CLARE COUGHLIN “Short but sweet.” ETHEL MAUDE FAULKNER “Oh how she loves to sing and play And laugh and laugh the live-long day.”