Nixon Township High School - Nixonia Yearbook (Weldon, IL)

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Tiie last 1 heard of him he was squandering his latest legacy on trying to rid the world of daddy long legs. Now there was Margaret Railshack. Margaret could sing like a bird in school and after she graduated she earned her way through the highest priced conservatory in the world where she got all them high-faluting things a Prhna Dona needs. Well it wasn’t long before she was thrilling everyone in the heart and pocket liook at the same. Mossie Rich went into the opera and has been given such an ovation down in Buenos Ayres, as no other singer ever was accorded before, at least the papers say as much. Yes, and there’s the write-up of Jessie Baker’s wedding. She got married the next day after commencement ! 1 just can’t recollect Jessie’s married name now. for she’s changed it so many times since. I can’t keep track of them in my old head. Some folks collect Rembrandt’s, and some butterflies, but Jessie’s hobby was husbands. Stop, child ! There’s the picture of Supt. Shaw, that Eileen Fleming drew. I do declare it brings hack happenings 1 haven’t thought of for years. I see you’re smiling, child. What is it? Oh, Eileen’s drawing! Maybe you’re thinking that it is a caricature of our superintendent, but it isn’t. It’s a true likeness of him. Eileen was a wizard with the cryon even back in high school days. Yes, she’s the one that does all the ’osinopolitan’s covers. Eileen drew that sketch on the next page, too. It’s Thelma (ilenn and Grace Goken showing off in the annual Style Show the dresses they’d made in the sewing class. Can’t you just see those ruffles and flutfings, their riblwuis up there on the stage, it’s so natural. Thelma became a Paris buyer for an exclusive shop on Fifth Avenue, and Grace started a philanthropic society for sewing on buttons for bachelors, so the time they put in on the style show and sewing wasn’t wasted. Yes, there is Carol Adams. She is the sanitary engineer on the Roosevelt Dam. It’s her business to see the dam is washed thoroughly with soap and water once a week and to see that the water in the dam is kept clean. As for myself I have lived a hen lacked husband’s life for the last forty years. Nothing I do was ever right. I did the wrong thing at the wrong time. My, how dark it’s getting up here. I declare, child, when I get to talking of old school days and old class mates I never know when to stop. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. We must be going now for it’s getting late and I must go down into the kitchen to prepare supper before you r mother strains her voice, but you come back again and I will tell you more of those happy school days. K. T. “’27.” — 48 - VALEDICTORY High up in the mountain fastness a tiny rivulet gurgles ami splashes joyously, tumbling over rocks, playing hide-and-seek with the sun-beams gleaming on its surface, singing and dancing happily all the day long — it knows no responsibilities, but romps, gay and care-free, through all the bright sunny days. Farther along its course the streamlet broadens a trifle, becomes a little deeper, a little less turbulent. While it still plays and chuckles in glee it has moments of Always happy, always gay.- Blanche Crowe. 27

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NIXONIA Z1 just slip it on and let’s see how I used to look fifty years ago. Oh, the night I wore it! I can see it as plain as if only last week. It was in the old auditorium — you don’t remember it, child, for they tore the old school down and built (he mammoth one you have now back in the sixties. There were lights and music, pretty girls and embarrassed boys and roses everywhere. There were eighteen of us all together. What’s this scent of dried roses? Oh, that’s from the rose petals scattered about the trunk. Walter Dressier gave the roses to me. The red rose was our class flower you see. Walter Dressier was our class president. What do you think, child? He’s been president of something or other ever since. Just now he is president of the B. I. O. Railroad. I read in the paper a few years back how he ran for president— but that was one presidency Walter didn’t get. Put the slippers on too, child. See that dent in tin toe of the right one! That ' s where Wayne Meredith stepped on it at the Alumni Banquet, and Wayne has been just like that ever since. When he puts his foot down on a thing, he puts it down to make an impression. He’s been in legislation for I don’t remember how many terms, and I saw by the paper he’d put his foot down on expenses — and right away I noticed eggs dropped three cents. Yes those two girls are sisters, Charlotte and Laura Barclay. Yes, the old maids that live in the red brick house. In school we dubbed them the “inseparables” after graduation, the same story. You never saw one but the other was right there. Finally Laura had a beau, but the affair was soon called off’, for, you see Charlotte didn’t have one and she could not tag along with Laura — not that Laura would have cared, but the man would. The next year Charlotte had a beau, but Laura didn’t, so the affair was called off’ because Laura didn’t have no one to go with. The pair went on and on and they could not attract men at the same time, ’till at last they stopped and settled down. Whose is that lock of hair? Oh, that’s Pearl Long’s. See how it bristles up after l eing in that book these long years. Aggressiveness ran in Pearl’s family. She just naturally went in to reform after college. She reformed the heathens, the church, the schools, the police, the movies, the radio, and politics. Now she has turned her hand to foregin relations. Child, if the world isn’t a better place for your children to live in, it is not Pearl Long’s fault. Yes. and there’s Russell Fullenwider’s picture. Russell was march ' d shortly after graduation, but he invented a contraption for piping home all the oil under the North Pole and soon he was lubricating his wife’s way into the ballroom of delight. Yes. child, I carried that handkerchief. Irene Smith gave it to me. The Irene Smith that went out to Hollywood, changed her name to Betty Blue, and was starring her way to opulence and proposals In no time. Kenneth Smith decided there wasn’t enough marmalade on a singer’s rolls, after dilly-dallying around a year or two, went into business with his father. He returned last fall, taking up golf. Yes. there was Bernice Bebie, who went to New l T ork and Flo. Ziegfield snapped her up and she stayed in his Follies until she was married in The Little Church Around the Corner to an Italian Prince or Russian Duke. I cannot recall which, but she lives on the continent. There was Willard Gift, who every so often ran into some money, left him by a rich uncle or aunt. Once he was walled up for buying oil wells where there wasn’t any oil. Another time for erecting catteries for wandering Pussies and so it went. . How sweet and fair she seemed to he. — Celestin Hiter. 26

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NIXONIA,, L gravity, moments when it sees life as something a trifle more than play. It seems to sense a beginning of struggles as it glides over rocks and past obstructions that seek vainly to impede its flow, ever widening and deepening, until at last it reaches a placid, tree-bordered pool, where it may rest momentarily before merging into the deep-flowing river on its sweep to the sea. Not unlike the story of the brook is the history of the class of ’27. Starting with a group of blithe, rollicking little six-year-olds whose sole care was to enjoy themselves, they began gradually to take on responsibilities, memorable among which was the mastery of the three It’s. Slowly, as the years went by and their attention was directed to studies somewhat more advanced and requiring somewhat more of effort, they began dimly to discern that life is not primarily for play. Thus they reached the first mile- stone — graduation from the eighth grade. Their entrance into High School symbolizes their advent into more turbulent waters, where began their struggles with the binomial theorem, the confusing visse’s and ere’s of Latin, the technicalities of Caesar and the eloquence of Cicero, the dismaying and mystifying laws of Physics, the little imps of split infinitives that would infest the most laboriously written themes — all these (Jorgons had to be met and over come, the while participation was required in numerous extra-curricular activities, such as plays, literary societies, French and Latin clubs, operettas, and athletics. Perhaps these experiences differed but little from those of others who had gone before, yet they were more intense and vivid because they were ours. Now at the expiration of four years of conscientious striving those who have sur- vived the long and winding journey pause for a moment l eside the complacent pool to glance with mingled joy and regret backward along the path-way before turning their eyes resolutely an d purposefully to the broad expanse which stretches illimitable before them. Seemingly deep and smooth, but in reality hiding beneath its surface treacherous sands and lurking undertows, lies the sea of Life, spelling hope and adventure to those who stand upon its brink, eager to test their bark upon it. Let us hoi»e that our pre- paration is adequate to the venture. And now, class-mates, we have come to the parting of the ways. It can be only with regret that we ponder the severance of an association that in some instances is a heritage from our first school days. We can linger only a moment in reminiscence of by-gone days, however, for the future beckons us ever onward. We cannot know what the coming years may have in store for us, and we must not weary in our preparation nor loiter on our way to future usefulness. Of a certainty our pathways will diverge some will continue in academic quest, others may venture far afield, but all of us will continue in the great school of Life, surrounded by opportunities to enrich ourselves from the great store-house of nature and of scientific knowledge. No matter where we go, however, nor what our activities may l e, we shall always remember gratefully the generosity of a community which has made accessible to us a liberal preparatory education, and the thought of Nixon Township High School, and our teachers and class mates there, will always bring to us a warm heart-throb of memory. M. R. “’27.” Dark lmir and lovesome inein. — Raymond West 28