Northrop Collegiate School - Tatler Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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The 1924 TATLER important, was to begin the Revolutionary War! This simple little trick was performed by slamming a dictionary upon the floor, producing a noise which sounded like the first shot of Lexington. After Commencement Day we were unusually jovial as we realized that the great time had come, and we were no longer eighth graders, but Freshmen! The great day arrived. We were, rather to our disgust, arranged in neat order by Mrs. Menger. The thirty-live of us nearly filled room twenty-seven, which was our first home, as it is our last; we have returned here, like the business man in the movies Who comes back to the farm to end his days. In spite of being arranged a la index, we felt ourselves quite grown up. We appointed a committee to purchase class rings and class colors, which we wore thereafter prominently displayed at all the class games in which our bas- ketball team took part. tVee Clifford was on the sub team, one of those examples of a rise to fame from obscurityJ We were entertained by our elders at the Old Girls' Party for the New. One vivid recollection this historian has of seeing Ted Melone, as the bride in liLochinvar lone of the stuntsl , being lifted to the saddle of a Kiddie Kar, and borne blushing from the stage. We seem to have been shining lights, socially, for we were prominent in the Sopho- more Carnival, in which we managed the iiPenny Arcade, and revealed the mysteries of the liSwimming Matches and llNapoleon Crossing the Rhine to unsuspecting visitors. Louise Belden entertained us at a class party, whose fea- ture tof course excepting the refreshmentsy was a sort of silhouette pantomime. We were still rather young at heart, notwithstanding our social triumphs. Examinations made us feel very small indeed, in spite of our ability to recite Iluently, iipuella bona, puellae bonae, etc. The Juniors and Seniors, examined a few days before ourselves, were objects of sympathy. Jinks Decker remarked one day, Just think, Susan is taking an examination right now! in much the same tone she might have employed if Susan had been having her appendix removed in the next room. . We ourselves seemed to be able to pass examinations without any difli- culty, for we had four or five members of our class who marched up to the platform on Commencement Day, to be presented with roses, and the class as a whole moved on up the next step toward being Seniors. We were so large a class in our Sophomore year that Miss Sadley's room would not hold us all. Some accommodating girls who spent most of their time looking out of the window anyway, might have been willing to sit on the window-sills to save room, but we were torn apart, Mademoiselle Bagier under- taking to uadvisell a few of us. We still met each other now and then, how- ever, at our class meetings, frequently held. In these meetings, as each mem- Page 15

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The 1924 TATLER amount of knitting done for the soldiers, Louise Belden, or possibly Marjory Pomeroy, would have carried it 0E. The seventh form stands out in the memory of all concerned as the most bird-y and picnic-y of our history. We Were all members of the Audubon Society. We would bring our lunches, and take walks whose destination was too near the building to offer any great amount of exercise, or even an over- whelmingly fine view of the birds. We thought it quite as profitable to sit in the grass and eat while we waited for the birds to fly by, as to take the pains to go in search of the birds. However it must not be supposed that we didn't learn anything about our llllying friends, for we really learned much. We kept lists of great length, telling what kinds of birds we had seen and the date on which we had seen them. In this case it was the reverse of the proverb, for each girl sought to be early enough to get the first bird. The eighth year was, I am sure, the height of our career, since we never before nor afterward succeeded in being quite so tyrannical. The hobby of our class was the llstrike. It seemed almost as though we must have spent our week-ends planning these rebellious uprisings. This is the way they arose most of the time. Lucy would come tearing into the room in the morning before Mrs. Ruud had come upon the scene of action; she would be all out of breath; she would slam her books down on the desk, and shriek, NGirls, I'm so mad that I could just die! Do you realize that we aren't babies any longer? There is absolutely no sense. in this forcing us to take fancy dancing lessons! Who is going to get any good out of it anyway? We cer- tainly arenit going to be dancing our way through our examinations. Girls, welve just got to stick together and strike! I I I And as was inevitably the case, we struck. However, in spite of the fact that we were universally detested, towards the end of the year the rest of the school was forced to take an interest in us, when we performed in a patriotic play called uThe Declaration of Indepen- dence, for which Miss Radford had long been coaching us. We were all very much thrilled over this because we had real costumes and scenery! The main characters were: Louise Belden as Thomas Jefferson, Jane King as Paul Revere, ' Jinks Decker as Benjamin Franklin, and Berenice Adamson as Samuel Adams. However, Emma Poehler, as Captain Parker, although that part does not seem very important, deserves about four times as much credit as all the rest put together. First of all, she took the part of a thousand British soldiers, beside that of her regular character. One could easily hear the galloping of a whole regiment when she beat her hands upon her knees with a very convincing thump- ing. The next thing she did, which was much easier, but nevertheless decidedly Page 14

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The 1924 TATLER ber of the class wished to talk all the time, we accomplished nothing startling, although we did accumulate quite a sum by the ten cents a week method. This year we attended the Subscription Dance in large numbers. Some of us, after long consultations with friends, appeared with our hair marcelled and done up. I trust that the school remembers us thus, marcelled and dressed up, dancing gracefully, rather than as placing an artificial, but terrifying, mouse before one of our teachers. a should add, for honestyls sake, that the teacher merely remarked, uTake that thing outIl' We had, from reading the comic papers, expected hysterics at least, and were quite disappointedd Our basketball team was a marvel. We were runners up in the Tourna- ment and were defeated by only one point. It was thought quite a feat for the youthful Sophomores to come so near winning the Tournament. We ourselves went around singing Hail the Sophs, the coming Seniors of the class of '24! to the tune of Clementine. tStrange as it may seem, our prophetic song was right and we are SeniorsJ By the end of the year we could chatter quite knowingly of the Helvetians tfrom which, by the way, one of the most beloved members of our class derives her nicknamey, and there was not a one of us who wouldnlt have recognized an ablative absolute if she met it in the darkest corner of the tortuous paths of HDe Bello Gallico. We could prove two triangles congruent under the most discouraging circumstances. In fact, we were beginning to show our education. Miss BroWn came from St. Marys to Northrop only to be confronted with the task of keeping an eye upon us, now the Junior class. If the former school is anything of what its name implies, the contrast must have been great, for in spite of our good intentions, we did not always remember to subside when the bell rang, and our chapel lines were always in danger of being last minute affairs. With an eye on the Senior Room, however, we began to attend to our manners, expecting the school to return in kind by regarding us as potential Seniors. I suppose that we must have studied that year, and I know that we went in for athletics, coming in a close second on the Athletic Cup. The one out- standing event in the memories of all the class, however, is the Junior-Senior. We began early in the year to discuss it, and before the spring was entirely over had arrived at some plan of action. During the week of Final Exams such members as had been fortunate enough to pass the Preliminaries spent their days pasting and snipping. Presently the floor of the little gym was entirely cov- ered with tape and scissors and paste, not to mention the strips of crepe paper, which were to llitter so airily above the crowded dance floor, charming the eye, and acting generally as all well-behaved decorations should. It must be admit- ted that they were not so beautiful spread out upon the red floor, which smelled Page 16