Port Arthur High School - Sea Gull Yearbook (Port Arthur, TX)

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Elm mibycar glass of ' 7 M M I remember how very important I thought I was when I first graduated. I really believed that I had a wonderful career before me. At this time I think I had fully made up my mind to be a great writerel often dreamed of the surprise the stupid people in our town would receive When they heard of my success, and I wondered how my English teacher could ever have read mv seemingly wonderful literary achievements and not recognized my ability, The first step toward my career I decided would he to learn shorthand and typewriting; so I worked laboriously for six monthsithon when my literary spark failed to kindle, as I sat night after night nibbling at the end of my pen, I came to the decision that to write I must know more of life, and to know lit'e I thought 1 should travel. So, after being a steungrapher for a year, I visited relatives and friends in northern and eastern cities for several months, then came home. It was at this time that my enthusiasm for writing- IOSSGIIHI. 'llhv w'mtm' season had just begun, and many of my friends were home from college for the first winter sinee they had graduated. We had lovely timosia round of card parties, dances and dinners Every one was delightfully happy, and never did Port Arthur seem so charmingly happy and gay. I think I said my literary enthusiasm had somewhat abated. Well, to a degree, it had I no longer spent hour upon hour, planning Very dramatic stories in which my heroine suffered untold cruelties, finally to be rescued by some handsome present day knight. But often on a rainy day 01' while waiting for visitors, 1 would weave gay little romances out of the friendships of my friends; thny were simple, everyday sort of aft' rs, filled with the everyday sort of joy and sorrow that is known to each and every one of us. I sent one of these, a jolly little romance, to a well known magazine, really expecting: it to he returned, and now, as I look back, I renwmher the unutlel-ahle joy that filled me as I received a check and a request for more stories instead of the returned manuscript. Happiness supreme! I had every friend read and reread that story when it appeared, and though now I can find faults in it, I still have that magazine at the bottom 01' my chest of keepsakes. ' The fact that my story had been accepted, seemed, at the time, to he the greatest thing that. could ever happen to mevhutiwell, strange to say. I hardly know how to tell this nextiI shall tell it In'ieflyiand hurriedly pass on, I had known Keith Mansfield ever since I had been about, sixteonl In fact we had been very good friends, but after a while he moved to Houston, and I saw very little of him. Then after I left on my trip north, Elizabeth told me

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History of the first mibycar 61055 m We entered high school in January, 1913, with a roll of thirteen, so you see we were born under an unlucky star. On account of this fewness in num- hers, we were unable to get Latin and German into our schedule. hVe wanted thvm thoughiwhy we never even changed our minds when we were told that Man Bright or Mr, Barlholomae would probably teach us, iVe made a brilliant record, however, and when the next year started we had only eleven on our rollvln-illiant indeed, as can readily be seen. Uur Sophomore year wasnit so had; every one of us made good records in our studies and most of us took part in some form of athletics. Our class spirit was also somewhat improved: we gave parties, indulged in color fights, and went on an April Fool Day picnic twe were the ones who were fooled though? we had our grades dookedl. Our Junior year was the best of all, even though we did lose two of our old, or rather original members, Ray and Gilbert. We made still better records in our classes, were voted to he the hest-looking class in the school, and were ably ruiresented in every form of athletics, by Fred Abbey in tennis, Ray Jordan in football, traek, and baseball, and Elizabeth in basketball. During this year we livuned up more than aver, gave more parties than any other class in school, aml entertained ourselves with a chicken fry, which the Seniors afterward heard of through a package of bones that we sent them through the mail. We entered the Senior year expecting to he, as tradition has it, men and women of leisure, but we were sorely disappointed We still kept up our old standards in classes, athletics, and other things of interest in the last half of this year we were literally worked down. lVe were rushed on all sorts of business, especially on our theses, but thanks to the generosity of Miss Bogard, we were given an extension of two weeks and were able to come out with flying colors, if we were asked to give advice to the incoming Seniors we would probably tell them not to expect 10 loaf, but to prepare for their hardest year. -J. F. R. 17

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in one of her letters that ho had gone to college and, she had heard, was becom- ing quite a football star. That was the last I had heard of him, until, one night, a few weeks after my story hail been published, Elizabeth, Ray, Rolland. Sadie, John, and I rode to Beaumont just for a ride. It was a beautiful June night, and we were driving.r clown Pearl Street, laughing and teasing one another, when John, who hail just come home that week from a medical school to spend his summer vacation, said, HSay, Ray, Keith Mansfield came as far as Beau- mont the other day with me, He is just back from collegegszraduated. l think, in the civil engineering department. HThat's right, Ray said, Hl got a letter from him last week He said he would he in Beaumont for a few days this week visiting a cousin of his-you know he lived here a while before he moved to Houston. We looked for Keith, but did not see him until the following day when he came down to see Ray. Ray insisted that he stay a week with hiniewelli I am going awfully slowly iso to be brief e K e i th stayed, and, well, we naturally renewed our Olll acquaintance We were often partners at, parties, dances, and dinners, and, though finally Keith had to go back to Houston, it wasn lt long before he came backeantl, well after that l was the proud posses- sor of a great liig diamond on the third finger of my left hand, and then on the twenty-fourth of September we were married and left for Alaska, where Keith had some work to dOWaIHl we were, both very, very happy. I couldnlt help wanting to jump up and down and clap my hands the tlay Keith and I walked down the gangplank and gazed with homesick eyes at the scene of a busy Frisco wharf. Keith was awfully excited, tool You see Alaska is a wonderful plaeeiso vast truly America's Hfield of opportunity of today, hut after four years of it, one is glad to get hack to the States! Keith had promised that if I would be perfectly contented with my four years of Alaska while he was working on an important project there, at the eml of that time we would come hack to the States and just wander from one place to another for a whole month, then, he said, he would have to go to work again, although he wouldn't tell me, where. VVhilv in Alaska I had heard from different friends in Port Arthuin One of them, Mrs. Rolland Lawrence, wrote that Jeanette, who had married the summer after we graduated, was living in San Francisco. Being 1h 0 re we decided to stay over For a day and surprise helm Jeanette was just as delighted to see us as we were to see her. She had been married seven years but she didnlt look much older than when she finished schoolestill the hluo-eyetl, light- hairetl little girl that we all knew ut'toltl, She and tor husband were lovely to us, and we admired their beautiful little California bungalow, with its many flowers, so greatly that. we regretted that we had to leave, but we were anxious to get hack to Port Arthur. Jeanette and her husband hml lbeen there the year before, and they said that Francis Rusling' had come, as far as New Mexico with