Quincy High School - Goldenrod Yearbook (Quincy, MA)

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to stari home. Fellows that had never seen more salt water than that in Wollaston Bay found themselves being tossed around in those typhoons and monsoons they’d heard about in the few weeks the ( lass spent on the southwestern Pacific. Many others had some of the mysteries of India and the Orient solved for them during their visit.” All realized sooner or later that there were many things cultivated in Japan other than silkworms. While our Quincy boys were off to the wars, the girls who felt so inclined, joined the women’s services. Tfie WACS, WAVES. SPARS. Women Marines, Red Cross, and all important Army and Navy Nurse Corps received a good I number of Quincy girls. Many of them traveled the ‘ Stales and foreign coun- tries. writing back stories and adventures as seen from a different angle. Many other Quincy girls stayed at home writing letters, taking over the innumerable jobs left open, and waiting for that day to come when the boys would return again. Then one by one stories appeared telling the harrowing tales of prisoners who had been released after having spent months of the war in concentration camps dreaming ol Quincy Square on Saturday night and the soda fountain in their favorite drug store. Soon redeployed became a much used term. More stories of the release ol starved, lifeless men were found, and then the final peace. No sooner was the word official than When can I start home?” became the topic ol interest More rapidly than expected, Quincy's missing numbers began return- ing to the buses, streets, and even to the classrooms. Quincy men returned the same boys that wiggled out of homework and kidded with the teachers, a little older, a little wiser, but essentially the same. And now as they pass down Cod- dington Street driving the family car instead of the two and one-half-ton affair they’ve been used to, they look at the building wistfully and say to themselves, Gee, I had fun there!” Rlth Fandel page mne

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In a war as extensive and as mammoth as the one we have just completed, it seems strange to think that a school as small and as insignificant in world affairs as Quincy High could have played such an important pail, hut Quincy High has supplied many of the nationally recognized heroes as well as a good portion of the rank and file of the armed forces. It was a Quincy man who dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. A Quincy man, who was an officer on Bataan when it fell, brought that heartbreak even closer to the people of this cit . It was a Quincy High graduate who entered the army as a physician and, hav- ing attained the position of General Douglas MacArthur’s physician, treated one of the most notorious personalities involved in the war. But most of all, Quincy High graduates made up part of the millions of enlisted men who made our armed forces what they are. Gradually, men who at one time or another strolled down the corridor past the pony, oblivious of any interest other than the next class, were absorbed into the services. Some had been away from books and Coddington Street for years; others had to lay down their pencils and books to go to fight. In time, almost all of the Quincy youth went, leaving a noticeable absence in the streets and in the high school. During the years 1942-1946, Quincy traveled to every part of the earth where U. S. forces ventured. Sometimes it was an officer representing Quincy, flying the skies of Europe in anything from a Piper cub to a B-17; other times it was a G. I. trudging through the mud of Nor- mandy or dodging over the sands of Anzio. Often times as they sludged through the devastation and ruin, they thought of the pretty pictures and descriptions they'd seen in the geography books at Central. South, and Point. Many of them got a chance to practice up on the French, German, and Spanish they’d mastered as five points toward that diploma. Of course, when like one Quincyite, they got stranded in some strange, mysterious, and utterly unknown region like Tibet, their studies would have been of no avail, but that alibi habit acquired when returning change of room slips should have served in good stead. Over in the Pacific Quincy men fought for islands they’d never heard of before—tongue twisters like Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Leyte, Mindoro, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Pelew. Some waited on those islands up to three years for the word page eight

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In Quincy, the School Committee has general charge of the public schools, including evening schools, vocational schools, and departments when not other- wise provided for. A great many duties are reeptir d of this committee- first, it determines, subject to the General Laws, the length ol the school year and it may make regulations as to attendance; secondly, it elects and contracts with teachers ol the public sc hools, elec ts the Superintendent and other department employees; thirdly, textbooks and other school supplies are provided by it: and lastly, it prepares annually its budget which is submitted to the Mayor. The committee is elected at large and consists of six elected members and th Mayor, who is chairman. It organizes annually the- first Monday in January and at that meeting elects one of its membets to serve as Vice-Chairman: the Secretary; and Clerk ol the Committee. Members of School Committee 1945 - 1946 ★ HON CHARLES A. ROSS. Chairman A. WENDELL CLARK. Vice Chairman WILLIAM ANDERSON CARTER LEE L. PAUL MARINI MRS. NICHOLS (Retired Dec. 31, 1945) HELEN SPENCER JOHN II. TAYLOR (Retired Dec. 31, 1945) R YMOND C. W ARMING LON ALBERT COCHRANE