Wapakoneta High School - Retrospect Yearbook (Wapakoneta, OH)

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Class History CLASS OF 1913 The sun was making an unusually gorgeous departure; unrivaled crimson, gold and saffron hues o'erspread the western sky. And the evening light was mellowed by the soft glow as 1 sat trying to write a history of our Class. The events of our four short years together seemed very insignfi- cant and uninteresting. I had come to the conclusion that we were a very dull class indeed. So with my eyes fixed on the glori- ous west, I sat there and mused. But all at once startlingly near I heard, “Yours is a truly wonderful class. If you do not be- lieve it, follow me. I vigorously rubbed my eyes to see if 1 were really awake. I even got up and walked about to make sure. Yet, while I was convinced 1 was not sleeping, I felt myself rising upward. Although at first I was quite frightened, the feeling soon became delightful. 1 found that I was rid- ing in a little chariot with the daintiest of fairies beside me. A chariot so small and a fairy so sprightly, that I am certain that it must have been Queen Mab and her airy outfit. Imagine my joy when 1 saw we were making for those grand, golden kingdoms in the clouds, of which I had so lately been dreaming. Now I was prepared fot all sorts of strange, wonderful tilings. Vet as we drew nearer familiar faces and forms appeared: at first they seemed moving about but as we entered a beautifully lighted room that seemed no room at all, so free from confine- ment was it. I saw that they were merely carved on the wall; that it was in some marvelous way the light shone on them that they seemed in action and alive. “Now,” said the little fairy, this is what we call the Freshman Galiery. And sure enough as I looked about I saw above the entrance, “The Star Freshman Class.” That was the very way, I remembered, in which Miss Reinhard, one of our first Eng- lish teachers, bad christened us, when we entered Illume High. Here, on these walls,” said she, “you will find a panel for every day of the Freshman year. 1 ran wild with delight! There we were, seventy-four of us in all. Again I see how timid and bashful some of us were. Nevertheless there was an air and deter- mination about us that raised our class above all previous Freshman classes. Here, on this panel, we are in Miss Howell's Algebra. 1 see her pleasant smile as she writes on the blackboard the long list of those who had perfect test papers. Another day she is tell- ing us.that we have great talent but the one fault of our class is, that we lack, “stick-to- it-ive-ness.” There, in Miss Reinhard’s room, we excel in composition. She praises us for our originality and superior intellect. Me distinguish ourselves in writing poetry. I am not half through looking when my good fairy reminds me that we have three more rooms to visit, so we hasten on to the second. 1 remember in this year our troubles be- gan. Our Mathematics teacher, Miss Fergu- son, failing in health, had to leave us. So I find us reciting some days to Mr. Reynolds; some, not at all, and then again to Mr. Bowsher, who taught us the last month of school. Here, on one panel, the splendid camps and bridges, made by us and so high- ly praised by Miss Conrath, are represented. In the Junior Gallery some of the pan- els are hazy and clouded, one is bordered in green, just the shade of green paint; others are covered with dark, gloomy curtains. The last 1 do not understand, but my com- panion raises the curtain and lo! they are the days of our Junior Class Meetings. I have just time to see that in one, ballots have been cast and there is to be no Junior- Senior reception. The curtain falls. His- tory is fact; all must be recorded. “Yet,” said the knowing little fairy, “are not the greatest histories of the world of men and of the people, who have just such incidents in their lives?” TWENTY

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SENIOR NINETEEN

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There, in another place, we are gather- ed into the laboratory and Mr. Stout, our Science teacher, is demonstrating to us the truth of the statement, that it is one of the laws of nature to “follow the paths of least insistence. A truth which, lie says, as he can readily sec by our work, our class fully understands. Hut he. too, leaves us before the term is ended. His place is taken bv Dr. Bolton, more appropriately, Dr. Cheer- up. who talks so much and takes so many different positions in a second that lie al- most takes our breath away. Now we come to the Senior room. How learned and dignified we are in appearance! Misfortune in the way of teachers is again ours. Quite unexpectedly Miss Colictte leaves 11s, and we are without a Civics teach- er. Then Miss Nixon, our much loved Eng- lish teacher, is obliged to give up her work on account of ill health. Again Mr. Rey- nolds takes charge of us until two new teach- ers come. Miss Thompson takes Miss Col- lette's place, and Miss Fissel assumes Miss Nixon’s work. But our class rises above all misfortunes sent by the unlucky (?) '13. And though only forty-eight are left we have drawn closer together and no doubt all will regret the parting that is so near. The beautiful light is fading. My good fairy says we must hasten. On the way back she explains these wonderful hall in the clouds. Only the lives of the really great are thus recorded. And because of our merit as a class, each day of our lives a new panel is added up there and nothing that we do is ever lost. And each evening those beautifully painted galleries are il- luminated and make the glorious sunsets. “Most eagerly,” said the fairy, We await the future history of your class, for there are those in it who will be world-wide famous.” Now, dear readers, you will say that I was only dreaming: but. truly, I was not. LENA BAKER. There is no one of us who will not re- call pleasantly some peculiarity of speech, pet expression, or foreboding state of anger or amusement on the features of the mem- bers of the hacuity. They have become dear to us all through their self-sacrificing charity and great patience, and if they oc- cassionally became ruffled, let us not forget that it was because of our perverted incli- nations. If at times we had individual dis- sensions with the teachers, we had only to go and say “peccavimus” and their wrath was wafted where the wind listeth. Per- haps it will take the passage of time to show some of 11s how greatly we are indebted to them, but this interval can but increase the value of those dear memories of intimate relations in which we have moved. Some day as we look back through the many years that have elapsed, those memories will become sweeter and more precious and none will be more often recalled and more mused upon than those memories of the noble men and women who directed and moulded 11s into better shape, who made allowances, and who saw in us not the im- perfections of youth, but the possibilities of mature manhood and womanhood. O. B. THOMAS, Instructor in Mechanical Drawing. T VV ENT Y-ON K