West High School - Westerdays Yearbook (Pawtucket, RI)

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Class Officers - PRESIDENT An outstanding personality, a star in all sports, a friend to everyone, is our Class President, George Webb. His many likeable qualities have won him a place in the hearts of all. SECRETARY Doris Lund, our Secretary, is best known for her pleasing disposition. Having won an honor standing in the heart of the class, she graduates from West with the best wishes of all. VICE-PRESIDENT Versatile, popular, Norma Duckworth, our Vice-President, has found a high place among the students with her pleasing smile and winning ways. We are sure she will go far in her chosen career. TREASURER An able officer, a boy well liked in and out of his classroom, is our Treasurer, Richard Vivian. This lad has earned many warm friends during his days at West. CLASS ODE-1945 Our great Tofnorrow is Today Which soon the past will be; We face the hazy future now To seek our destiny. Warm friendships, books, long corridors, We leave all at last; Our tearful eyes envision now Mere phantoms of the past. With heavy hearts we leave thee. West But calm and unafraid, We face our fate urged forward now By Yesterdays which fade. The glories of Tomorrow come! We see their luring light; But grasp the torch and hold it high To guide our steps aright. BARBARA SYLVESTER, '45. 5

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Dear Class of Forty-five:— During the three years that you have been pursuing a high school education at West under conditions nearly normal the Second World War has been waging on two fronts. Many of our former graduates and other schoolmates have been helping to wage those wars that you might attend school with safety and better prepare yourselves for the problems of war or those of the peace to follow. Indeed many of the boys who might have graduated with you in times of peace are engaged in the world struggle to preserve the right of every individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Were it not for those brave boys and many more like them from all parts of our country and the countries of our allies we might now be in slavery and deprived of happiness and even life by two merciless nations. While over four hundred of our former pupils and teachers have been engaged in this bitter struggle which has cost some of them their lives, these wars have thus far been waged on other soil, and you have not been forced to endure the hardships of civilians in war-tom countries. You have been living under nearly normal conditions at home with your families and attending school. To be sure, the fathers and brothers of some of you are in some branch of the service, either training for combat or actually engaged in it. If you hear from them regularly you are buoyed up by hope; it is only when the report comes that they are wounded, or missing, or prisoners, or that they have lost their lives in action, that real depression of the mind hits you. You here at home have undertaken some responsibilities and have been deprived of some luxuries, you have done delense work for which you were well paid, had more money to spend than you would have had under normal circumstances. With some of it you have bought war bonds and helped your government, and laid a solid financial foundation for your future. You have worked on salvage drives and with Red Cross Units and engaged in Civilian Defense projects without thought of pay. You have helped at Service Centers and Canteens to keep up the morale of our service men. You have had meatless and butterless days and your food has been rationed in order that our fighting men might be fed. Yet plenty of food has been available and you have been well fed. Gasoline, tires, and bicycles have been rationed so that many of you have had to use public conveyances or have been forced to walk. Shoes have been rationed, yet there have been enough for all. Rationing has not hit you as it has students of other allied countries. You, who have been privileged to complete your high school education and graduate, are to be congratulated. You will receive your diplomas before undertaking any other duties. Some members of your class are now taking their first semester's work in college and will receive their diplomas with you on graduation evening. Others who joined the armed forces after the mid-year examinations will have their diplomas sent to their homes. Students in the armed forces who are not eligible for diplomas can earn them by completing their high school work in the Armed Forces Institute while in service. While you have all been busier than you would have been under peacetime conditions, you have been learning more of the responsibilities of citizenship and should thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work and forced to do your best will breed in you temperance and self control, diligence and strength of will and a thousand virtues that the idle will never know. Your Principal, Chester M. Dascombe. 4

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FACULTY First Row—Anna J. Garland, Ellen A. Vance, Doris G. Burns, Adelaide J. Fleming, Eleanor C. Devaney, Gertrude C. Riley. Frank Pearson, Philip D. Plante, William Scholes, Herbert C. Di milch, Philip A. Audette. Second Row—Eugenie M. Kern, Lucille V. Kolb, Mary J. McKitchen, Anna C. McMahon, Marlon F. O’Brien, Beatrice S. Demers, James S. Kinnell, Albert J. Dubuc, Wilfred J. I aliberte, George J. McCabe, Jane Ann McVay, Elizabeth L. Jenney. Third Row—Daisy C. Davidson, Eleanor F. Cullen, Eleanor L. Kelley, Mary C. McKeough, Martha Davis, Jennie E. ('ashman. Mary C. O’Reilly, Fred J. Gregory, James P. McGeough, Robert L. Smith, Frank E. Greene, Capt. Ezra H. Kent, Grace H. Prew, Anna D. Boyle. Perry K. Qulmby. Fourth Row—Catherine F. Mangan, Margaret E. Casey, Veronica G. Flynn, Sarah C. McVay, Mary A. Cavanaugh, Ethel VV. Hall, Sarah Fisher, Marie Thorpe. James A. Habershaw, Francis J. Varieur, Robert B. Morris, G. Russell Burns. Barbara J. Martin, Marie E. Garland, Marie A. Maloney. Fifth Row—Chester M. Dasoombe. Raymond J. Farrell. Edith M. Hutton. Elizabeth L. Crowley, Pauline A. Lennon, Ella M. Campbell, Evelyn C. Lynn, Carolyn L. X chtrleb, Rosa J. Minkins. Eleanor Monahan, Janet Ervin, Anne F. Burns, John T. McQuaid, Earle A. Phillips, Leo E. Endersbee.