Winchester Thurston School - Thistledown Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

Page 9 text:

443 Dedication to Miss Mitchell To you, Miss Mitchell, we dedieate this, our Yearbook. It is not suflieient, yet there is nothing line enough or great enough that we can give you to express our grateful devotion. The only thing we can do is to pledge our solemn promise that we will always endeavor to live up to your ideals. You have always loved us, encouraged us, and striven for us. Innumerable times you have forgiven us. Perhaps parting is so difficult because through our faults we have eomc to know and love your patient understanding. VVe can never forget you. To us you are all that true Beauty and Yvomanhood stand for. In you is a refreshing, tireless flow of strength and love of life combined with an inborn wisdom. VVe thank God that we have been able to be under your guidance, Miss Mitchell, for by yo11r gentle life you have shown us the deepest and richest beauty that can be had in life.

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Foreword This afternoon as the final bell rings, I close my book and look around me. Inside there is the same familiar bustle to hurry to leaveg outside, the same spring weather beckoning us to come. Suddenly I realize that though Study Hall is the same, though Spring is the same, we have changed. We are older and more mature now, more so than we ever thought we could be, even as Seniors. As I listen to some of the girls talk, I wonder if we would be so mature if there were no war. Obviously the answer is No. For we are forced by the confusion that the war is causing to find purpose in our lives, or be swept away by the tide of events. This and only this benefit has the war given usg we have been forced to face the stark reality of life which allows us no illusions, but which does give us a view of our future. Our future is a challenge. With all the exuberance of Youth in our hearts we are proud that God has chosen us to meet that challenge. We will not blunder, armed only with blind belief. Knowledge and Faith will show us the way. In a way we are sorry to leave the carefree stage of our lives when nothing bothered us but an oncoming Math Examination or the tension of waiting for an invita- tion to a dance. We have loved this life which has been our foundation. It has been perfect. If we can live up to it for the rest of our lives, they will indeed be complete. We do not want to forget one minute that we have had. We realize now that it means too much to us for that. That is why we wish the Thistledown to make Winchester-Thurston not a memory but a living part of us. We have changed a little, taking the theme, Our Life. Beginning with Kindergarten and going on down through the years, we have remembered when we were in the various classes which are now occupied by our suc- cessors. V We feel that this really makes it our Yearbook from beginning to end. Yet we do not think that the underclassmen have been cheated, for with a change of names the story could also be theirs. We hope that the Yearbook conveys at least one message to the underclassmen, namely: to enjoy every minute of Winchester-Thurston, for some day they will have to leave it. If perhaps they cannot understand why we put the emphasis on ourselves in a book that really belongs to the school, they will understand when they reach our age, for they too will want every bit of school life they have had embodied in something permanent. J .A.

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Mary Helen Jacobsen Down that long water opening on the deep Somewhere far of, pass on and on and go From less and less and vanish into lightf' This is from one of the Idylls of the Kingv that Mary Helen loved. To those who had the good fortune to know Jake, her death was a great blow. We have deeply missed her in all our class activities, social gatherings, and lunch-time frolics. We miss her sunny way of looking at trouble. She had us chuckling most of the time we spent with her: partly at her own clever wit, and partly because her good humor was contagious. Because of her quiet, modest ways, many of us were unaware of her great strength. She had that rare combination of sympathy and intelligence that inspires true friendship. Mary Helen was lovable and genuine, and because she was such a real person we do not feel that she has left us. Her quiet goodness was a living example of all that our school holds dear, and that example living on has strengthened our faith. She has not gone from us into darkness, but has vanished into light.