Stories from my mother #2 - After 8th Grade

In the fall I started high school. I went to Crosby and the other 3 graduates went to Leavenworth. There were 3 high schools in Waterbury. Crosby was academic, Leavenworth was Industrial  Arts, Nursing and Homemaking. The third high school was Wilby,  for Commercial Arts. All of the High Schools were in the center of Waterbury. Crosby and Leavenworth were across the street from each other, and Wilby was a few blocks away. There were only public buses for transportation. After graduating with a class of 4, I was now in a class of about 250. Opening day, the Freshman had to hang around outside waiting for the assembly of the sophomores to finish so we could go in. There I was, not knowing anyone. Then another girl, noticing I was alone, came over to speak to me. She had just moved into town and didn’t know anyone, either. After the assembly we were assigned to our home rooms, and there was a girl I knew from Girl Scouts there. She was also in some of my classes. I was assigned to top classes with all the other valedictorians and salutatorians, and even though they were from larger schools, I held my own. I took vocal music and gym all 4 years, besides the required academic subjects. I didn’t join the Glee Club because they had dues and I didn’t have the money. In my 3^rd year I took German because I heard the teacher was an easy marker. (she was, too). I’m glad I took it as it was a help in my singing.

 I joined the Girl’s Athletic Association which met after school. We played different sports during the year. I made the National Honor Society, but I can’t say I really worked hard. The fad in clothes was skirts and sweaters. in the fall and winter. I had 2 skirts and 3 sweaters which I rotated. The only shoes to wear were saddle shoes; brown and white. No one ever polished the white part, except one girl that I remember. We also wore a group of small pins on the bottom of our sweaters. I had one from grade school graduation, a small girl scout pin, a YTC pin etc. I never got to socialize with my classmates, but I had my neighborhood friends. I was with them all of my free time. Broomstick skirts became a fashion. They were material gathered on a waistband  that were rolled around a broomstick to dry. Three of us made matching skirts. One summer, 4 of us, Marty, Dot, and Elinor and I, met every afternoon to play pinochle. That fall we made dried bouquets from weeds we found in the fields and woods and dipped in paint. One of the girls even sold a couple of big bouquets to a store downtown for their windows.

The boys and girls all hung around together. When I turned 16, the kids had a birthday party for me, the first one I ever had. It was in a garage across the street that belonged to one of the girls, Billie..

When I turned 14, I was old enough to join the Youth Temperance Council; YTC. My older brother and sister  had already joined. The motto was,” A good time with a purpose” We all had to sign a pledge not to drink alcohol beverages and the girls had to also sign not to smoke. We had lots of great times, including state conferences. A number of the members ended up getting married to each other. My brother married a girl he met there who was from the Meriden group. This boy, Vernon, belonged to our group. He was a friend of my brother, but since he was 18 and I was only 14, he never even noticed me. He always said the first time he remembered me was when some of my friends and I dressed for Halloween as characters from The Wizard of Oz. I was the green witch , and he thought I looked pretty ugly! Our social life revolved around that organization. We also had the Christian Endeavor at church. I never really dated boys while I was in HS, just groups that included both boys and girls. When it came time for the Senior Prom, I invited George, who was our paper boy and used to pick up his papers at our house, so I had gotten to know him well. Our graduation was held in The Palace, a movie theater. I sang in the octet that performed. After graduation my parents took me to dinner, a real treat.

When I started high school, I thought I wanted to be a teacher. The usual options for girls were teaching, nursing and office work. I knew I didn’t want to work at a desk all day, and I wasn’t interested in nursing. My mother had said I didn’t have the patience to teach young children and I liked English, so I thought about doing that in a high school, but when I started to study English in high school, I found that  the teachers didn’t always agree. as I had a homeroom teacher, and would ask her for help, but the teacher I had didn’t always agree with her on the meaning of literature. I liked subjects that followed rules, so I changed my mind about wanting to teach it.  I knew I wanted to do something where I worked with people. In my senior class we had a newspaper that discussed different careers. I looked at social work, but found that it required 5 years of college and there was no way I could see that I could get the money for that. Then one week it mentioned hairdressing as a career for working with people, so I looked into that.. I had never even been in a beauty parlor until I managed to save enough money to get a permanent . A friend, Billie, took me to a beauty parlor. There was no such things as home perms, as they were done by machines. Aunt Edna knew a woman from a club she belonged to who, along with her  husband, owned the Hartford Academy of Hairdressing, and she arranged for me to go there. She even paid my tuition. So, after a summer of hanging around with my friends, off I went. I lived with Aunt Edna, and she even gave me an allowance.