My old school. No, not my class. I’m old, but not that old.
I spent half of my first grade year at the old Central School, which was an elementary school by then. In the photo above, it was the high school in my little town of St. Albans, West Virginia.
Freshmen Nuts, the banner says. Kids being kids, trying to be outrageous for their class photo. Front and center is Sarah Wilson, dressed like a baby with her baby bottle. The others I can’t really figure out. Behind Sarah is someone in what used to be called a “dunce” hat, which was sometimes used to humiliate misbehaving students. Oh, the psychological carnage inflicted in those days. To left of the dunce, a student is very proud of whatever he (she?) is holding. Wish I could see it. I’ll bet it’s good.
Then there’s the fiddle player. Kind of looks like a girl to me. She’s holding the fiddle comfortably, knowingly, as if it’s more than just a prop. Like she’d be tearing into Turkey in the Straw at the square dance on Saturday night with her guitar playing father and banjo picking brother. Her friends would think she’s odd and make fun of her. Then, in her senior year, a new family from Huntington would move to town to help build the railroad. The oldest son, Harry, is Clara’s age. (Yes, her name is Clara. How do I know that? I’m a writer. I think Clara suits her.) The other kids don’t want much to do with Harry because he’s new and he comes from money. And then there’s Harry’s good looks. He’s just intimidating. Except Clara doesn’t care. He’s the new outsider. She’s been an outsider as long as she can remember.
There’s something about Clara. You can see it in the photo. Harry sees it. She’s no-nonsense. Straightforward. Not afraid to speak her mind.
“You play the violin very well,” he says.
“It’s a fiddle.”
“Yes, of course. I took piano lessons when I was young. Learned a little Brahms. Some Liszt.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you ever play any classical music?”
“I’m a fiddle player. I don’t care much about those guys.”
“Uh-huh.”
On the platform behind her, her father plays the first three chords of the next song.
“Got to go.”
She turns to take her place, fiddle under her chin. She looks back.
“Can you dance?”
Before he can answer, she’s ripping off the intro to the next song, smiling at Harry.
.
Then again, it’s entirely possible that the person in the photo is a guy. But that’s another story.
September 15, 2017 at 8:43 am
Great post. Where’d you get that photo? By the way, I think Clara will hook Harry from day one and then she’ll have the gumption to hang on to him all the way through, even though the other kids don’t like him.
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September 15, 2017 at 8:51 am
Scarfed the photo from the SA Historical Society’s Shutterfly account.
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September 15, 2017 at 8:44 am
I think all the kids in the picture are girls.
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September 15, 2017 at 8:51 am
Yeah, I think you may be right.
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September 15, 2017 at 9:05 am
That picture might have been taken 105 years ago on or about this very day!
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September 15, 2017 at 9:05 am
There are stories in every one of those faces.
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September 15, 2017 at 9:07 am
Is that Ruth “Milby” on the far left?
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September 15, 2017 at 9:11 am
Who is Ruth Milby?
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September 15, 2017 at 9:14 am
I don’t know, but that’s the best I can make out from what is written on her image there. I didn’t see that at first. How lucky these girls were to get to go to high school. What happened to them.
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September 15, 2017 at 9:20 am
I see now that there are other names as well, but I can’t make them out.
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September 15, 2017 at 3:46 pm
Loved this and it made me curious about the origin of the dunces hat… http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-dunce-cap-wasnt-always-so-stupid
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September 15, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Thanks, Saoirse. Good old Scotus and his pointy cap. Thanks for the link. Kind of reminds me of how the term Luddite became to mean anyone who fears technology.
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September 15, 2017 at 4:51 pm
I love this picture! You start writing fiction about these girls and I want to dig into who they really were. There could be historical fiction here….
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September 15, 2017 at 4:54 pm
the historical part scares me. i would certainly mangle every part of that. harry would be watching videos on his phone. clara would fly to nashville. i can’t even keep up with what’s current, much less know how things were in the land of long ago.
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September 19, 2017 at 11:04 pm
Just as a follow up, I wondered if one of my neighbors, Mrs Harvey and Mrs. Bacon, could be part of this group. So I started googling, and found out that Mrs. Harvey was married in 1922, so unlikely to have been 14 in 1912. Mrs. Bacon was younger, so that is still possible. I also found out that their maiden name was Sattes. They had houses on the property that had been owned by their father, and there used to be wide steps leading down to Kanawha Terrace from what had become their back yards. I’m thinking the house must have been quite grand in its day. Thanks for staring me down that path. Someday I’ll find a picture of their house. I was always fascinated by the steps I mentioned, and the front steps that I found exploring in some large bushes in their back yard when I was about 8.
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September 20, 2017 at 7:03 am
Thanks, Lee Anne. It’s funny how these old photos trigger those kinds of journeys. There are several photos of the old Central School on the SA Historical Society website and I find myself looking for people I might know.
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