Family Schooling

“School days, school days, dear old golden rule days; reading and writing and ‘rithmetic, taught to the tune of a hickory stick….”

The topic for Week 15 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is School Days! This is fun because my parents and aunts and uncles all went to the high school that I went to and that my son went to! Besides the information I already had, I was able to access yearbooks through Ancestry(dot)com.

My mother’s three oldest siblings did not, as far as I can tell, graduate from high school. I’m basing my thoughts on their move to Wallingford from New Britain in 1924/1925. Aunt Tootsie would have been 16 when the moved to Wallingford and at that point I was told she worked as a maid for a Choate School household. In her early 20s, she began working at Wallace Silversmith where she stayed until she retired.

There is very little information about Conrad (Connie) and his brother Lou. They would have been 15 and 12 respectively in 1925 so perhaps they had a few more years of additional schooling. In the 1930 Federal census, Connie is 19 and working at a bakery and Lou is 17 and working as a laborer on a farm. Connie continued his baking career until his death in 1980 but Lou found his way into the Wallingford Steel Mill where he remained until he retired.

Aunt Judy graduated from Lyman Hall High School in 1935.

Some observations – her face is rounder than I thought and because of that and the lettering of her name, it took me 3 times through to find her! Her “chief interest” was New Haven – shopping?, a boyfriend?. Her activities – soccer, basketball, and volleyball! I think back then a lot of the sports were played between the different grade.

Betty, my mother, graduated from Lyman Hall in 1940.

Betty was a busy girl! Baseball, basketball, bowling, drum major, cheerleader.

During my yearbook perusing, I found my Auntie Irene who married my Uncle Lou I mentioned earlier! She graduated in 1933.

Turning to my dad’s side, there was a similar situation with a move from Southington to Wallingford in 1927 when Steve was 14 and Eddie was 12. The year books are not consistent and some don’t have names or pictures! Life with their father was not easy and it’s likely they both went to work in their teens.

My Auntie Helen graduated from Lyman Hall in 1938. Also graduating with her was a future great uncle, Victor Biega, who married Mary Posluszny and a cousin of Mary and my grandfather, Charles Burghart.

My Uncle Walt graduated with my mom from Lyman Hall in 1940. His future wife Eleanor Steiniger did too!

Uncle Walt went on after high school to join the Navy and I told the story of his experience at Pearl Harbor earlier this year.

My dad, John, graduated from Lyman Hall in 1942. He played baseball but had to give it up to go to work after school his senior year.

The building that my relatives attended was located on South Main Street in Wallingford and it was built in 1916-1917. In 1957 a new high school was built and this building became one of the town’s junior high schools. When three schools were consolidated into two, the building became our town hall! It continues to be our town hall to this day.