School Days: Niwot High - 1934

As you can see from the list on the back of this class photo, my uncle James Slater is in the middle of the back row, right behind the principal H.D. Parrett.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

Last month I posted another 1934 class picture from Niwot that included my other maternal uncle Jack Slater.

This paragraph describing Niwot is taken from the 1932 Polk's Boulder County (Colorado) Directory.

[Ancestry.com - U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Niwot 6-7-8th Grades, 1934

My uncle Jack Slater is in the front row, third from the left, as you can tell from the writing on the back of this multi-class picture that lists everyone.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

The teacher's name is given as Miss Stromquist--looking through local records, I believe her full name was Lillian Stromquist, born in Colorado of immigrant Swedish parents.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: First Day of School - September, 1952

This was my outfit for the first day of kindergarten at St. Rita's--we didn't have to wear uniforms until first grade. Mother made my dress (and a matching one for my doll) using a cute border print. It's hard to see the tiny polka dots on the fabric because Dad posed me facing into the sun, as usual so all detail got washed out.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Eighth Grade Graduation - 1961

Even though Christine was sent home from the hospital today, she's still not quite up to posting yet so it's up to me to fill in.

So here's the last photos of my St. Rita's class of 1961 in cap and gown, looking serious.

[From my personal collection]

My photo is the second to last one.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Eighth Grade - 1960/61

Here we are in our last year together,* some of us having been classmates beginning in kindergarten and I'm in "Facebook" contact with at least four of them.

[From my personal collection]

*I'm the fourth from the left in the top row. (My seventh grade class photo is missing.)


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Sixth Grade - 1958/59

Other than being another year older than in our last school photo, the biggest visual change for me was getting my hair cut.* Quite a few of us had first met in kindergarten and here we were seven years later.

[From my personal collection]

*Second row, third from the left.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Fifth Grade - 1957/58

Another year of Catholic grade school students--I'm on the bottom row, left, with only two of my classmates separating me from the nun (our principal, whose name was possibly Sister Mara?). Mrs. Hopkins was our teacher.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Fourth Grade - 1956/57

This week I'm sharing the class picture from my fourth grade at St. Rita's School.* (I'm in the second row, fifth from the left.)

[From my personal collection]

*Sadly, the third grade picture is missing from my collection.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Second Grade - 1954/55

Another year, more school portraits of me and my classmates. (Mine is located in the third row, second from the right, on the first page.)*

Here's what St. Rita's School looked like at that time and you can see a current view here, courtesy of Google Maps. (The second story was added while I during my time there.)

[All from my personal collection]

Googling St. Rita's I found a very brief history of the school and learned it had been open only a year before I began my education there.

And, as Mother lightly penciled in, I was seven years old.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: First Grade - 1953/54

Here's my first grade class at St. Rita's, many of whom were in kindergarten with me the previous year. This was the first year we wore uniforms and had a nun for a teacher.

[From my personal collection]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Kindergarten - 1952/53

Here I am at the start of my educational career at St. Rita's School--and I also have class pictures of my schoolmates.

I spent the next nine years (through 8th grade) with most of these children.*

[From my personal collection]

 Kindergarteners were the only kids who didn't have to wear the school uniform.


It turns out I have a number of these class pictures. Check back later!



*And almost all of them are in the picture of my First Communion I shared here recently.



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: My First Communion - 1955

There we all were, the second grade posed on the front steps of St. Rita's School. (As Mother's note states, just barely visible at the bottom, I was eight years old.)

[From my personal collection]

Because I was always among the short kids, I was positioned in the front row, fourth from the right.

I attended St. Rita's for nine years, K-8, as did most of the other children. I'm currently Facebook friends with several of the girls and someone (from a different grammar school) who I went to high school with married one of the boys.

Sister M. Dominica was generally considered to be "mean" although I don't remember her that way.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Throwback Thursday: National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody

My lone appearance in the Ancestry Yearbook collection, with the 1987 Mission Bay badminton team (p. 209, center top row, with the bleach blond hair and dark roots).

When I was a kid my parents had a copy of the brilliant National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody.  I was obsessed with this even before I ever stepped foot in a high school.

It is online, although it is best in hard copy form (just like a real yearbook).  If you want a good laugh, be sure to take some time out and peruse the pages.  You have to look through it several times to get an idea of what's going on, but I can't think of a better parody of the yearbook genre ever.

Not too far from the truth--the freshman pictures page of the National Lampoon yearbook parody.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Oklahoma School Records Available at FamilySearch

Elvin Worden, my 2nd 3xs removed cousin on my mom's side, went to school in Arnett, Ellis County, Oklahoma, in 1934.

Elvin's record in context of the entire record.  He is one of two of E. B. Worden (Earl Byron Worden)'s kids. Elvin's sister Verna is also listed.  This information is consistent with other records I have already found on them.  "Oklahoma, School Records, 1895-1936," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSM9-F3ZQ-C?cc=1926701&wc=QX9C-HNL%3A1590390017%2C1590390574 : 3 February 2017), Ellis > School census, District 1-113, 1931-1934 > image 3245 of 3312; Woodward county records indexed by Northwest Oklahoma Genealogical Society; citing various county offices, various Oklahoma school district offices and Cimarron Heritage Center, Boise City.

In the past I found Oklahoma records online to be quite scarce, but the state's been catching up.  Ancestry recently released an Oklahoma Marriage record set, and now I stumbled up on Oklahoma school records, which provide birth dates and some relationship leads.



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Back to School, circa 1980

Me, from my personal collection.  I'm not sure when this was taken, but possibly for my 4th grade year?

It's that time again, when the kids are all going back to school.  I don't remember what year this was.  I was inclined to say 3rd grade (1979) but it might be 4th grade (1980).

Sears had some girls clothes that are similar in theme in their Fall 1980 catalog.  I don't think my outfit was from Sears, but might have either been purchased for me by my grandmother, or my mom may have made it.  I don't remember if it was a dress or a pant suit:

"Budget Basics: Little Girls' Dresses," Sears catalog (Catalog Number : 261H), Fall 1980, page 15; digital image, Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896-1993, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 19 Aug 2017).

"A Bevy of Beautiful Dresses," Sears catalog (Catalog Number : 261H), Fall 1980, page 16; digital image, Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896-1993, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : 19 Aug 2017).

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: High School Football Team - Severy, Kansas

We know that my maternal grandfather Harry Slater played baseball. Did he play football too?

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

I don't recognize Harry in this group but if he is there is would have been taken around 1906 since we know that after high school he studies to be a pharmacist and received his license in 1908.

Love the goat!


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: Anna Webb Graduates from School in Winnetoon - 1910

These two photographs are to be found on the website of the Winnetoon HIstorical Society in Knox County, Nebraska. My maternal grandmother Anna Webb is the young woman standing on the left.

[Winnetoon Historical Society: Days Gone By]

The text in this picture of the schoolhouse that my grandmother attended explains why the above portrait is captioned 1910 Winnetoon's First 10th Grade since the school only had ten grades.

[Winnetoon Historical Society: School]

And here's what the local Norfolk Weekly News-Journal had to say about the commencement exercises.

[10 Jun 1910, Page 2 - The Norfolk Weekly News-Journal at Newspapers.com]

The historical society has a lot of information about Winnetoon's past here.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Margaret Fister's 5th Grade Report Card (1922)

Note Margaret's father Ben Fister's signature.

My father recently gave me this photocopy of his mother Margaret Fister's 5th grade report card.

Her teacher that year was Nettie Matilde House (1899-1982), who later married Clifford Stanton and died in Kingman, Arizona.  Records indicate Nettie was born to Norwegian immigrants like my grandmother, and a teacher for many years in Kendall County, Illinois.

Good grades!

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: First Grade

Here we are, mother and daughter, first-graders smiling for a school photographer 23 years apart. We went to different grade schools but both were living in the same place during that part of our lives.*

[Pat, St. Rita's School,  1954]

[Christine, Encanto School, 1978]

*I moved house for the first time when I was in my md-30s.


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday/School Days: Slaters in Severy, circa 1905

Posed side by side in the front row of this 8th grade class in Severy, Kansas, are my maternal grandfather Harry Allen Slater and his sister Opal.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.