Beyond the South End

Everybody brings you flowers, Mother…

Mother’s Day is this Sunday, May 12. This year I thought I’d bring you some of my mother’s past. First, though, I found this old hand-made card I must have made for my mother when I was about ten, judging by the level of artistic prowess I had at that time and my handwriting. I don’t remember where I came across it, but my mother saved such things and I suppose she put it into the “Sandra” pile when she was cleaning out stuff in the attic on Fulton Street. In any event, I’m glad she did.

I was probably ten or eleven when I made this card, which would make it around 1950 or so. I shortened the length of the front page of the card so that the border of bluebells going down the right side showed up for the cover and for the inside page. As roses were my mother’s favorite flower, I put one on the front cover.

The inside says “Everybody brings you flowers, Mother. So I’m just giving you just this card with a Rose in a vase on the cover. Your loving daughter, Sandra.”

My mother usually got shortchanged in May because both her birthday and Mother’s Day fell in that month. She never complained though. She always made as big a deal about the card you gave her as she would an expensive gift were we able to give her one.

Now for the past I promised you. This is a picture of her 1927 graduation from Rockland High School. Her name then was Evangeline Lana Winchenbaugh. I assume it was taken in a studio because of the branches behind her. That is not wallpaper because you can see a branch coming down over the wainscoting. It looks like she even has a twig in her hair. I can’t imagine what kind of bush it was. Did they have artificial flowers then?

I assume also the paper in her hand is either a fake diploma used for such pictures or she actually kept her own diploma to have her picture taken with it later. I wish the picture showed her feet. I’m sure she probably had on some kind of white nylon-type stocking and most likely white shoes with some kind of strap on them.

The other thing I wonder about is where the money came from to pay for this picture. Her family of eight children didn’t usually allow for such extravagances. She did start working at E.C. Moran early because she graduated early, although I expect she went through the graduation day proceedings. Therefore, she could have paid for it herself. It could also be that my grandfather, who was a scholarly man, albeit a self-made man, may have been very proud of his eldest daughter and insisted on having a memento of the occasion.

As graduation will soon be upon us again, I thought I’d mention the folks who graduated with my mother in 1927. I will bring you more of what is inside her Cauldron for that year at a later date. I’ve already given you a peak at the ads in that issue. Just glancing through the book I saw many last names that were familiar even in my own high school days. Names like: Merriam, Bicknell, Ames, Merrill, Crane, Flanagan, Stoddard, Small, Ladd, Bird, Cole, and Gay.

There were 77 graduating members of the 1927 Rockland High School class. How many of these names are you familiar with?

Lempi Anderson, Elizabeth Annis, Madeline Bubier, Bessie Blackwood, Leland Blackington, Bradford Burgess, Virginia Bisbee, Richard Bird, Myer Benovitch, Donald Cameron, Christine Curtis, Beulah Cole, Ruth Crouse, Catherine Critch, Albertina Creighton, Marian Clark, Raymond Cross, Arlene Chaples, Annie Dunn, William Davis, Wendell Emery, Walter Ellis, John Flanagan, Maybelle Fales, Cedric French, Kendall Greene, Marion Greene, Evelyn Green, Helen Glidden, Edna Gregory, Ida Harper, Hattie Hupper, Malcolm Hoxie, Elizabeth Hamlin, Margaret Hellier, Alice Hodgkins, Estelle Hall, Mervin Harriman, May Johnston, Ruth Koster, Frank Knight, Wilbur Kennedy, Oiva Lempi, Helen LaCrosse, Claribel Lowe, Florence Legage, Robert McCarty, Alice Merrick, Ruth Mealey, Alva Mears, Etta Mitchell, Louise McIntosh, Dorothy Maloney, Donald Merriam, Randall Marshall, Earle Moore, Kenneth Overlock, Francis Orne, Evelyn Perry, Peter Pellicane, Delia Parsons, Palmer Pease, Ethel Quinn, Ethel Rackliff, Evelyn Simmons, Ruth Stearns, Virginia Snow, Mary Sylvester, Samuel Smalley, Sydney Segal, Ethel Thomas, Luther Wotton, Robert Wallis, Frances Winchenbach, Evangeline Winchenbaugh,, Parker Young, Linola Young.