Chester High School

Class of 1920

Chester Schools

Chester High School

Chester High Reunions

Many thanks to Dene & Marvin Bloom, PA for sharing with us a copy of his father's (Herman Bloom's) annual.

CHS CLASS of 1920

Principal

James Homer Rennie, AB

Class Officers

Class President: D. Milton MacDowell

Vice President: Wilhelmina R. Monroe

Secretary: M. Frances B. MacMullen

Treasurer: Walter L. McIntire

Historian: R. Leslie Chrismer

Poet: John B. Plumley


The Class of 1920

Faculty & Staff:

Evelina D. Caldwell - Mathematics
Martha Worrell Doyle - Head of Department of Public Speaking
Caroline M. Jackson - History
John J. Matthews - Director of Industrial Education
Laura E. Reaney - Head of Department of Science, Physics, & Chemistry
Florence Williams - Head of Department of English
David M. Baker - Pattern-making
Miriam R. Barnet - English & Public Speaking
Alice Birtwell - Spanish & Latin
Lee F. Crippen - Ancient & American History, Civics
Florence E. Crowther - Lunch Room Supervisor
Helen M. Ferree - English
Robert C. Gates - Mathematics, History
J. Homer Graber - Trade Mathematics
Albert Demsey Hartley - Algebra, Geometry
Martha D. Helms - Domestic Art
Bertha Brooke Hepworth - French, Spanish
G. Roy Hosler - Mechanical Drawing, Manual Training
William H. Krell - French & Spanish
Laura Lamb - Biology, Household Chemistry
Grace Frances Lee - English & Free Hand Drawing
Sarah Dutton Leeds - History, Chemistry, General Science
William Christie MacLeod - Social Science
Helen D. Maxwell - English
Jeannette C. Owens - Industrial Management
George W. Pedlow - Algebra
Edgar O. Reitz - Latin & French
M. Lillian Ross - Director of Music
Charles R. Smith, Jr - Machine Shop Practice
Stephen G. Sokolofsky - Industrial Drawing
Elizabeth Spencer - Domestic Science
Lyda Larrimore Turner - English
Beatrice E. Vorhees - English & Spanish
Edna M. Wagner - English & Latin
J. DeWitt Jobborn - Head of Commercial Department
Hildred A. Dickerson - Commercial Subjects
Elizabeth T. Doherty - Bookkeeping & Penmanship
Mabel E. Edwards - Commercial Subjects
Mary L. Morrow - Commercial English
Clara M. Parks - Commercial Work
Ella W. Rennie - Typewriting, Stenography, Calculation, Business Practice, Spelling, Office Training
Jesse W. Sharp - Typewriting, Business Forms, Spelling
Ida Evelyn Shieler - Arithmetic, Stenography, Penmanship
Doris V. Stern - Bookkeeping
Margaret C. Stetser - Economic History, Industrial Geography, English
Elizabeth Telford - Commercial Subjects
Marion Werner - Commercial Work
Bertha A. Helms - Secretary
M. E. Pedlow - Librarian

Class History:

Four years of education, of opportunity, of happiness, and of friendship have come to an end and now the Class of 
1920 no longer is the Senior Class of Chester High School. Gone forever from old Chester High as a student class-yes; but in ever living memory - never!

Since that bright, sunshiny day of October, 1916, when we first entered Chester High School as green, unsophisticated Freshies, to our eventful graduation night of June, 1920, the aim of our class has been to go down on the pages of the school history as the class in the history of the school. And now at last we know that our aim has been realized.

We have made an enviable record for ourselves as students in Chester High School. A record to be proud of, and we are proud of it. For we have never made a failure of anything we have set out to do. There has not been a school activity of which we took the leadership as Seniors that has not been an unbounded, undreamed-of success. There has never been a program that we have had charge of that has ever had a falter, hitch, or break to mar its performance. There is not one single, solitary stain to mar any page of the History of the Class of 1920. Of that we are more proud than of anything else. We did our best while in old Chester High and our best has not been little. We made "SCHOOL SPIRIT" our guiding motto, and it alone has helped us to pull for our school and class when nothing else did, or could. If there has ever been a more enthusiastic, ambitious, and progressive class than 1920, please page them. We would like to make the acquaintance of an equal.

To tell of our accomplishments in every school activity and to give due praise to every member of our class who has more than distinguished himself in the activities of our school, would take up more space than the limited pages of this Annual permits.. Enough to know that the whole class and school realizes and appreciates the done by every member of the class of who endeavored to push old Chester High a notch higher toward the Ideal School.

We could not, however, call this class history without mentioning the names of our class officers, those of us who were chosen by class to lead old 1920 to the highest peak and accomplishment. Our class officers for our Freshman year were: Lewis Buckman president; Agatha Smedley, vice-president; Rose Fox, secretary, and Taylor Tong (Gilbert Barton) treasurer. Our choice for class officers as Sophomores, was: George Lentz, president; Elizabeth Bartleson, vice-president; Wilhelmina Monroe, secretary, and Guy Davis, treasurer. The officers who led us through our most successful Junior year were: John Bell, president; Dorothy Bough, vice-president; Jane Ferkler, secretary, and Leslie Chrismer, treasurer. And last of all, our Senior Class officers who brought us to our highest achievements were: Milton MacDowell, president; Wilhelmina Monroe, vice-president; Frances MacMullen, secretary, and Walter MacIntire, treasurer. These last named officers will constitute, with a corresponding secretary, who is Margaret Walker, the first set of officers of The Alumni Association of the Class of 1920. Another self-evident example of the "pep," originality and iniative of the Class of 1920: A separate Class Alumni Association that will hold its own reunions and publish its own official publication regularly.

To Guy W. Davis, the class extends congratulations for winning the Sproul Scholarship, entitling him to four years, free tuition, at Swarthmore College. This scholarship is awarded yearly to an academic student for general excellency in studies and school activities, by Governor William C. Sproul.

Four years of study and hard work, but on the whole of downright good fun, remembered by a wonderful faculty reception, and all capped by a Class Day, put on as only our class could stage it, and a graduation that none of. us shall ever forget.

And now the only two remaining things left to associate us with our school are our newly-formed Alumni Association and this Annual.

This Annual - what a pleasure it will be to pick it up some fifty years from now. To read it through and through; to recall our school chums, our school life, our school associations, and our school achievements in this old, worn and soiled book. Oh, won't it be one of the finest things we possess? The medium that places in our hands the golden cord of memory that leads us back again to the vision of the best time of our lives-- Youth.

Each of us has now his life to live on a larger scale than ever before. Let us live our lives then, on not only a larger, but a better plan; let us remember that on us depends the future of our country. If we make, "With malice toward none and charity toward all," the keynote of our lives, how much better off this old world will become.

The world needs good men and women. The demand exceeds the supply - but we can help fill that demand. It is no joking matter. In all seriousness, we who have had an opportunity to get a splendid education, made possible by the foresight and industry of our fathers and mothers, must never forget that "Education is a blessing, ONLY, when he who receives its benefits makes them profit all mankind." 

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The Class of 1920! Long may its banner wave;
The emblem of the best there is, the bravest of the brave. 
The standard of true Loyalty; of Honor, strong and true. 
Its colors float unblemished there of Gold and Turquoise Blue. 

- R. Leslie Chrismer