My senior year in high school....some wonderful memories!

I loved my senior year in high school. Those awkward days of the teenage years were going away, and I had gained a new self-confidence. I suppose that is what 'growing-up' is all about. But, even at the age of 17, I was not really fully prepared for the kinds of decisions that I would be making. I guess it is true that experience is the best teacher. And, some of that 'experience' can end up being painful.

I have very few actual photos of my senior year. I suppose I was busy, and so was my mom who would have taken the pictures. I'm sure there are some photos somewhere in this house taken of me in Toledo, but I don't have them at hand right now, so I'll just have to insert them at a later time. No big loss...

Some of the photos I'm using for this post are from our senior year high school annual, The Tohiscan (probably taken from the first two letters of Toledo High School Annual). I was fortunate to have a very good friend from high school, Linda (Reed) Fink, who happened to have two senior annuals, and was willing to give one to me. I had done a rather foolish thing with my own book, but I'll tell more about that later.

Here's the photo of my mother, Wilma Cooper, as she worked as one of the cooks in the Toledo public school lunchroom.

 

Wilma is on the right.

 Here's my senior photo that appeared in The Tohiscan

During my senior year, I was one of the 'office girls' who took a class on how to work as an office assistant. We ran errands and did other jobs to help the administration. In the back is Mr. Van Langen, the instructor and the high school principal. Middle row, left to right: Doris Sells, Joyce Zenor, Darla Flowers, and me (wearing an outfit that was a Christmas present from my boyfriend). In front are Barb Hanifan, Sarah Jane King and Sharla Christenson.

I was in Girls Glee Club. You will see my photo in the top row near the center, to the right of the blonde girl with the glasses.

This is the Mixed Chorus. You can find my picture in the top row, third from the left.

 G.R.A. (I'm sorry, but it's been 56 years since I graduated, and I have forgotten what those initials stand for, but it might be Girls Recreation Association. Anyone have a clue? (I am second from the left in the second row down from the top)

I was in the Senior Class Play, 'Pure As The Driven Snow,' a melodrama, with a villain, a hero, and a heroine. You can see me standing on the far right in the back row. I played Ethelinda Hewlitt (I don't really remember the story, but I was not the heroine...)

Here I am with my boyfriend, Lee Christensen. He is wearing his band uniform (he played the bass drum). It looks like we are seated with the band, and it was at one of the football games in the fall of 1958.

 

This was the Queen's Court for Homecoming that fall. Left to right: Lee Christensen and Connie Novak, Bob Powers and Joyce Zenor, and Janet Heller and Sid Moore.

The two girls who were runners-up were asked to pin the corsages and boutonnieres on the Queen's Court members. In this photo, I am standing to the right of the Queen, pinning a boutonniere on Sid Moore, and my good friend, Linda Reed is pinning a corsage on another good friend, Janet Heller. All of the girls in the Queen's Court were among my close friends my senior year.

In this photo, the caption says I was 'adjusting the Queen's robe.' In reality I think there was a small table behind Queen Joyce, and I was reaching for a flower to pin on an attendant.

 The Homecoming Gals, Connie, Joyce and Janet

 I was a member of Science Club. I am located in about the middle of this photo, in the second row...with my pretty (salmon-colored) mohair cardigan sweater.

In this candid shot, I am seated next to our science room skeleton, with Larry Mason behind the skeleton. Notice that there is no skull...not sure what happened to this poor soul...

 In the spring of our senior year, new inductees were taken into the school's National Honor Society. I was one of those inductees, and you can find my picture to the right of the people seated at the table. 

Here are the members of the National Honor Society. I am in the middle row, second from the left. Miss Schrieber, our English teacher, was the sponsor of this group.

These are the members of the Tohiscan staff. We arranged the pages of the annual yearbook, and had a lot of fun in the process. Mr. Van Langen was the sponsor of this group. In this photo, I am on the far left in the middle row.

This photo shows Linda Reed pointing out something to me. Behind us is Mr. Van Langen and Pat Eakins. Our class chose to go to Milwaukee for our senior class trip. Some of the students chose to see a baseball game during the afternoon, and the rest of us went to the Milwaukee Zoo and visited the police department (and the morgue...) In the evening, we saw a premier viewing of the movie 'South Pacific.' My boyfriend, Lee Christensen, bought me the sound track album of that movie, which I still have.

 This photo was taken of Lee and I at the Senior Prom. A couple of the girls in my class decided to wear floor-length dresses to the prom, and my mother made my dress. I got a small tiara to wear with it...looks kind of nice, don't you think? (The theme for the prom was 'Southern Hospitality.')

 Here is half of our class with our caps and gowns before commencement. I am second from the left in the middle row, and Lee Christensen is to the right of me.

 Here are the rest of the seniors in their caps and gowns. I believe we had 58 students in our class, but the yearbook has just 55 portraits. (It might be that some students did not have a portrait taken.) Frankly, I liked the smaller class sizes so much better. A person gets lost in the 'crowd' when there are so many students in one class...I can't imagine really getting to know your classmates when there are upwards of 600 students. I'm sure attending class reunions is not nearly so much fun when there are all those people you never really got to know...

 This was how Lee's and my picture appeared in our yearbook. Beneath his photo it has his nickname - Squirrel, and a saying, "To err is human, but when the eraser wears out before the pencil, beware!" My nickname - Coop - was also beneath my photo, as was this saying, "Of course women make fools of men, but they get a lot of cooperation."

One section of the yearbook has 'Class Activities' and lists all the extra-curricular activities each senior was involved in during high school. Mine were Band 1, 2; Mixed Chorus 4; Glee Club 2, 3, 4; Science Club 2, 3, 4; Annual Staff 4; Newsreel 1; Speech 1; Raider Flashes 3; G.R.A. President 4; Honor Society 4; Office Girl 4; Class Plays 3, 4; Homecoming Candidate.

Our English teacher was a talented lady (Miss Schreiber). She wrote a 'class poem' every year and had an entry about each graduating senior in her poem, which was read at the 'honors' day at the end of the year, and which appeared in our yearbook. For me, she wrote: "When she stands, take a look, I most earnestly beg. There's no reason why Carol C. (Cooper) should be called 'Spatsy Legs'? (One of my several nick-names, given to me by boys who liked to tease...)

The yearbook also has a class history which was quite fun to read...it told about each year from kindergarten on to senior year, and listed the teachers in the elementary grades. 

We also had a 'Class Will' where each senior could 'will' something to another person in the school. Mine said, "I, CAROL COOPER, will to Craig Hennessy fifty cents so that the next five girls who hold hands with him won't have to pay for the privilege." (At a dance, I flirted with a cute freshman boy, and he said he needed a dime if I wanted to hold hands with him!)

The Class Prophecy was also fun. It was set up to be a letter from Linda Reed (world freeloader) to Mr. Sidney Moore, since he was president of the class in 1959. In the prophecy, lines that were about me said this, "CAROL COOPER has taken Bridgette Bardot's place in the movie, "French Features." Then it said, "LEE CHRISTENSEN is chief photographer for "French Features." (Well, none of that came true...but those prophecies were a lot of fun...)

(All the photos and some of the wording from this post were taken from our yearbook, published by Inter-Collegiate Press, in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A.)

After graduation, my parents and I again spent the summer at the cabin in Minnesota. When they returned to Iowa, it was to their new home in Cedar Rapids, on Mound Ave. 

I began attending Iowa State Teachers College (now University of Northern Iowa) to get a teaching degree in elementary education. My boyfriend Lee attended Iowa State College (now Iowa State University) for a degree in education, and later got his masters and I believe his doctorate there as well. 

More about my college experience in the next post...and perhaps a few more stories about my senior year...more on a personal note. Come on back, and please leave a comment, if you wish...