Ogontz School Yearbook 1926 ~ 52 Ancestors #35

I am participating in this year's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from Amy Johnson Crow. Each week has an optional writing prompt and last week's writing prompt was Back to School.

Yes, I have found family members in school yearbooks, but also, I own one of a small number of yearbooks created upon the 1926 graduation of my grandmother from Ogontz School, Rydal, Pennsylvania. The school, an all-girls finishing school, no longer exists; it is now the campus of Penn State, Abington.

Yes, that's a latch on the right.

This yearbook contains 252 numbered pages, with several blank pages at the end, after pages with headings: Engagements, Marriages, Births, Deaths. (Nothing written on them, unfortunately. What a unique way to keep track of your classmates!)

It is printed on page five that:

This Book is the Property of

Helen Lysle Hunter

Forty-four copies of this book have been made, of which

this is Number Nineteen

Technically not unique (i.e. one of a kind), this yearbook is very rare: one of only 44 that were created for Helen and her classmates.

And on pages 81 and 82 are the pages for my grandmother, Helen Lysle Hunter.

She had very distinctive handwriting, which she apparently invented for herself, according to my mother, and continued to use for the rest of her life.

Inside the front cover, Grandmother saved the program from her May 25, 1926, Commencement, which includes a list of the 41 graduates.

I also have the yearbook for Helen's older sister, Mary (class of 1923), but not their sisters, Margaret or Caroline. I'd love to know which cousins of mine might have these yearbooks. Email me!

If you see an ancestor on this list, feel free to contact me and I will scan the pages for her entry and send it to you. I include the names below in hopes that someone searching for their ancestor's name will find it.

Elizabeth Mills Benjamin
Ainslee Bennett
Elma Esther Binns
Margaret Elizabeth Blakeley
Nellie Virginia Brand
Florence Brooks
Anna Catherine Bryant
Beatrice Marie Couglin
Clara Virginia Craft
Frances Jane Floyd

Frances Larner Gore
Kate Havemeyer Griffith
Lovelady Hamilton
Barbara Hight
Frances Louise Hornecker
Helen Lysle Hunter
Katherine Louise Huttig
Mildred Elizabeth Huyler
Eunice Virginia Ingle
Florence Elizabeth Ingle

Mary Evelyn Jahncke
Dorothy Kettig
Virginia Cornelia Landon
Erna-Louise Lang
Helen Leyman Law
Alma Clarita Mestres
Luisa Catalina Phelps
Elizabeth Claire Ridsdale
Lillian Clarice Roberts
Mary Potter Schmidt

Alice Marie Schroder
Elizabeth Joyce Sewell
Alice Doran Shannon
Esther Sherman
Henrietta Sproul
Mary Louise Staley
Elizabeth Stout
Marguerite Mary Streck
Dorothy May Taylor
Janet Helene Vogt
Hilda Weissenfluch