John Oyler: Bridgeville High School Class of 1946
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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society recently received a valuable collection of memorabilia related to the Bridgeville High School Class of 1946 from alumnus Paul Schmidt’s widow via classmate Ed Chabala.
Paul is portrayed helping his mother make apple butter in an outdoor kitchen in a photograph on Page 90 of the society’s book “Bridgeville.” Paul was a member of Boy Scout Troop 245 in 1943 when I joined it, and he preceded me through high school by three years.
After Paul grew up and left Bridgeville, he maintained contact through his boyhood friend Ed Chabala, punctuated by frequent class reunions. Recently, his widow forwarded to Ed two file folders filled with documents from Paul’s high school days. Leafing through them generates waves of nostalgia from an era 75 years ago.
The prize of the collection is a copy of the 1945 BHS yearbook, a yearbook I did not know existed. We believe there were yearbooks in 1925 and 1926 and that the tradition was then suspended, with the exception of a homemade mimeographed version in 1939. Apparently, the Class of 1945 elected to resurrect the tradition and produced a handsome paperback yearbook called “The Bridge.”
The yearbook was dedicated to the BHS graduates serving our country in World War II. It begins with an Honor Roll of BHS service members. There are 292 men and women on the Honor Roll, including 12 who had lost their lives. The war years were difficult for Bridgeville.
An eloquent statement by Dr. Colton acknowledging the debt current students owe to their predecessors is followed by three pages of photographs of the 30 members of the faculty, headed by Joseph “Pop” Ferree. There are 88 seniors pictured, including Sammy David, Tom “Dreamer” Lytle and Gerre Harmuth.
This yearbook is a valuable addition to the society’s collection, as are three copies of the “Bridger” — November 1945, January 1946 and March 1946. The March “Bridger” reported that the Class of 1946 had determined that publishing a yearbook like the one the previous year was too expensive and that they would, instead, publish an expanded “Bridger” with most of the same content. They would print 200 copies and sell them for 90 cents each.
Sure enough, Paul’s package included a copy of the 1946 “Bridge.” There were 87 graduates in the class; for me, it will always be “Rum” (Bob Rothermund) and “Slugger” (Bob Bailey)’s class, but it was filled with people whom I knew well.
Almo Pruner was class president, Louis “Skip” Colussy vice president, Helen David secretary and Ralph “Butch” Schneider treasurer. Patty Patton was social chairman. I recently learned from Mary Weise, another proud member of the class, that Patty died recently.
We are fortunate that the 1946 class chose to record its history with this document. It deserves a place with the professionally produced yearbooks that followed it.
Most classes start out with ambitious plans for reunions; Paul’s collection included seven formal pictures of class reunions beginning with No. 15 in 1961 and ending with No. 55 in 2001. There is also a picture of a gathering of 17 classmates in 2011.
We are indebted to Mrs. Schmidt and Ed Chabala for their thoughtfulness in making certain this collection of artifacts has found a home.