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A look at how Nashua kids graduated a century ago

By Dean Shalhoup - Senior Staff Writer | Jun 10, 2018

The cover of the graduation 1918 issue of Nashua High's quarterly class publication The Tattler has a military and patriotic theme due to America's involvement in World War I, then called "the world war" or "the Great War."

Virtually nowhere but in the trenches of war can one discover the true meaning of equality, the Nashua High School valedictorian told her fellow graduates at the outset of her address.

Indeed, added Mary Eunice Potter – who, by the way, hailed from across the river in Hudson – “the trench is a true leveler of class discinctions.”

A very good point, but why would a girl from Hudson be delivering the Nashua High School valedictory address? And is that Nashua High School South, or Nashua High School North?

Because in June 1918, when Potter delivered her address, Hudson kids had no Alvirne, nor any high school at all. So once they were done with grade school they either trollied or walked over the bridge to junior high and high school in neighboring Nashua.

Likewise, there was no need for two public high schools a century ago; one was plenty large enough to accommodate four grades worth of young men and women.

These young men and women were among the 64 Nashua High School seniors who graduated from Nashua High School on June 13, 1918, a century ago Wednesday. These seniors were photographed for their involvement in the senior class play. Seated from left are Genice MacMaster, Lillian Cohen, Gerald Hopkins, Irene Cornelius, Cassius Dodge, valedictorian Eunice Potter, and Mary Gallagher. Standing are John Morrill, class orator Robert Cohen, class president Daniel Doyle, Elwin March, and Thomas Shea.

Having opened, and in most cases, scoured for interesting little details more than a few high school yearbooks and graduation publications over my decades sitting before my old Royal, then my IBM Selectric, then my one-piece word processer and now my somewhat dust-laden and worn keyboard, I figured that since we’re in the midst of yet another graduation season, let’s take a look at how they did things in a Nashua of a century ago.

Obviously Nashua was a whole lot smaller in 1918. Eunice Potter was one of 64 NHS graduates that year, so a guess would be the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior classes combined totaled somewhere around 220-240.

Their home was the building we baby boomers remember as the Temple Street Elementary School, which was built in 1903 and lives on today as the Temple Street Manor senior residence.

As for Eunice Potter’s valedictory address, I like that she takes a couple of slaps at the faction of America she describes as “the self-important, cynical man,” who, according to her speech, had until recently “looked with disfavor upon his humbler countryman.”

It was America’s entry in spring 1917 into World War I, then called simply “the world war” or “The Great War,” that, ironically, would serve as the “great equalizer,” Potter said.

Not that war is the ideal solution to social or economic problems, she noted, but America’s involvement nevertheless underscored the “important part that labor is going to play in the winning of this war.”

Suddenly, Potter told her fellow graduates, “shipyards have begun to fill with men eager to do their best for the country … .” The need not only for soldiers but for the sharply increasing demand for production on the homefront served to teach “the value of real work” to those who would likely have “spent their days in idle pleasure … had there been no war.”

Meanwhile, the orator of the class of 1918, Robert Leon Cohen, was a bit more philosophical in his references to war in his address.

Just like the “earth, in its distant ages, went through mighty convulsions … the results of which we see today as mountains and valleys, land and sea,” Cohen said, “this great war is just one of the steps which civilization has to take in its onward and upward march of progress.”

In addition to being class orator, Cohen, whose nickname was “Prof.,” likely short for “professor,” was also the editor-in-chief of the Tattler, the publication NHS classes used to put out four times a year.

Citing example after historic example of “what didn’t kill you made you stronger (most of the time),” Cohen proclaimed that “great things are acquired only with great pain … ever since man has striven to rise and better his lot, he has had to combat the insidious and … almost insuperable forces of ignorance and selfishness.”

As will the two Nashua High School classes of 2018 on Sunday, June 17, the Nashua High School class of 1918 graduated indoors – at the Colonial Theater, the popular Main Street venue often referred to in ads as the “Handsomest Theater in N.H.”

Board of Education president James L. Bickford presented the diplomas, while Superintendent of Schools James Fassett presented the coveted Noyes Prize Medals, which went to grads Christine Nelson and Cohen, the class orator.

“The attendance completely filled the theater, which had been prettily decorated with the class colors,” the Telegraph reported.

And in keeping with the patriotic atmosphere of the time, the class motto – “On ne passera pas!”, or “They Shall not Pass!”, was featured prominently in those decorations.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears Sundays in The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-1256, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or@Telegraph_DeanS.

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