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Our Senior Class Trip I don’t know when Williamsport High School started taking Senior class trips. None of my siblings had gone on one. My class held fund raisers for a long time so we could go. As I stated earlier, the Schein girls had purchased occasional cards to support us in that endeavor. We had also worked at the ticket and concession stands at ball games. I turned 18 on May 3, 1956 and our Senior trip was scheduled to leave on May 4, 1956. Going out of state for the first time in my adult life was a big deal for me. We went to Columbus by bus for the all-day (12 hour) ride on a Pennsylvania Railroad train to Washington, D.C. I have always been active and found that I hated being on a train for a whole day. Late in the evening our train set stopped on a bridge over water (probably the Susquehanna River) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in a lightning thunderstorm. It was very scary and unpleasant. Late at night, we finally arrived at our hotel in Washington, D.C. To Be Continued. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck
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Comments About Mr. Howard Pond I want to thank everyone for their comments regarding Mr. Pond. It happened because all of you knew him better than I did. I knew him as a 16-and-17-year-old student. Some of you knew him for the rest of his life and what an exemplary life he led. Dale Minor provided the following and I think it should be shared. “Howard “Rowdy” Pond Jr. was raised near Langsville, OH, Meigs County. He died April 3, 2011 at age 89. He had graduated from Rutland H.S. (near where I now live). Started at OU, Athens, OH, but his college was interrupted by his service in WWII. He served under Geo. Patton and achieved the rank of master sergeant. After the war he went back to OU to get his degree in education. He was married to Pauline for 59 years before she died. He lived another 9 years. Both of them were cremated and their ashes comingled. The ashes were then interred in the cemetery at Canansville Methodist Church a few miles east of Athens. I had visited Mr. Pond at a nursing home in Pickerington the summer before he died. His mind was sharp and he remembered a letter I had written him while I was on a business trip in Japan in 1972.“ Enjoy the photos. They were provided by Rick and Pat Pond. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck Williamsport’s Teachers I have often written about my teachers who were female. That was not on purpose but due mostly to the fact that I had more interaction with them because of their ratio to men at the school. I had some wonderful male teachers, such as Mr. Howard Pond. He was my home room teacher for the last two years of high school. He taught me everything I know about Civics (government) which every good American citizen needs to know. Mrs. Mary Alice Greenwood was my business education teacher. She was excellent and I am able to use the skills that she taught today. I tested for a job once and was told that I had a near genius clerical IQ. I attribute that to Mrs. Greenwood though I couldn’t figure out who would want that or care. I know I didn’t, but I did get many of my early jobs as a result. Mr. Judson Lanman was the superintendent during most, if not all, of my schooling. He was always an honorable and respectful man. Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were popular during my high school time, so Mr. Lanman often called me Marilyn Monroe. LOL I helped in the office my senior year. Mr. Lanman asked me to type and duplicate on the Ditto Machine a half page information sheet for students. Unfortunately, my little fingers were not strong on the typewriter and the “p” in the word “pass” did not print. When it was discovered, the memo had to be gathered up and thrown away and a new one typed. I didn’t get into any trouble with Mr. Lanman for it but maybe a snicker and a laugh or two. Now you know about my high school typing skills. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck  Mrs. Ida Ware Mrs. Ware was my Home Economics, English and Latin teacher. She was locally acclaimed and a good teacher. I still use everything she taught me on a daily basis. I had trouble sewing bias tape on a chicken potholder on the sewing machine. I told her that the more I sewed the worse it got. She had mercy on me and told me that I could clean the Home Economic classroom windows instead. : ) She did such a good job of teaching English that I took a scholarship test at Ohio State and got a certificate for first place in Pickaway County. That might be hard to believe since you see my errors in these blogs. She introduced me to some of my favorite poets, Rudyard Kipling, James Whitcomb Riley and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Every time I think of the poem “The Rainy Day” by Longfellow, I think of looking out of the classroom basement window of the school because it had the “vine still clings to the moldering wall” on the outside. Her Latin class provided me with the foundation for all of the languages that I would learn in my lifetime….Spanish, Portuguese and New Testament Greek. Mrs. Ware had sugar diabetes and when the classroom got warm in the afternoons, she often dozed off. One afternoon, she asked me to read. I came across a word that I didn’t know and read “spulcher” for the word sepulchre. She snapped out of her nap and said, “Whaaaat?”. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck |
Marilyn Francis FergusonGrowing up in Williamsport, Ohio is a blog by Marilyn Francis Ferguson which describes small town life in the 1940s and 1950s. Blog Categories
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