 Probably a sports meeting in the Home Economics Classroom. L to R: Harvey Rutherford, Mike McCafferty, Marty Noble (?) Center: unknown (?), Eddie James, unknown adult in the background, Billy Horch and Jimmy Whitten.
Happy Days! If you ever wondered about the show Happy Days, yes, those days did exist….even in Williamsport. The writer of Happy Days must have grown up in the fifties. I have already told you about going to Red Fry’s Drugstore for fountain cherry and vanilla Cokes, potato chips and the jukebox. There were other things reminiscent about that time. All of the boys had nicknames for everybody. The boys called each other “Hog Jaws”. I don’t know why but it may have been a local thing. Jimmy Whitten called all of us girls “Sweetie Pie” or “Sweet Pea”. I do know that it endeared him to us so it must have paid off. : ) The only person that I ever saw wear a poodle skirt was Janet Wright. We also wore little square silk scarves tied around our necks or in our hair. And yes, we all wore bobby sox and saddle shoes. The boys wore white “bucks”. And we had a Fonz or two. Claude “Mike” McCafferty wore his hair in duck tails. Earl Christopher sat in the seat in front of me and yes, he had duck tails and was the ultimate Fonz. They were considered to be cool, very cool. And they were Happy Days! ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck
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Evening Visitors I wasn’t sure whether I should post this blog or not though it was an entirely innocent event. I don’t want to embarrass anyone. The evening after we shopped, my roommates and I were putting pin curls in our hair and getting ready for bed when we heard a knock on our hotel room door. I think I opened it. David Brown, Harvey Rutherford, Billy Horch and Mike McCafferty walked in as though we had been expecting them. We girls were surprised but figured these boys just wanted to say they had been in some of the girls’ hotel rooms. Essentially, these mischievous boys tried to wreak havoc in our room. When they were done, they filed out the door just like they had come in. I can assure you, it was not a romantic encounter. It makes me laugh just to think about it. We girls must have visited Mrs. Ware the same evening. I had a little Kodak Brownie camera with a flash attachment and took photos on this trip. Some were good but most were just so-so….but mostly very poor. The photo of me was taken in the hotel room the next day in my new Gimbel’s clothes. I call it my “Queen Elizabeth Photo.” Since my Mother saved everything, my daughter Michele says that my life is as well documented as Queen Elizabeth’s. : ) In later years when I traveled with the Just Friend’s Travel Club, our tour director said, “You can always tell when the trip is over.” She meant that sometimes it’s over before it’s actually over. It was obvious that our Senior class trip was over, and we were to leave the next day for home. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck Trip to New York City On day three of our Senior trip, we boarded the train once again and headed for New York City. It was a one and a half-hour trip as I recall. Upon our arrival we went to the Gov Clinton Hotel which was across the street from where we disembarked. I didn’t like New York. It was dark. If you wanted to see the sky, you had to look up. And the people were not welcoming. When we bought food from vendors, they acted like we were disturbing them. We went to Radio City Music Hall and saw the Rockettes. We must have gone by taxi because I remember that I was scared to death in the traffic. I kept looking out the back window because I was sure we were going to get hit. We also boarded a ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. We saw the United Nations building and all of the things that New York offers to tourists. While we were there, Agnes Carle needed to go to Catholic Mass for a special service. She asked me to go with her. Though she was a serious Catholic and I a serious Protestant, we had God and the same morals in common. We were always good friends. I went to her wedding after graduation. It was a good thing I had taken Latin because at that time all of the services were in Latin. As I wrote earlier, I did not own a lot of clothes and soon found that I did not have enough for this trip. We had time off to go shopping at Macy’s and Gimbel’s, so I bought two skirts and two blouses. I’m not sure but I think I had only taken $50 on this trip but in those days that was a lot of money. Since I was a young, impatient teenager, I decided that traveling was not all it was cracked up to be. I didn’t know this was just the beginning and that I would do a lot of it and even learn to like it. Growing up in Williamsport had been good for me. ©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021 Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck  Bottom Row L-R: David Brown, Ray “Billy” Horch, Claude “Mike” McCafferty, Carroll Whitten, Harvey Rutherford, Gene Stonerock, Earl Christopher, and bus driver. Top Row L-R: Verna Lawson, Alice Rigsby, Marilyn Francis, Mrs. Ida Ware, Jeanette West, Judy Anderson, Agnes Carle, and Doris Willis.
Trip to Washington, D.C. As far as I can tell, our entire senior trip was organized by the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was from Sunday, May 4, to Friday, May 9, 1956. My roommates for the trip were Agnes Carle, Doris Willis, and Alice Rigsby. We all got along well together so no problems ensued. A tour bus picked our class up in the mornings and took us on our adventure. Two things about Washington surprised me. One was how beautiful it was. All of the electric lines were underground, which was uncommon at the time. And two, grits were served every morning on our breakfast plates. I had never tasted them before and had to ask what they were. We went to all of the usual hot spots in Washington. The Iwo Jima Memorial had just been dedicated in 1954. There was no fence around it like there is today. We could literally go up to the base and touch it. For me, it was the most impressive monument in Washington, and I cried. I still cry today when I see it. We went in the Washington Monument. I think it was David Brown who suggested that we run down all eight hundred plus steps. Our legs felt numb about half-way down. When you are young, you can do anything! At least we thought we could and we did! We also visited the unfinished Washington Cathedral. It is shocking to me that it was only finished in recent years. I guess everything in Washington works at a crawl. ©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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