Senior Class ... 1902 Style

Congrats to the graduates of Miami Trace and Washington High Schools!

In 1902 my grandfather, Harry Rankin, was a senior at Washington High School and Editor-in-Chief of the school’s monthly
publication, the Argus. In the June edition, the Argus’ Literary Editor, Besse Jenkins, wrote the class poem for the 26 graduating members of the class of ’02.

The language isn’t what today’s seniors might be familiar with in the world of instant messages (IM’s) or tweets (LOL) but the sentiment remains the same about leaving lifelong friends (BFF’s) and heading into the future.

And if any here in dreaming,
     Of the dear old days gone by,
May brush away in sadness
     A salt tear from their eye,
They will understand our feeling
     For the olden times and why
The love for our old school days
     Shall never, never die!

Yet where e’er our Fate shall lead us,
     In the unknown path of life,
Whether gay and strewn with roses,
     Or dark with pain and strife,
The roses will be sweeter,
     And the pain, less hard to bear
As we think of our old school days,
    When our hearts were free from care.

Excerpted from “Class Poem” by Besse Jenkins, Argus, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1902

In the same edition of the Argus, the Class Prophecy, written by Ethel Crozier, predicts that in 1920 Besse Jenkins “ … has risen to fame through her clever illustrated stories and poems. She is now an associate editor of one of the leading periodicals.”