More than a year after a momentous visit to Springfield, Illinois where my father lived his childhood and high school years, Jim Huston, the city librarian with whom I had become friends, sent me a copy of The Capitoline for 1928. It’s the Yearbook for the year my father graduated High School: a thick, green bound book.
I barely glanced at the sepia colored photographs of the campus, and only briefly paused on the pages that showed photographs of faculty and the administration: who were his teachers again? On my visit, Jim and I had gone to the school, and I had seen the letter about my father, written by the poet Vachel Lindsay and addressed to one of those teachers, framed and hanging in the English classroom. But I could not remember her name, although when I reached the faculty pages in the Yearbook, the name Susan Wilcox rang a bell.
The caption under her name said that she was Head of the English Department, and the adviser for the Bulletin, and the small cameo photograph showed an elderly delicate looking woman faintly smiling, with a curly untidy hair parted in the middle, and rimless glasses. There was a quote below the information: “Those who know her, know all words are faint.” It seemed very appropriate for an English teacher. I noticed that the information on every faculty member was followed by some kind of quote.
As I skimmed through, I noticed the arrangement of photographs for the senior class: some at the top of the page, and some at the bottom of the pages. In between, the names that corresponded to the photographs were listed alphabetically, with a line or two detailing scholastic achievements, and brief quotes, just like the brief quotes for the faculty.
My father was not among the Seniors who graduated in January, and the first photograph of him I saw was on the page for the members of the Scholarship Society.
He is looking straight into the camera with a questioning expression: his ears stick out a little, his hair is parted on the left, brushed down firmly and smoothed down by brilliantine or water. He looks young. He is young: he turned seventeen in October of his Senior Year.
The Scholarship Society, “was organized with the purpose of giving recognition to those who attain a high scholastic average…with a general average of 85% for the four years of his High School course…90% for three years in at least one major subject”.
Of course, he would be one of the high achievers, I thought. There must have been perhaps two dozen more scholarship students. I did not pause to count, moved on to look through the June graduates.
There he was: a different photograph. This time in three quarter profile, looking towards the left with the same serious questioning expression.
The hair shows a small wave, and both the strong nose and the thin lips are more defined. Below the long list of academic and other school activities, the brief quote “The guy who’s responsible for this.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I was more eager to see any other photographs of him and leafed quickly through, pausing briefly at the pages of informal snapshots of the Seniors: two of them are of my father, one in a full suit and tie, standing outside with a book in hand, the other in the same suit, leaning against some kind of structure. ‘Fitz again’ is the caption below the photo.
All in all, I saw half a dozen photographs of him in my first quick skim through: as quarter back in the football team, playing doubles in tennis and making it to the second place among the big twelve school teams in his Junior year, and as one of the winners in the public speaking contest among the big twelve. A popular, successful young man.