School Picture 1910s

Picture of three adult women and 36 children.
The picture measures 4 3/4 by 6 3/4 inches.

 

I inherited this picture from my paternal aunt. This appears to be a class picture of children below the age of ten. Three women are poised in the rear row.

The back of the picture is stamped "Heron & Co. Photographers, P. O. Box 958, Orange, N. J." This was located in Essex County, New Jersey.

Based on the hairstyles, I estimated that this picture was taken in the 1910s. The girls' hair was short with big floppy bows. The women's hair was long and piled atop their heads. Their blouses were not form-fitting.

Colorizing the photo at MyHeritage brought the people to life.

MyHeritage estimated that the photo was taken around 1915. That is amazing!

I don't know who these people are. My paternal grandparents were born in 1915 and 1921, so they (and their younger siblings) are not in this picture.

1920s School in Kearny, New Jersey

Black and white photograph of school children in the 1920s.

Someone showed me this picture and asked if I could shed some light on its origins. She suspected that it was from her mother's photo collection. Her mother was born in 1915 and attended school in Kearny, Hudson County New Jersey. The girls in the photo are wearing loose-fitting dresses and all have bobbed hair, so the 1920s fits as the timeframe when this image was probably captured.

In faint pencil on the reverse of the photo is printed, "5th Grade Nathan Hale School." "Home Room Teacher Miss Schad."

A search on Google revealed that Public School Number 2 was renamed Nathan Hale School in 1919. In 1954, the building was demolished.

The photo is not in crisp focus, but if you zoom in on the writing on the blackboard, you can make out most of the names. I listed them below with their dates of birth and death as I could find them. Those with entries on FindAGrave are linked. They were born mostly in 1914 or 1915, making them contemporaries of the suspected original owner of the photo. These were ten students with perfect attendance; 28 students are in the photograph.

Andrew Dick (1914-1976)

Everitt Jarvis (1914-2003)

Peter Kaminskas (1912-1992)

William Weiler (1915-1941)

William Winn (1914-1971)

John Pullins (1915-1990)

Anna Campbell

Josephine Inzano (Inzana?) (1915-1988)

Secrada Nurtz (maybe not spelled this way)

Ruth McAllen (1915-2006)

The teacher could be Pauline Schad (1905-1984) who lived in North Arlington, which is a mile north of Kearny. In 1930, she married Arthur Lehn.

Hidden Photograph

I was browsing my mother's papers and came across her diploma for 8th grade graduation in 1965 from Our Lady Help of Christians School in East Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.  I took the diploma out of the cover to scan it and out popped the class picture!  The tip here is to look behind framed papers and photographs for additional treasures.

Whoever thought to have all the children sign the back of the picture did a great service to those of us viewing this picture almost fifty years later.  The names as best as I can read them are:

William Ilg

Janet Kinahan

Jairo Jimenez

Kathy Russell

Michael King

Marianne Prokop

Repsi Sneed

Helen Lopez

Raymond Bonanno

Denise Bradley

Gregory Flemming

Louuis Hoyos

Maria Bryan

Paul Sullivan

Cheryl Jagoo

James Cullen

Kathy Mager

Kathy Drust

Robert Bartley

Christine Bailey

Michael Wiedaseck

Thomas Frunzi

David McKnight

Mary Ella Gally

Dennis Kamowski

William Jenkins

Judy Haas

Bruce Lane

Loretta Maloney

Judy Hoy

Patti Schaible

Michael Alexander

Mabel Wong

Richard Throckmorton

Ethel Brown

Henry Santurste

Ana Maria Fernandez

Barry McGrath

Andrea Godlowa

William Barasco