The Old South Hadley High School in South Hadley Falls functioned as a combined town hall and high school from its beginning in 1913 until 1956, when the new high school was built on Newton Street. The old building continues to function as town hall and a focus of memories for all those who attended it as students.
In total, 38 people were interviewed, with participants spread out between the years 1936 to 1958. Robert Judge, Ted Belskey, and the South Hadley Historical Society came up with a list of people willing to be interviewed.
This website is organized around audio clips excerpted from longer interviews. Students were asked to select several of the most interesting passages from the interviews they conducted.Later, a smaller group of students and Prof. Joshua H. Roth helped organize the audio clips into the sixteen categories. To access these audio clips, click on the “Research” tab in the top banner of this website. The collection of audio clips within each category at times reveal differences of opinion which raise questions about the accuracy of recollection, the diversity of experience, and the possibility that the school changed over the course of its history.
Noteworthy differences of opinion arise in the categories “girls and pearls and girls’ basketball,” “Mason Dixon line,” and “lunchtime.”
- Was there physical education for girls or wasn’t there?
- Was there a cafeteria or wasn’t there?
- Did residential location and class background play a significant role in structuring student interactions? Or didn’t they?
Some of these questions were resolved relatively easily with archival research. Images show that at least from 1940 to 1944, there were womens’ basketball teams at South Hadley high school. The immediate question that arises is what impact the war had on athletics for women? Other questions relating residence and class relate to personal experience and socioeconomic factors that call for further oral histories, archival investigation, and sociological interpretation.
Graduates of South Hadley High School who participated in this project: Dorothea M. Barry, June Beattie, William Bennett, Mary Boulais, Wayne Boulais, Cecilia M. Charlebois, George Charlebois, John S. Croke, Jr., David Daly, Dolores Daly, Brian D. Duncan, Ruth L. Ellison, Agnes Everson, Claudette Finck, Beverly S. Galusha, Joe Gaunt, Cecile Girard, Joan Clark Hazen, David Judge, Marian Purcell Kennedy, Robert W. Lesperance, Carol M. Kent, Shirley Martin, Marion F. McCormick, Edgar E. Noel, Joyce Roberts, Paul Robillard, William L. Schenker, Charles V. Taugher, Faye Taylor, R. Michael Thornton, Ruth B. Thornton, Josephine Wojnarowski, Douglas Young, Linda Young, and John R. Zebryk
Anthropology 275: “Doing Ethnography: Research Methods in Anthropology”
Faculty: Joshua H. Roth
Students: Charlina Ahn, Danielle Babcock, Caroline Bauer, Barbara Burns, Caralie Cahill, Rachelle Coleman, Tenzin Dolkar, Megan Durling, Brittany Estes-Gaudette, Cheyenne Gleason, Nafkote Gurmu, Leah Ingeno, Emily Korab, Erica Lehrer, Stephanie Maher, Sarah Mitchel, Alina Naujokaitis, Melissa Proulx, Sofia Redford, Lillian Smith, Alison Stoll, Heather Van Werkhooven, Megumi Yoshida, Thea Youngs, Susannah Zietz
