Thank you very much to Larry and Anita for sharing this photo of the Willshire High School Graduating Class of 1938.
Willshire High School Class of 1938
A closer look with the names below, left to right.
Willshire High School Class of 1938, rows 1-6
Row 1: Katherine Bilderback, Sec; Taylor Gluth, Super; M.J. Morrison, Principal; Rosella Dull, Treas
Row 2: William Eichar, Pres; Vera Dull, Sponsor; Mary E. Schumm, V. Pres
Row 3: Lawrence Johnson, Teacher; Kathleen Detter; P.G. Konrath, Teacher; Ralph D. Lemon, Teacher
Row 4: Edward Servos, Teacher; Evelyn Dick, Teacher
Row 5: Ruby Pifer; Velma Vining
Row 6: Fermin Dellinger; John J. Giessler
Willshire High School Class of 1938, rows 7-11
Row 7: Glenda Pifer; Pauline Wendel
Row 8: Robert Cowan; Goldie Baumgartner; Delores M. Schumm
Row 9: Betty Medaugh; Betty Altheon; Ruth Miller; Alice Louise Ault
Row 10: Isabel Bollenbacher; Emma Dietrich
Row 11: Joe Avery; Louis Wolfe; William Myers; DeLoyd Hileman
My aunt Ruth Miller was a member of this graduating class and she mentioned some of her classmates when she talked about her school days. Aunt Ruth was the oldest of the eight Miller children. My dad was the fourth Miller child and the first boy in the family.
Ruth (Miller)
Some of my Aunt Ruth’s memories of her class at Willshire High School.
She said Katharine “Katie” Bilderback became a teacher. Kate once brought bananas to a school picnic and Ruth took 2 bananas home to her mother, who loved bananas.
Aunt Ruth was very good friends with Pauline Wendel, sister of Bob and Jim Wendel of the Wendel Brothers Motor Sales in Chatt, and Velma Vining, sister of Gene Vining, who Joe remembers from their days at the telephone company. The three women were such good friends in school that they called themselves a “trio.” Both Pauline and Velma were in Ruth’s wedding party. Ruth also talked about classmate Betty Altheon.
Ruth and her sister Helen played basketball at Willshire. Their father Carl would pick them up after practice and if Helen’s practice ran long Ruth would go to Mary Schumm’s house on the south end of Willshire.
Ruth said their High School principal Mr. Morrison suggested that she go into the nursing program at the University of Michigan, and she did just that. Her classmate Pauline Wendel also started in the nursing program there but dropped out. Ruth got her nursing degree from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1941. While attending school there she met Robert Werner and they married in Ann Arbor after Ruth graduated from the nursing program and took her state boards. Robert was still working on his doctorate when they married.
I remember some of the people in the Class of 1938 and have heard of some others. Mary Schumm was my first organ teacher and I took organ lessons from her in the 1960s. Rosella Dull married Gene Vining and Rosella was my music teacher in elementary school and junior high. Joe Avery was an insurance agent and his wife Edna was my mom’s beautician in Willshire for years. Of course, anyone from the area with the surname Schumm is my relative, as well as Emma Dietrich. Glenda and Ruby Pifer were sisters from the Chatt area and I remember them from church dinners. Robert Cowan went on to be a teacher.
My Aunt Ruth lived to be 100 years old. She died in 2020 and I believe she was the oldest living Willshire alumni for a short time.
Thank you for sharing this photo.
