Graduation Golden Anniversary

Memories of High School Fifty Years Ago, collage by Midge Frazel, 2015

50 Years Since Graduation Day
1965-2015

As genealogists and family historians, we tend to look at our lives and those who came before us with a closer eye. "Normal people" do not spend their own lives preparing to archive their own memories for people to look at in the future, do they?

That takes a lot of high energy and several days of being highly caffeinated.

Sunday, June 14, 2015 is the golden anniversary of my graduation from high school. When I was 17, I thought I might not live long enough to see this day. That thought seems forever ago and yet, here is that time.

My parents graduated from high school in 1935, from different high schools, at the opposite ends of the state of Rhode Island. Their involvement in the activities leading up to their fifty year reunions, did make me think about what that might be like for me. 

But, I am not a "normal person", I'd been interested in genealogy for a long time when I was 17, but since I thought it was about "dead people", I am surprised to realize that I have enough material from high school to run my own reunion. As I went on to get bachelors and masters degrees so, you'd think I would have lost all this stuff by now. But, I care about my belongings and my personal history as much as I do my ancestors. You should, too.

In the next two blog posts, we will examine what I have archived and why I did it but from a genealogy perspective and how my "stuff" might look to my descendants. 

If you are a #nextgen genealogist, you can start now, being prepared to help your descendants look at your past life. I am #nextgen. I can teach you.

 But, for today, I will enjoy being alive. That's the first lesson and the hardest. I have so many classmates that have passed away. It hits you hard. They are YOUR age. That's when 50 years is really a LONG time.