School Days: Finding Miss Abbey

Rhode Island College School of Education, 1952
Ancestry. com (27 Aug 2018)

Miss Dolores Abbey

Several of my high school classmates went to Oaklawn School. Some have told me that they lived in the neighborhood of the school and what street they grew up on. Getting their remembrances encouraged me to work on this project.

Using the tools of technology, I have been able to see what the area looks like now and helped me take a "field trip" back home a few years ago. One person a couple years older  "graduated" from the school and even has an Oaklawn pin. 

At that time, there was only one public college that prepared teachers for elementary and high school teaching in Rhode Island. In many states, this kind of college is called a "Normal" or "Dame" school. The University where I received my Master's degree was once one of these places and my genealogy friend Heather Wilkinson Rojo discovered we took the same Master's program at Lesley University. Mine was completely online and hers was at the actual school. Most colleges and universities have an online presence and will have a history of our school or a mission statement.

My late mother-in-law, my husband's cousin and his wife and I went to the same college. Because it will be 50 years since I graduated in 1969, the college has written a history of the years I attended and made a Facebook page for the reunion. 

I have been spending time looking at the old yearbooks at Ancestry.com. Schools change their name over the years and you may have to look hard for information. The Alumni Association can help.

I searched Ancestry,com's yearbook collection of Rhode Island College of Education (RICE) and found a yearbook from the year before I went to Oaklawn and easily found my first grade teacher. I don't think I will find others because women did quickly marry after college. It was called getting your "Mrs". I've always thought that was funny.