Totem Pole Tales- Onaway High School-Part II
Submitted by Nute Chapman
From Onaway Outlook March 28, 2014



Caption:  The 1946-47 Onaway School, fifth-grade students. Top row:  Carol Smith, Victor Flewelling, Fay Faircloth,
Russell Lee, Arthur Harrison and Jerry Mercer.  Second row:  Barbara Keeler, Nancy Mowery, thomas Hilliker, Jackie
Mahoney, donna Ellenbaas and Gary Huffman.  Third row:  Phyllis Barager, Susan Hunt, Sharon Prier, Ned Vermilya, 
Clayton McClary tp  and Charlene Smith.  Fourth row:  Joan Randal, Barbara Canfield, Grace Baker, Velma Porter, Warren
Newsted and Morford Harman.  Fifth row:  Harriett Moran, Howard Grainger, Luella Wellsley, Myrtle Gaudette, Jerry
Cryderman and James Larson.  Sixth row:  Donald Shea, Earnest Rimley, Sammie Painter, Carlton Madden, Iva Erkfitz and 
Johnie Arnold. Seventh row:  Johnie Hunt, James Tucker, Otis Slade, Stanley Hunt, Norma Hutchins and Inez Dean.  The
teacher for this class was Miss Bessie Smith.
width="800" From the years 1944 to 1949 my dad worked as a fire tower watchman. First at the Black Mountain or, Owens Tower, and then at Lake Emma Fire Tower.
It was very hard for me to adjust going back to school after spending the summers at one cabin or the other. It was probably much harder for my teachers to adjust to me. The six teacher in last week's article were undoubtedly the greatest people who would ever affect my life. Little did I know that they were preparing me, not only for life, but for my two not so easy years in junior high.
Several times when I was in grade school I would disappear at morning recess and run up the hill to Grandma Chapman's where I knew that she would get ahhold of my dad and he would come and get me. Sometimes my dad would lecture me about leaving school on my own, and take me right back to school. But sometimes my dad would take me with him, but I soon learned that Dad would find something for me to do that was worse than sitting in school.(Continued next week.)
From the Onaway Outlook, March 28, 2014, page 3.
Retyped by J. Anderson

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