PS (Public School) 33 - Queens, New York

Melissa LeMaster Barker wrote today in her blog, A Genealogist in the Archives, about Autograph Books, the Social Media of Yesterday. 

http://agenealogistinthearchives.blogspot.com/2017/09/autograph-books-social-media-of.html

I immediately thought of my father's Autograph Book pictured below with his graduation yearbook from New York Public School 33 of Queens, New York, from eighth grade. 

Public School 33 of Queens, New York

Classmates of class 8B1-Stan circled in blue-1937.

On the first blank page, Stan wrote his first poem at the end of fourth grade in 1933. Was this little book a gift from his parents?

Of all of the signatures I recognized were from family members.

1) Page signed by his mother, Sophie Ramona Pina Cooper. Love her sign off of "Happy Sailing." Did she know he would join the U. S. Navy four years later?

2) Page signed by his father, John Carrick Cooper.

3) Page signed by his sister, Margarite Eileen Cooper.

4) Page signed by his Uncle Edward Piña, his mother's  younger brother.

Stan during his years at PS 33, Queens, New York.

Here are some other cute poems from his classmates.

"Keep your face always toward the sunshine,
and the shadows will always fall behind you."
Louise Herman

"Dear Stanley,
What people write in albums,
Always seem the same,
All I have to offer,
Is my friendship and my name."
Mary Redmond

"Last night upon the stairs
I saw a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again next day,
I wish to goodness he'd go away."
Darrow Ormsbee

"Just to make you angry,
Just to make you frown, 
I'm writing in your album
Upside down."
Jane Schneider - this was written upside down

"To Stan 
Don't wait for your ship to come in
Row out and meet it."
Etta Bergmann

Stan went on to Brooklyn Technical High School from 1937-1941. After he joined the U.S. Navy, in the spring of 1941, he did not walk down the graduation aisle with his classmates. See how he corrected this after World War II.