The Class of ’43 Gathers Again
On May 20, 1943 Cliffside High School graduated 36 students, listed here. “D” indicates the person is deceased.
| Lois Bailey (Bingham) - D Marjorie Biggerstaff (Bostic) Monte Bridges - D Virginia Brooks - D Geneva Cash (Hogan) Mary Helen Cobb (Randall) - D Frances Crowe (Edwards) - D Von Dedmond - D Perry Frye Sam Frye - D Dorothy Greene (Beason) Wilson Harmon Ruby Harrill (Jackson) - D Reginald Harris - D Edwin Hames Dot Hill (Huskey) Samuel Hill - D Mary Anne Humphries (Hedden) | Margaret Jolley (Curtis) - D Mary Sue Keeter Crowell) Virginia Kirby (Scruggs) Ruby McSwain (Marsh) Elizabeth Parris (Roberson) Mary Alice Pearson (Stacy) - D Margaret Rhymer (Moss) Broadus Robinson - D Jane Robinson (Hamrick) James Scruggs - D Lionel Scruggs Margaret Scruggs (Hamrick) - D Kathryn Swing (Padgett) Edith Tate (Mintz) Rosemary Mahaffee Tate (Bailey) Jack Ware - D Robert Weese - D James Whitaker - D |
Jane Robinson won the Citizenship Medal that year. And Marjorie Biggerstaff took the 12th year course of study and became the first Cliffside High student to receive a diploma from the 12th grade. For this was a special year. In 1941 the Rutherford County School Board had decided that, beginning with the 1942-43 school year the course of study would be 12 years as opposed to the 11 then current. (Of course the classes of ’42, ’43, ’44, and ’45 were allowed to graduate at the end of their 11th year. And there was no graduating class of 1946.)
Nineteen forty three was also a special year because the county was in the middle of World War II. During their last school year these students, and the rest of the school, had participated in a scrap metal drive, a Red Cross drive, bond and stamp sales and a “victory corps”—all war efforts. And upon graduation they— some of them as young as 16—stepped into a world that demanded a great, great deal of them. They rose to the challenge and, with others, earned their title of “Greatest Generation.”
And time moves on. On May 17, 2008, 10 of the surviving 18 members of the class of 1943 gathered at Jackson’s Cafeteria in Shelby, for their 65 year class reunion. There was a great deal of laughter, and no doubt a suppressed tear or two as they discussed the classmates who were in poor health and/or not able to travel and attend. There was the sort of conversation one hears at any reunion of old friends. Memories of the war, memories of old friends, old jobs and family were punctuated by comments such as “I never thought you would be a pastor” and the response “God works in mysterious ways.” And there was the sort of conversation one hears at any gathering of Cliffside folk, such as “You had to be straight to live in Cliffside” and “There’ll never be another place like Cliffside.”
And there never will be another place like Cliffside, nor another class like the class of ’43. As a final note, their mascot from that long ago graduation was also present May 17th at that 65th reunion. He is now the old codger who wrote this report.
—Don Bailey
Some who attended the 65th reunion:
Class of 1943 photo courtesy Polly Goforth Hill. Other photos by Don Bailey.
25 years earlier, in ’83, they held their 40th.
