We rented a house and took turns cooking and cleaning, but
mostly we spent our time in and around the lake. Jean’s mother
was our chaperon. She was the cool mom.
June was my best friend and both her parents were ministers.
Her dad was aa chaplain in World War II so while he was gone
his wife did the preaching. When Al and I got married, Rev.
Marken, June’s dad, married us. June became a minister and
married a minister.
September, 2006. Laguna Hills, CA. Last time we were ALL togeth-
er. Jane is on the left. Barbara is on the right.
Continued from previous page ...
To graduate we had to write a report on our beliefs in God and
what Christianity meant to us and then read our report to the
Wednesday night fellowship attendees.
Ruth Mary, Jane, June, Jean, Phyllis and I decided to form our
own little club. We added Marie from the other junior high
school and Madelyn from our junior high. We needed a name,
so we called ourselves “JUST US GIRLS” (or JUGS for short).
Sometime along the way, we added Nancy and we became a
group of nine. A Japanese family (I think they were moved to
the Midwest by our government for their safety) moved in and
their daughter was in our grade. We all liked May Kagawa and
we took her into our Just Us Girls group. Her older sister made
things out of wood and she made us a pin in the shape of a little
brown jug with the initials JUG on it. When we were juniors,
May’s family moved away.
We did a lot of talking when we were together —- girl talk —
mostly about boys and which ones were cute and which ones
we could invite to our next party. We did try to do things for
others. One thing we did was to go across town where Jean’s
grandmother lived. She had two neighbor girls who were
handicapped. We went to take cookies and we sang to them or
just talked. We didn’t have TV, computers or cell phones in
those days. We had time to just be friends. However, I couldn’t
get along without those things now!
As we scattered and got married. Madelyn was the first to get
married so we bought a blue garter and every one of us wore
that on our wedding day. Madelyn's wedding was the first
wedding for which I was organist. Since then, I have played for
about fifty other weddings.
When we “girls” started having babies, we didn’t see each other
very often, but we kept in touch with our round robin letters. We
did have picnics in the summer when some were home. We
took our husbands, our children and our parents to these
picnics. When we all retired and our children were grown, we
again had time to see each other so we went to the different
homes. We have been to Santa Barbara, CA; Pismo Beach,
CA; Easley, SC; Chagrin Falls, OH; Milledgeville, GA;
Alexandria, VA; and our place in Haines City, FL and Laguna
Beach, CA. Laguna Beach was the last place we were ALL
together. Some of the JUGs didn’t make it to the 60th high
school reunion.
All our husbands became Just Us Girls husbands and were
included in everything. The last time I received the round robin
was about a year ago when sadly someone was no longer able
to send it on. Jean, Marie, Nancy and I are the only four still
living and we talk to each other on the phone.
When we were together, someone usually mentioned that we
needed to write a book or get on TV or do something because
of our friendships. Well, Phyllis volunteered to write the book,
but she didn’t get it finished before she died. Perhaps we who
are remaining should write that book.
When Bud asked me to tell about our longtime friendship, I
decided it would be a good time to tell about these friends.
The fact that we were all Christians gave our friendship a depth
to keep us together! Thanks, “girls” for being my friends.
We all graduated from Roosevelt High School in January, 1948.
We were what they called mid-year. We started to kindergarten
in January and graduated in January. They have done away
with that system, but we liked our small classes. Ruth Mary’s
mother suggested that since we were scattering off to college
that we start a round robin letter to keep track of everyone. A
round robin letter is where I write a letter and send it to the next
person. They write a letter and put both letters in an envelope
and keep it going until it goes to all nine and comes back to me.
I take out my old letter and put in a new one. We did that and
we kept in touch all these years.
The summer before graduation and the summer after
graduation we went to Clear Lake, Iowa for a week at the lake.
60th high school reunion, 2008. Jane, Phyllis, Jean, Marie, Ruth
Mary and Barbara.