Monday Diggings

Pauline Mentzer and the Class of 1913

Sometimes the most interesting genealogy finds aren't vital records, census records, or deeds. Sometimes they are the little pieces of everyday life that help us picture an ancestor at a particular moment in time.

This week's digging takes me back to the school days of my grandmother, Pauline Mentzer.

Among the family materials I have is a program for the Coffey County Rural School Commencement, held in Burlington, Kansas, on May 31, 1913, at 2 p.m. The program lists the members of the county's Class of 1913, organized by rural school district.

And there, among the graduates, is my grandmother:

District No. 9
Hattie Carroll
Glenn James
Pauline Mentzer

Teacher: Bertha Werts

A County-Wide Commencement

The program is interesting because it wasn't simply a graduation program for one school. It brought together graduates from rural school districts scattered across Coffey County.

The long list of students and teachers gives us a glimpse of the county's rural educational system in 1913. Some districts had only one graduate listed, while others had several.

Pauline was one of three students from District No. 9.

The commencement had all the elements of a formal celebration. The class motto was:

"Seek Wisdom"

The class colors were:

Old rose and lavender

There was an invocation and benediction, along with recitations, readings, vocal and instrumental solos and duets, an oration on Lincoln, and a song performed by a quartet from District No. 56.

County Superintendent Cora Tompkins presented the diplomas.

Pauline's Place in the Program

Although Pauline is listed among the graduates, she doesn't appear among those who performed during the commencement exercises. That's actually one of the things I like about this program. It isn't a newspaper account highlighting only a few students. It records the larger graduating class and preserves Pauline's name as part of that group.

For one afternoon in May 1913, rural students from across Coffey County gathered in Burlington to mark the completion of an important stage in their education.

Pauline was one of them.

Connecting This Find to Another

This program is especially interesting when considered alongside another item I've recently shared—Pauline Mentzer's grade card.

That card showed the subjects she studied and the grades she received, including subjects such as orthography and deportment. The commencement program takes the story one step further. Instead of simply documenting her schoolwork, it documents the culmination of those school years.

Together, the two items tell more of the story than either could by itself.

The grade card tells me something about what Pauline did in school.

The commencement program tells me that she completed that stage of her education as a member of Coffey County's Class of 1913.

But There's Another Name That Caught My Attention

Pauline isn't the only familiar name in the program.

Among the graduates from Joint District No. 1 is Isabelle Crandall, whose teacher was Luella Shields. Isabelle also participated in the commencement exercises by performing an instrumental solo.

Luella Shields is a familiar name from another piece of my family-school puzzle: the Crandall Public School souvenir booklet I've been researching. That booklet identifies Luella Shields as the teacher and includes several Mentzer children among her pupils.

That connection makes this commencement program more than a simple list of graduates. It places people I've encountered in separate family documents into the same educational world of rural Coffey County.

More Than a List of Names

A commencement program can look like a fairly ordinary piece of paper. Yet more than a century later, this one answers a very specific genealogical question.

My grandmother Pauline Mentzer was a member of Coffey County's rural school Class of 1913.

It also gives me a date, a place, her school district, her teacher, the names of fellow graduates, and even details about the ceremony she likely attended.

Those aren't the kinds of facts usually found on a pedigree chart.

But they're exactly the kinds of details that help turn a name and a collection of dates into the story of a life.

And that's why these seemingly ordinary pieces of family history are worth digging through.