I look and look at these little faces and wonder how each of their stories unfolded. Every face tells a story and I'm imagining possible narratives that might have unspooled for these kindergarteners, nearly 70 years ago.
Elizabeth Anne grows up to be an professor of English literature specializing in Virginia Woolf. She lives in Brooklyn brownstone with her black Airedale, Lily. Her partner, a well-known poet, died two years ago of breast cancer.
Jimmy (nicknamed Buster) is the youngest of a large Irish Catholic family. Everybody thought he'd grow up to be a hometown cop, that or frequently arrested by a hometown cop. Instead, he and his Italian wife opened a popular pizzeria and taught ballroom dancing. He wears a "Make America Great" cap.
Susan wanted to be an actress, but she married at seventeen, pregnant. She gave birth to twin sons who attended Webster School as she and her husband did. When her children were in elementary school, she went to nursing school and became an intensive care nurse. In her seventies now, Susan performs in local musical theater productions--where she met her current husband, Alfred.
Simon died in Vietnam, 1970. He's remembered as a star quarterback in high school and was voted "Most Popular" in his senior class.
Richard was an altar boy and groomed for priesthood, a path he began but abandoned just before ordination. He is still married to his longtime wife and is a jovial grandfather to seven, five boys and two girls. Richard was active in both Bernie's Presidential campaigns, 2016 and 2020. None of Richard and Camilla's children are Catholic.
No classmates remember the girl whose name--according the handwritten roster on the back--is Julie.
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