Lydia Waldschmidt Western High yearbook

This yearbook contains the recorded thoughts, memories, photographs, and ephemera belonging to Lydia E. Waldschmidt, Western Female High School Class of 1917. The blank yearbook template was published in 1910 under the title, "My School Days: A Record" by Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers. The book also contains a table of contents with sections for students to record favorite studies, favorite instructors, clubs and societies, school mottoes and songs, among many other topics. Lydia filled out several pages of the "Songs" pages, writing down the lyrics to "Farewell Song to Miss Hollstein", "Alumnae Song", "1917's Farewell Song to 1916", "Class Song of 1917", and "1918's Farwell Song to 1917."

The "My Classmates" pages contain notes and signatures of Lydia's classmates, including names such as Carrie Warfield, Ella Myers, Miriam Hodges, Edna Herget, and Dorothy Downs, among others. Pages 32-38 contain photographs, including group portraits of 1917's basketball team and the drama club, who that year conducted a production of "America, the Crucible". There are also snapshots, with Lydia's handwritten captions identifying the girls.

The yearbook also contains numerous pieces of ephemera collected over the course of Lydia's four years at Western, including school papers (lists of required subjects and instructions for insect collection for zoology student, summer 1914); school programs, tickets, holiday cards, and newspaper clippings. Lydia has also saved some correspondence of note. On pages 83-84 and 87, she has pasted in or loosly filed several envelopes, containing cards and letters she deemed worthy of saving, including an invitation to a celebratory graduation dinner. She has also saved two pieces of correspondence from 1929, evidently from former classmates.