This is the scrapbook which my parents gave to me. In it my grandmother (Lucille) Edna Mulder (later Edna Zuidweg) recorded the events of her high school graduation from Caledonia High School (Michigan), as well as a few clippings from her first year at Western Normal School in Kalamazoo.
In 1929, my grandmother graduated a year early, at age seventeen, along with her older sister Dorothy Mulder (later Dorothy Plott). Grandma earned the 3rd highest GPA at 93.85% and thus was honored with the title “class historian.” Her sister was salutatorian. Grandma’s best friend Blanche Stauffer was valedictorian. Clearly, grades were not inflated in those days at Caledonia High School.
Grandma was the 2nd oldest girl in her family of three girls and two boys. When I was young and reading my mother’s copy of Little Women, Grandma told me she always thought that she was just like Jo, the 2nd oldest and the writer of the family. Her sister Dorothy was Meg, and her younger sister Alvena (called Vena, later Vena Stimson) was Amy. It makes sense to me that “Jo” would have been placed a year ahead so she could go to school with “Meg,” and that she would earn class historian to her sister’s salutatorian.
Dorothy Mulder’s Salutatory (beginning portion)
Edna Mulder’s high school transcript
Edna Mulder’s class history (beginning portion)
The scrapbook contains wonderful photos of Grandma, her friends, classmates, and teachers, but it doesn’t solve the mystery of who put that drinking glass ring on the cover.
The Family Kalamazoo 
It’s all so lovely it makes me want to weep. How lucky you are to have these family treasures. wjk
Yes, I am so lucky!!
Wow, I’m impressed. Your grandmother was a very good student. I’m surprised that she took “Agriculture.” I would have guessed that in those days that the females would have taken home ec and that the males would have taken agriculture.
I’ll have to ask my mother if she has any idea. She will have her own idea on my grandmother and home ec activities. As her granddaughter, I would say she was a really good cook, especially of the basics, like meat, garden-grown veggies, and baked goods. Maybe she didn’t need home ec? I prefer to think of her like Jo March, preferring to take agriculture ;).
I found a tree which is following the Muler – Waldeck branch where Alvena is shown.
Waldeck Family Tree
Owner: xamorris
I can send you the links to the trees if you have access to Ancestry.com.
Thanks
Jose
Hi Jose, thanks! Yes, I do have an ancestry.com account. Alvena should be in the Mulder-Waldeck branch of the family, as should Edna and Dorothy. I have not connected with any Waldeck trees, though.
[…] graduation scrapbook, which has quite a few goodies in it. I wrote about it before in the post Who Put the Ring Stain on the Scrapbook? Today I’d like to share one page of the […]
[…] reading another post on Wednesday about Grandma’s high school graduation scrapbook, I thought you might like to see the Mulder family from Caledonia. Remember that in Edna’s […]
[…] (the one of the 12 part story) was a Zuidweg and my grandmother (his wife and the creator of the scrapbook I’ve posted on here) was a Mulder. And they share a common ancestor: one Carel Mulder from […]
[…] year I posted about Grandma’s high school graduation scrapbook. Here is the link. There are a lot of photos in that book; in most of them Grandma is hanging out with her friends […]
What an impressive record of your Gandmother’s academic achievements. Even down to the decimal places in the grades.
EmilyAnn, isn’t it marvelous?! I am pretty sure those were not “inflated grades” in those days either!
[…] up a bit, too, because the girls graduated high school together. You can read about their graduation here and here and here. In this post, Grandma, Dorothy, and Vena are shown as children with their […]
[…] my grandmother, Lucille Edna Mulder, was a good student. As I have written about before, she was Class Historian at graduation–and kept a beautiful graduation […]
[…] can read more about the graduation of these young ladies in Who Put the Ring Stain on the Scrapbook? and in Scrapbook […]
It’s so wonderful that you have these remembrances from your grandmother. I sure wish I’d had some from my Grandma Maggie, but then I’m not sure she even went to grade school. I know there was no high school for her back in tiny Black Oak, Arkansas. Even my dad didn’t go to high school.
That’s sad to think of all the rituals of high school that your folks missed out on. When you say you aren’t sure Grandma Maggie went to grade school, it makes me wonder if there truly are records for grade school that go beyond the school itself. In other words, would we be able to verify with documents that any of our ancestors went to grade school? Maybe not. I had never thought of that before. Thanks, Corley, for stopping by! By the way, where is Black Oak in the state? North, south, east, west?
Black Oak is a very small town in northwest Arkansas, about 10 miles from Jonesboro. It’s actually the town the band “Black Oak Arkansas” is named after. Probably their only claim to fame as it is now little more than a couple streets.
Is it pretty there? My aunt and uncle live in Mountain Home, and it’s so gorgeous around there.
No, not really. Very flat farm land. I think cotton is their crop of choice. If you have ever read John Grisham’s book “A Painted House”, it is set in Black Oak in the 1950s. John Grisham’s family is from Black Oak, and reading the book gave me a lot of insight into how it must have been to have lived down there in the mid 1900s.
I’ve never actually read any Grisham, but maybe that is the one I should start with!
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You’re so fortunate to have that scrapbook!