April 21, 2025
Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega solves a genealogy mystery: identifying the owner of a 1945 school memory book she finds in an antique shop. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”
I’m a big fan of antique stores, and my favorite thing to do there is “rescue” orphan heirlooms. There’s no doubt that some of these treasures find their way to an antique store because the family has died out but, in some cases, items end up for sale because someone lost them, or they didn’t realize another family member was interested.
What do I do with these pieces of material culture that I buy? It depends.
Sometimes, I use them for presentations or article examples. Other times, I strictly use them to reunite with the family. One of my latest acquisitions is a scrapbook titled Autographs and Memories: A School Memory Book.
A School Memory Book
This book does not have an obvious owner so let’s start by taking a look at the book.
This scrapbook is meant to be filled with autographs and photographs by the owner. It was published in 1927. This copy is starting to show its age since the binding and cover are loose and the writing on the cover is difficult if not impossible to read.
No name is found on the inside cover where there is room to add the owner’s name, but a look at what ephemera exists points to the owner, a date, and a school.
One observation I made is that there are items missing, as evidenced from the brown stains where paper or photographs were once glued. What’s left in this book is some writing, photographs, and what appears to be pages from a yearbook.
The Details: Or, as Much as Can Be Found
First, I wanted to discover what a “school memory book” is. Using historical newspapers, the answer is: it’s a do-it-yourself yearbook. It provides a student with the opportunity to write their memories, obtain autographs of students and teachers, and add photographs and other ephemera items.
I looked at historical newspapers to see how these books were advertised.
Advertised as a gift for graduates, though in reality this is something that should be given prior to graduating. These books retailed between $1.50 to $2.25 in 1948, which equals approximately $20 to $33 today. (1)
Aside from advertising, I found a newspaper article that discussed the use of a school memory book at a party where guests were invited to paste a photo of themselves and then autograph the book to be presented to the guest of honor.
Now that I have some historical understanding of this type of book, I want to know the big question: whose book is this? I think the answer comes from the name found on an American Junior Red Cross membership card pasted in the book. That card has the name “Marjorie Tedesco” on it. My guess is that only the owner of the book would paste that card in.
A photograph of the Girls’ Gate Service group includes a Marjorie Tedesco (first row, left to right, 6th girl)
Looking at Marjorie Tedesco in the above photograph, I believe this is another photo of her on the “Raymond Wade Berry” page.
Here is a close-up of the above photo showing Marjorie (?) with Raymond.
I think I’ve identified the original owner of this school memory book, so now I want to know what school she went to. A class poem pasted on one of the first pages has a clue.
The first line of the class poem reads:
“Three years have passed since we were ‘scrubs” at South Gate Junior High.”
A year would be helpful in this research in order to identify people mentioned. “S’45” is found above the class poem, and the signature of Raymond Wade Berry also includes the year “1945.”
I believe that this is the school memory book of Marjorie Tedesco from South Gate Junior High School in 1945. Additional genealogical research into Marjorie and Raymond Wade Berry does show that they lived in Los Angeles County. South Gate Junior High (founded in 1941) still exists and is known today as South Gate Middle School. (2)
Questions Remain
Now, with everything I’ve learned there are still questions. For example, Marjorie’s Red Cross card is dated 1942 and it says she is a high school member. That doesn’t make sense if she attended junior high school in 1945. Maybe they gave those cards to any “junior” member?
Another question is that some of the teachers’ photos say the subject they teach (such as Spanish) but a few say (San Gabriel) underneath them.
San Gabriel is a city about 40 minutes away from South Gate in Southern California, so were these teachers teaching in multiple places? “San Gabriel” doesn’t make sense as a school subject.
So, What Now?
One of the things I try to do with photographic heirlooms is to digitize and upload the photos to online trees so that their families can have access to the photos. There are a few photos in the book that are “real photos” and not yearbook pages. I will digitize those and upload them.
My next step after that is to either find descendants of Marjorie or see if South Gate Middle School would like this for their archives. There’s so much missing from the book but it may be a nice artifact for the school.
Have you “rescued” an heirloom from an antique store? What did you do with it? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
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Note on the header image: close-up of the cover of a 1945 school memory book. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.
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(1) CPI Inflation Calculator at https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1948?amount=1.50
(2) South Gate Middle School, https://southgatems.lausd.org/