On the evening of Wednesday, June 24, 1914, Edith Hiatt received her diploma from Malden High School. She was eighteen, and one of 129 graduates in the largest class the school had ever had.
Malden High School
By 1909 Edith's family was living at 29 High Street in Malden, in a house her father, Frederick Hiatt, had built in 1907. Malden was a busy city just north of Boston, and its high school was one of the oldest in the area. The school committee had opened it in 1857 in the Centre Grammar School on Pleasant Street. In 1872 the city built a high school on Salem Street, and as the city grew, another new building opened in 1896. This postcard shows the school as it looked in 1911, while Edith was a student there.
The Class of 1914
The Boston Evening Transcript printed the program and the names of the graduates on the afternoon of the ceremony. The diplomas were given out in the high school hall by Truman R. Hawley, himself a graduate of the school.
Malden
Malden High School will graduate the largest class in its history this evening in the high school hall, when diplomas will be presented to 129 graduates by Truman R. Hawley, who was recently elected to the school committee and is an alumnus of the school and a past president of the Malden High School Alumni. Last year's graduating class numbered 126. The salutatory will be by Simon Albert, whose theme is “The Significance of International Peace.”
The class poem will be by Edna L. Pinkert, entitled, “Summer-time,” and the oration, on “Individual Development,” by George O. Carrington. Elsie E. Whitney will be the valedictorian and her subject will be “A New-told Tale.”
The following will receive diplomas:
General Course—Leland H. Anderson, Mae Aronovitz, Ruth W. Bailey, Constance M. Berry, Effiejean D. Berry, John E. Berry, Bertha M. Bryant, Francis J. Butler, George O. Carrington, Ada M. Cheever, Alva M. Chisholm, Philip F. Claff, Bernard B. Cohen, Charles A. Cowley, Dorothy R. Crandall, Katherine M. Desmond, Anastasia V. Dolan, Lincoln G. Elwell, Mildred A. England, Arnot E. Erb, John W. Fitzpatrick, Bertram B. Green, Ake Gysander, Edith K. Hiatt, Gladys M. Huntley, Madison P. Jeffery, Gertrude C. Johnson, Edgar O. Kaufhold, Ora E. Kilton, Marion J. Knowlton, Sadie Kolow, Anna Kuposky, Selma E. Kuposky, Marion Sterns Look, Agnes L. Lunt, Helen M. MacCormac, Marguerite F. Maxon, John H. Murphy, Harold C. Neal, John A. Nelson, John T. Neville, William M. Neville, Mildred S. Parker, Carl G. Peterson, Irene A. Phillips, Alice B. Pillsbury, Edith F. Rand, Arthur S. Ransom, Walter H. Sargent, Lester B. Sawyer, Hazel A. Shuman, May M. Simmons, Harold W. Smart, Sadie Solomont, Sara Spevak, Margaret E. Thorne, Bernice H. Vickerson, Minnie Weiss, Bernice W. Wetmore, Viola E. Whittemore.
Commercial Course—Nora A. Bergin, Elizabeth E. Campbell, Signe Cannell, Anna C. Chapman, John R. Cheney, Earl L. Cleveland, Isabel F. Conway, Cecil C. Covert, Louis H. Donovan, Jr., Mildred Elliott, Katherine G. Fitzgerald, Ella Fritzsch, Opal R. Gates, Agnes M. Gerry, Bessie Greenberg, Viola E. Greene, Marion F. Horgan, Ethel J. Hurley, Mary C. Kearns, Ida Kessler, Natalie S. Kingman, Leo Kopel, Anna L. Lambach, Etta Levy, Jeannette I. Lukey, Anna J. Maher, Marion G. Maloney, Regina E. Marnell, John H. Martin, Morris Memberson, Marie G. Nolan, Anna L. O'Neil, Thomas F. Ryan, Alma M. Sraith, Essie L. Towle, John J. Walsh, Samuel A. Wilcom, Jeannette L. Wolfe, Maxwell G. Wolfe.
College Course—Simon Albert, Ruth Ammann, Raphael P. Boruchoff, Lois Brooks, Gladys B. Gamage, Mildred E. Hodges, Marion F. Morse, Harriet T. Proctor, Harold W. Saxton, Charles L. Shaw, Max J. Shulman, Doris M. Tufts, Elsie E. Whitney.
Scientific Course—Stuart M. Boyd, John S. Carter, Warren C. Carter, Lester C. Conner, Philip B. Craighead, Harold M. Cyr, John H. Daley, Robert H. Dillon, Rolfe A. Folsom, Henry Rommer, Howard C. Sargent, Abraham A. Saunders.
Normal Course—Marion E. Davol, Marvel L. Horton, Anna E. Nilsson, Edna L. Pinkert, Florence R. Rimmer.
Five Courses of Study
In 1914 a high school student chose a course of study. The names of Malden's five courses show what the students planned to do next. In most high schools of the time they meant roughly this:
- General, the largest, with 60 graduates, including Edith: English, history, mathematics, science and a language, for students who were finishing their schooling with high school.
- Commercial, 39 graduates: bookkeeping, shorthand and typewriting, for students going to work in offices and stores.
- College, 13 graduates: Latin, Greek and the other subjects needed to pass the college entrance examinations.
- Scientific, 12 graduates: more mathematics and science, for students going on to a technical school or engineering.
- Normal, 5 graduates: for girls going on to a normal school, which trained teachers.
Edith's older sister, Ruth, took the path to teaching. She went to the normal school at Salem, later Salem State College, and spent her career teaching business subjects at Wakefield High School.
The salutatory speech that night was on “The Significance of International Peace.” Four days later, on June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot in Sarajevo, and by August most of Europe was at war. When the United States entered the war in 1917, Edith's future husband, Philip Stevens, was drafted into the army.
After High School
Edith stayed in Malden with her family on High Street. On November 3, 1923, she married Philip Duncan Stevens at her parents' home in Malden. The story of the wedding has its own page. Philip was born in Malden in 1894, the year before Edith.