Skipping School

Remember that sunny Spring day in 1969 when you ditched school to hang out with your friends? No? Well, we at the Easton Historical Society can help you. Rescued from the trash a decade ago, the Historical Society has a run of school attendance records that start in 1867 and end in 1970. They will be easily available for reference in the Society's new first floor library. Why would anyone want to take a look? The records often include the names of parents and the address where the student lived, a boon for genealogists., and unlike grade registers-"You got a D from Doc Harrison, Daddy? You told me you only got A's and B's"-there is very little embarrassing information in these records.

 An almost complete run of Town Reports will also be found in the Society's new library. For the period covered by the school registers researchers will be able to find an epidemic, like the Spanish Flu of 1918, in the Town Reports and then track it's true impact in the school absence records. The Historical Society will be taking its fragile pre-1910 town reports and xeroxing them to make them even more readily available to researchers. True OA high school yearbooks begin in 1949 and the Society will be putting these in the library as well. Prior to 1949 the school magazine served as the yearbook. Those magazines will also be included in the xerox project so that researchers can use them without damaging the fragile originals.

History is more than the story of the Washingtons and Lincolns. Your family, the families who lived in your home before you, and the people of your neighborhood are all important parts of America's story as well. Come discover it at the Easton Historical Society.