Working in the college archives is a little like working in the attic of an old house, where generations of family have stored their pictures, books, documents and so on. Sometimes you run across something while looking for another item and find yourself sidetracked, wondering what it is that you've turned up. That happend to your archivist just today. Looking through some boxes of historical photographs, I found a bundle of individual photographs of students, dating from about 1887 to 1905. Some are identified, some not. One little photo slipped out from between some others, and on the back was noted in pencil Rose Pled... Class of 1902. The last name was hard to make out, and getting curious I looked her up in a 1917 book which is a history of the school to that point and a register of alumni. There for 1902 was a Rosetta May Pledger, undoubtedly the same student as in the class photo shown here. Not much more about her is in the record at a brief glance, except that in that 1917 book she was listed as a Mrs. F.C. Hill and living in Adams Basin. Presumably she taught school after graduation, as most of our graduates did then, and then married at some point.
She was a grad of the old Normal School in the days before WWI, long before the Teachers College of the 1940s or today's College at Brockport. But there were good teachers then, as now, and students had social activities to enjoy as well, just like today. The year Rose graduated actually was the first year for Color Day, a spring event that quickly became a popular event with both the college community and that of the village.
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