Found: A Cousin in a Yearbook

I've finally found success with Ancestry.com's U.S. School Yearbook's database. I've searched this database before with no success, but today I noticed it was "updated." So, I decided to see if I could find anything of interest to me. I started browsing and saw that there were two yearbooks listed for Greenville, Greenville, SC in a time span that would apply to my mom's cousins.

So I searched for my 1st cousins, once removed, and had success with the younger one. I found "Cousin Jim" quite quickly - though I didn't recognize him. I called mom over and she verified that the boy in the photo was her cousin. He's pictured as a sophomore in his class photo and again with his football team. (I also learned from my mom that my older cousin did not attend high school in Greenville, so I stopped looking for him there.)

(Wade Hampton High School Yearbook - 1976. Vol. 16, (Greenville, SC), Pg 216.)

Vexations of Childhood

There are certain things that I look back on from childhood that I regret. One of those is the way I treated my elementary school yearbooks. My parents always bought their children a yearbook each school year when they were available. I have copies of K, 1, & 4-12. The condition of the yearbooks... well, it's regrettable.

I have a vague memory of browsing through my Kindergarden and 1st grade yearbooks with pens, markers and scissors. Yup - I destroyed them! I remember wanting to "protect" and "preserve" certain pictures and memories. I cut out photos and drew all over the pictures of my classmates. Here's what's left:

Kindergarden (above) is mostly intact. I colored over most of my classmates, leaving my own image clean. I cut out the group photo and it is now missing.

First Grade (above) is almost all missing! I assume the blue arrow indicates where my photo was - before I destroyed it.

I think that I might need to make a trip to my old elementary school (nearby, thank goodness) to make copies of the pages that I destroyed. It won't be the same as having the original book intact, but it would be better than the way things are now.