We’re nearing the end of graduation season, a time when people think back on their youth with longing and/or embarrassment and wonder what on earth they’re going to do with the extra cake and balloons.
I attended the Swan’s Island School’s eighth grade graduation this year—an event which did not exist in my own school but which is a big deal out here. In Cazenovia, we moved from eighth to ninth grade by shifting our books and gum wrappers from the lockers by the football field to the lockers by the science teachers. Our physical progress through the grades was gentle; we went from hall to hall like dogs following a trail of biscuits to some surprise location.
There’s a lot more at stake out here. In a K-8 school, eighth grade marks the end of waiting for the bus at the bottom of your driveway, the end of your parents dropping by school with that permission slip you forgot, the end of being surrounded by people—from your classmates to your teachers to the lunch lady—who have all known you and your family for years.
Many kids never return to live on the island after leaving for high school. Gwen Staples May and Clint Staples are siblings who both grew up on Swan’s, though only Gwen ended up making her permanent home on Swan’s. They both remember their graduations in the early 1960s.
At that point the event was held at the Odd Fellows Hall.
“We would start practicing graduation maybe a couple or three weeks before it happened, and it was a big event,” Clint explained.
“The hall would fill up. I was the—I don’t know the name. Grand marshal, I guess. I was tall, and somebody apparently thought I had some rhythm because I was the guy who had to stand in front of people walking backwards with a broomstick decorated with tape. My mother was very good at wrapping the broomstick with different kinds of ribbon. And I would have to swing it up and down to the beat and make sure everybody stayed in step.”
Clint said all the students had to give speeches.
“Oh, I always got scared. Having a little speech to make or just being up there in front of a crowd and being totally out of place, in clean clothes—not necessarily clean, but you know, better clothes. I didn’t like getting all dressed up,” Clint said.
He remembered his mother’s grooming: “She would see that my hair wasn’t right and she would take sugar, mix it with water and put it on my head. My hair was so stiff with sugar in it—but it held it in place. I didn’t like her doing that, but that’s what she would do, and everything had to be nice and neat.”
Clearly, the siblings had different opinions on the dress code.
“There was always a dance after graduation too,” Gwen said. “Oh, that was a big deal. The whole island went. We were all beautified up, our hair was done, and we just were in our first set of heels. Nylons and all of that lovely stuff. Flowers, corsages, and of course boutonnieres for the guys.”
She explained the tradition: “The eighth grade graduations here are such a big deal because [the kids] are moving on to another whole town. Like my kids went away and were gone for four years, home once a month. They’re going out in the world like a senior in high school would be going out in the world to go to college. Our kids are leaving just to go to MDI [Mount Desert Island]. But it’s out in the world to them.”
Best of luck to these brave students!
Kaitlin Webber is an Island Fellow on Swan’s Island, working with the historical society, through AmeriCorps and the Island Institute.