What Will Happen by 1960?

The Dreams, Jokes, and Friendship of Lincoln School’s Class of 1950

A yearbook can preserve the formal details of a graduating class—the names, portraits, activities, and honors. But every so often, its pages preserve something even more precious: the personalities of the students themselves.

The 1950 Lincoln School yearbook gives us just such a gift in its “Class Prophecy” and “Class Will.” Written with rhyme, wit, playful exaggeration, and a healthy supply of inside jokes, these pages offer a delightful window into the minds of young people standing at the threshold of adulthood.

They were completing an extraordinary achievement. Lincoln was Wheeling’s segregated school for African American students, and the members of its Class of 1950 had pursued their education in a country that still denied Black Americans equal access and opportunity.

Yet as graduation approached, these 17- and 18-year-olds made room for something wonderfully familiar: imagining their futures, teasing their friends, celebrating their personalities, and leaving the next class a few unforgettable parting words.

They were making history—but they were also having fun.

Big Dreams, Written in Rhyme

The class prophecy, written by Mary Belle Sinclair, looks ten years into the future and asks what might become of “this great class of 1950.”

Its answers are ambitious, affectionate, and often hilarious.

The students imagined their classmates becoming artists, doctors, nurses, journalists, musicians, business professionals, real estate agents, writers, and dietitians. Shirley Atkins would become a portrait painter capable of making Rembrandt’s glory seem faint. Charles Dillon would become a doctor. Anna Jackson and Anna Ruth would turn their curiosity into careers as scoop-finding journalists. Marion Newman would become a radio crooner, while Eugene Hairston would make his living playing the clarinet in the hottest spots.

Some predictions were clearly inspired by genuine aspirations. Others were playful twists on reputations already well established among classmates. Nearly all were delivered with the gentle humor of young people who knew one another well.

The language also reminds us that this was 1950. Several predictions reflect the era’s expectations for women, including ideas about marriage and domestic life that feel dated today. That, too, is part of what makes a yearbook valuable. It preserves not only the students but also the social world in which they were coming of age.

Among the predictions is one especially dear to our family:

“Beverly Pervall, who went to business college,In a high class office, displays her knowledge.”

Beverly Pervall was my grandmother and, together with her future husband and fellow Lincoln alumnus Eugene Stradwick, one of the namesakes of our Foundation. Seeing her imagined as a knowledgeable young professional makes her feel wonderfully present—not only as the grandmother our family knew, but as an ambitious teenager whose classmates could already see her potential.

The Senior Class Has Spoken

If the prophecy reveals the students’ dreams, the “Class Will” reveals their personalities.

Written in the grand style of a legal testament, it begins with the seniors leaving Lincoln School the example they had set as “worthy scholars and blameless students.” To the junior class, they generously bequeathed their dignity, brilliance, good looks, wit, and charming manners.

The modesty is overwhelming.

From there, the will becomes a parade of affectionate jokes. Classmates leave behind their abilities to sleep through class, skip school, arrive late, dance, play the clarinet, mind their own business—or do precisely the opposite.

These playful bequests tell us things no official record could. They hint at classroom mishaps, familiar habits, friendly rivalries, musical talents, running jokes, and the laughter shared in hallways. We may not understand every reference more than seven decades later, but the affection behind them remains unmistakable.

And then we find Beverly again.

In the class will, “Beverly Pervall’s prowess as a cheer leader” is handed down to another student—along with her megaphone.

That one sentence brings an entire scene to life. Before she became a wife, mother, grandmother, and namesake of this Foundation, Beverly was a Lincoln cheerleader with a megaphone in her hand and enough spirit to be remembered for it.

For me, that may be the greatest gift of these pages. They allow me to meet my grandmother as her classmates knew her: intelligent, ambitious, spirited, and full of school pride.

Why Their Laughter Matters

When we study African American history, we must tell the truth about segregation, discrimination, and injustice. Lincoln’s students were educated within a system that separated them from white students and denied them equality.

But hardship is not the whole of Black history.

Black history is also friendship. It is music and mischief. It is confidence, creativity, ambition, inside jokes, and a cheerleader’s megaphone. It is young people claiming the freedom to dream about who they might become.

The Class of 1950 refused to let segregation define the limits of their imagination. Their prophecy carried them into offices, hospitals, studios, newsrooms, hotels, concert halls, and businesses. Their will declared—playfully but proudly—that they were scholars, leaders, and an influence for honorable and better things in their community.

On May 23, 1950, these seniors signed their class will and prepared to step into an uncertain future. They could not have known all the changes the coming decades would bring. They could not have known exactly where their lives would lead.

But they knew they had accomplished something worth celebrating.

So they marked the moment in their own way—with poetry, humor, hope, and just enough teasing to ensure that no classmate escaped graduation with too much dignity intact.

Help Us Complete the Story

The prophecy ends with a question:

“Will these things happen? We hope so, don’t you?”

More than 75 years later, we would love to answer it.

Did these predictions come true? What careers did these graduates pursue? What became of their talents, friendships, and dreams? Which jokes would their families still recognize?

If you knew a member of Lincoln School’s Class of 1950—or if your family has photographs, memories, documents, or stories connected to these students—we invite you to share them with the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation.

Together, we can preserve not only the milestones of their lives, but also their voices and personalities.

Because history is not made only in solemn moments. Sometimes it is written by a group of teenagers, laughing together as they imagine the future—and making sure the next class inherits all their brilliance, charm, tardiness, and unfinished homework.

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today.

In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.