BY KRISTIN BEUSCHER
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
CLOSTER, N.J. ——Seventy-five years ago America was embroiled in World War II, and Closter High School’s newspaper of December of 1942 reflects the fact that student life on the homefront was greatly impacted by what was happening thousands of miles away on foreign battlefields. Certainly the kids attending the high school would have known boys who had already joined the military (or been drafted) and who were stationed all over the world.
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One article in the Beacon talks about sending Christmas gifts to soldiers overseas.
“For many Americans, Christmas started early this year. Christmas packages have been received and many more are on their way to foreign lands. Through the news we have learned that a few ships bearing these precious gifts have been lost at sea. Still in all hearts there is a hope that a kind Providence will see to it that ‘Johnny’ will be able to open his package on Christmas Day. Post office authorities tell us that not so many cards are going through this year, but that parcels have kept them more busy than ever.
“We hear from all sides that the young folks of America do not, as yet, realize what war means. Perhaps this is so. If it is, then let’s wake up and start right now to show the real Christian spirit by Giving, Giving, Giving. What can we give? In our school we have a Junior Service Club. The supplies they ask for we can furnish, merely by going through the trunks and closets in which our mothers store the clothing which members of the family have cast aside.
“We can give War Stamps for Christmas, too–and by doing so we can make our gifts serve a double purpose. This need not be a sad Christmas. Our men in service are doing a fine job, and we should be right behind them, doing our bit.”
The work of many student organizations at this time centered on the war effort.
That autumn a new school club had formed to learn war songs and host community sing-alongs. Members were also working on making scrapbooks of cartoons, jokes and photos to send to boys in the armed forces, as well as making quilts for the Red Cross and army hospitals.
Another new group, the Library Club, was working on a history of all Closter boys in the service. An aviation club formed to provide pre-flight training to upperclassmen.
In gym class, kids did a mild form of a military drill. Meanwhile, the guidance department helped students find jobs that would aid the war effort, and in home economics, “competency in wartime production and consumption” were stressed.
In late 1942 Closter High School students also hosted a scrap metal drive to collect materials for the war effort. Similar drives were happening all over the nation at that time.
According to an article in the Beacon, “Upper classmen pressed into service private cars and even the local town truck, while members of the junior high furnished their own transportation in the form of express wagons, pony carts, and baby coaches. Even the girls, from seniors to the seventh graders, arrived in slacks and pushed and pulled heavy pieces of metal to their slotted bins in back of the high school.”
The principal wrote in a message for the school paper, “Closter High School should do everything in its power to help with the war. No one knows how long the war will continue, but eminent authorities believe that it will last at least one or two years longer. By that time many of our present junior and senior boys will have been called into the service. Many of the girls now in the upper classes will have joined either one or another of the organizations in the armed services formed for women, or will be in some kind of war industry.
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“Our school curricula will be modified as far as possible so as to help our boys and girls in whatever phase of war work they may enter. We are securing exact information from every branch of the armed forces … In some cases there is quite a probability that the courses will be entirely changed to help with the war effort.
“The principals of North Jersey, in a two-day conference, attempted to decide what the schools can do to aid in the war effort. Students may now study first aid, home nursing, join the club in aeronautics, and aid themselves through strenuous physical exercise.”
The Closter High School on Durie Avenue operated from 1912 until 1955 when the Northern Valley Regional High School in Demarest opened. The Closter Jr./Sr. High School was then renamed the Village Middle School and housed the sixth, seventh and eighth grades until it closed in 1996.
The Borough of Closter recently decided to purchase the long-vacant building, with plans to construct affordable housing units in the circa 1900 building.