Texarkana, Texas High School Charles Dickens could have said of those double-blow years, "It was the worst of times and ... it was the worst of times." But those who lived through the late 1930s and early '40s didn't realize that later generations would consider their years as harder than most. They have happy memories of high school. The Texas High School class of 1939 will have its reunion Saturday and more than one member has commented that Tom Brokaw's book, "The Greatest Generation," includes their age group. The class will meet and reminisce, laugh and remember the good times. The planning committee has already started gathering their memories. The graduates in 1939 had spent most of their young lives in the Great Depression, the biggest economic crisis America ever had. They didn't know it then but when they graduated they would be catapulted into the most encompassing, devastating war the world has ever known. The late Sally Reese, a member of that class and a former newspaper reporter, wrote a first-person account for the Texarkana Gazette at the time of the 50th Reunion: "The world as we knew it was approaching an end the night we got our diplomas from Texas High, May 31, 1939. "We didn't know it then, but World War II was just three months away. Hitler invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, and Great Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later, and World War II began." The economy was slowly improving by 1939 but times were not flush yet-prosperity was several years away and to be bought at a terrible cost. But at the time, the graduates looked forward to a good life, one better than the struggles their parents suffered. Of what was behind them, the members say they accepted it; of what was ahead, they say they just did what was expected of them. "I guess as we grew up, all we knew were hard times and everyone else was in the same shape," said Alice Hatchett Quillin. "I remember when the Depression hit-we kids just knew that something terrible had happened. I don't remember my parents sitting us down and talking to us about it, or even explaining it. We knew, and we knew our friends were going through the same thing we were so there wasn't any envy or hard feelings. And we knew about some kids who were much worse off than we were." At a meeting of the planning committee, the group discussed and wrote down some of their memories and feelings. The committee consists of Quillin (who also gave a personal interview), Marle Dunnam Street, France Hibbitts Kittrell, Dorothy Sue Barbara Patterson and Marguerite Holman Magee. They remembered a simpler, happy time. Quillin remembers her grandfather had bought some property on Olive Street so her grandparent's home, her family's home and her uncle's home were in a row along 2121 Olive St. (families often all built on the same property during the "30s.) The house is still standing and is still known by some as the Hatchett house. "We had small yards, but we all had vegetable gardens we worked in," Quillin said. "Mother always put dinner on the table for all the kids in the neighborhood who wanted to eat with us-it might be cornbread, beans and tomatoes from the garden, simple but very good. My mother, like most housewives, fed hobos who came by too." The students' school clothes were homemade, including girls' prom dresses, and most clothes were passed down. "I don't think I had a brand new coat until I was grown," she said. "I was lucky because mother was a good seamstress and also did fine needle work so I had nice clothes." Jobs were so scarce that few high school kids could find part-time work except on farms, running a paper route or making deliveries. Mothers, by custom, didn't work and any available jobs would go to the head of the household. Quillin's father was a projectionist at the Hippodrome movie house, and had a job during the Depression (for about $10 a week, enough then). Going to the movies was one of the few luxuries they allowed themselves. Otherwise the young people listened to the radio and got together to socialize. Neighborhoods were like extended families, and school was the most important daily social contact. "We needed each other for entertainment," Quillin said. "We read the newspapers and ran to see the newsboy when he called, `Extra, Extra.' We enjoyed school activities and sports just like kids do now, but I think we were necessarily closer because there wasn't a lot that we could afford to do. Our classmates and our families were a big part of our lives." The classmates remember the Tiger Band rated third division in playing and second division in marching their senior year. They went to out-of-town games on trains, but the biggest game was just across town when Texas High and Arkansas High played the "Turkey Day Game." P.K. Browning had a coverall-overall factory on New Boston Road, Quillin said, and he made the white and orange outfits for the cheerleaders, the band sweethearts, drum major and pep squad. "Not only were school-sponsored dances popular, and we loved to jitterbug, friends would have dances at the new resplendent McCartney Hotel and the grand old Grim Hotel," Quillin and her friends wrote. "Some of the Texas High seniors played in local bands, and we had some roller-skating rinks. At school we had band concerts and Bobo the Magician would come and entertain." In warm weather, the high school kids swam in Akins Creek and Braumiller's Lake on Texas Avenue. Spring Lake Park was popular for picnics too. Everything they needed was in walking distance-it had to be because driving a car was a luxury in the "30s. People didn't take many vacations then except to visit relatives. "We had the highest respect for our teachers in high school, and we would never be disrespectful-not out of fear, but because we looked up to them. We were active in our churches, and my church, Highland Park, helped out the less fortunate, and I'm sure the others did too with their parishioners. "We all knew people who were hungry, but no children were pointed out or made to feel different. Hard times are a great leveler and we were all pretty much on the same level. Tom Brokaw referred to us as a generation of survivors, but we just accepted that this was the way things were and it didn't do any good wanting more." When the class of 1939 graduated, at 8 p.m. May 31, 1939, there were 153 graduates who started off on their new lives. The boys went out to find jobs driving laundry trucks, working in grocery stores and whatever they could find. Not many could afford to go to college, only the fortunate few could afford a university. "Most families could only afford one child in college and that would be the sons because they would be the breadwinners." Most of the young people married right out of high school and Quillin married her husband, George Quillin, in 1940. Just as the young couples began their struggle to make a life for themselves, some of them starting families, they were very aware of the war in Europe and the threat that hovered over them. "It was a Sunday night when I heard about Pearl Harbor and I remember Walter Winchell telling about it on the radio," she said. "Things were never the same. All of the young men we had just graduated with went off to war, and in no time Texarkana was cleaned out of young men. I remember when one of the first ones was killed-a pilot who got all of his crew out and then was killed in the crash. " It was the first of many deaths the class suffered. Red River Army Ordinance was built and jobs were plentiful, although little else was. No gas, tires or new cars, and rationing limited sugar, coffee, shoes, butter and meat. "You couldn't get a room in town, or rent a house," Quillin said. "One family fixed up their chicken house and rented it out as an apartment. We were out of the Depression but into a war." And now they are celebrating-some 60 or 70 including spouses-at 6 p.m. Saturday at Special Events "on the boulevard." As Reese said, "We were children of the Depression, who grew to adulthood in the midst of a global conflict." And perhaps with luck, no other class will have to go through such double blows. But if they do, may they do it with as much grace as those of the class of '39.