By:JOSEPH KELLARD
Gladas Jacobson, Jean Ravalli and Helen Sorrentino are three of a group of some 13 sorority sisters who graduated Oceanside High School during the mid-1940s. Unlike many people who immediately or gradually lose contact with their high school chums, these woman gather just as regularly as they did after they graduated and went their separate yet similar ways.
Among their more recent get-togethers came at their alma mater's hall of fame Circle of Pride induction dinner at Oceanside's Knights of Columbus in May. A few of these women attended the inaugural dinner last year when their friend, Ernie Vanderweghe, a star athlete at OHS who played six seasons for the New York Knicks, flew in from California to be inducted in the Circle of Pride.
"I went over to Ernie Vanderweghe," said Ravalli, who still resides in Oceanside. "I hadn't seen him since high school. We were in homeroom together in the cafeteria. I took his hand and said, 'I'm Gene Turner, come with me.' And he joked, 'What do you think we are in the cafeteria?' His memory went right back to where we sat."
Ravalli and her group of girlfriends from the classes of 1944-45 shared a love of school and athletics. Collectively they played field hockey, basketball, volleyball and softball, and some filed up along the football field sidelines as cheerleaders.
"Most of us loved school and were really good students," Sorrentino told the Herald from her home in Baldwin.
The athletes among these girls accumulated points in their various sports based on attendance, making class or honors teams, and passing official tests. Once a girl earned 600 points, usually over the span of her high school career, she was eligible for a Gold Key. This opened the door to membership in the Long Island Girls Association, which hosted a banquet at year's end for Gold Key winners from various school districts.
While Sorrentino and Ravalli both earned Gold Keys for their athleticism, Jacobson became a cheerleader in her senior year and was named May Queen, an honor bestowed on the school's prettiest girl.
After graduating OHS, which was then at School 6 on Merle Avenue, most of the girls-turned-women got married and had children instead of attending college, certainly a sign of the times. Sorrentino, for one, was married in 1948 and raised five children who all attended School 2. Most of these women who remained in Oceanside or nearby often gathered again with their families, whether for picnics or celebrations at their homes. Some years they gathered about every month, other years it was at least once a year. But most of them never lost touch with one another, even when they moved out of state.
"I think what kept us together is that all the wives and husbands all bonded," said Ravalli, who worked with Sorrentino for New York Telephone in Hempstead. "A lot of the girls were together since we were in grade school and junior high. But I think what kept us together this long is that the fellas and the wives all bonded."
One of their more memorable gatherings came during the mid-1970s, when the OHS graduates reunited at the First Presbyterian Church of Oceanside. There they invited some teachers from their high school days, including their beloved Ruth Lewis, the first girls' physical education instructor in the district.
In 1994, they attended their 50th anniversary reunion at the Knights of Columbus. This night inspired many of the women to meet at least once a year. While about 8 of the former sorority sisters in Oceanside or nearby, others live in Florida, Vermont, California and Pennsylvania. So they get together yearly for a few days in Sebastian, Fla., where various past classes from OHS gather annually.
As an outgrowth of these gatherings in the sunshine state the women from the classes of 1944-45 began to meet last year in Island Park, first at the American Legion hall and next month at Lambrou's restaurant. On top of this, they dine at the Cherry Valley Country Club in Garden City one day a year to collectively celebrate each others birthdays. And being wives of war veterans, the women attended together a Veterans Day ceremony at Eisenhower Park.
At their get-togethers much of their conversations revolve around the good old days at OHS. Indicating how vastly times have changed, Jacobson recalled for the Herald that there were no social cliques at the high school, that "everybody knew everybody," and that the girls used to hitchhike down to Lido Beach in the summer.
"We just had a very good time," Ravalli remembered.
Of course, attended school during a time of a grand-scale war means they watched some of their male classmates march off to battle.
"We were sentimental about the boys in our school who went to war before they graduated," said Jacobson, who got married in 1951 and moved a decade later to her present residence in Garden City.
"They would write letters to the high school and we'd print them in our paper, the Sider Press," Ravalli remembered. "It was all rah-rah when they left, but of course a lot of them were killed." Ravalli added that when the young men came home on leave, they would go right to the high school on Foxhurst Road.
Ravalli remembered how people, even of meager means, made donations for the war effort. "Everyone chipped in and contributed."
Theorizing about what's kept them together and talking about old times, Sorrentino said, "I think families might have been much closer in those days. We were all in the same boat. We were all kind of poor and struggling. But we always talk about what good time it was when we were growing up."
