1945 Kensington High School Yearbook, Part 1 of 3

Academic year 1944-45 drew to a close after V-E Day but while the War in the Pacific still raged.

The theme was the City of Buffalo, in which high-school students were graduating while many of the veterans were returning, at least temporarily.  It seemed that a land invasion of Japan would be necessary.

Featured in the City Seal are the Port of Buffalo with lighthouse; a sailing vessel such as transported grain or coal from the Midwest; a canal boat on the Erie Canal.  The Compass version of the Seal showed the mule team towing the canal boat.

Zdrojewski family tradition holds that Ludwig and Victoria landed at Ellis Island, took a train to Albany, then crossed the Empire State from east to west in a boat on the Erie Canal.  The first jobs the menfolk had were as stevedores, unloading the ships at the docks of the Port of Buffalo.

The flyleaf announces the artistic theme of the volume:  "A Film of Buffalo as Seen from the Air."

 

The endpapers illustrate scenes of Buffalo past, present, and presumed future, most from an aerial perspective, and garnished overall with strips of film.

Buck Rogers would have liked the futuristic Buffalo cityscape.

The film projector and the school building are joined artistically on the title page.

 

 I like this bookplate.  Mom should have inscribed her name there!  It has City Hall and a stack of books, some of which are done up in a bookstrap.

Imagery on the back cover recalls the Seal elements, the compass, the arrow, and military chevrons, all contributing to a civic result.