Bringing back memories of Portales’ Maypole tradition

Portales Excessive Faculty is ready to rejoice one of many oldest traditions in japanese New Mexico this week, with the winding of the Maypole. 

Maypole got here up in a dialog with my good friend, Jean Grissom, a couple of months again. Chances are you’ll keep in mind her as the previous resident of this space who I wrote about final October after I discovered she had stored a day by day diary for 83 years. 

Jean, who has lived in Paris, Texas, since 2009, turned 95 final month. In considered one of our periodic telephone calls, I requested her if she’d reply a couple of questions on her recollections of her 1944 Portales Excessive Faculty Maypole expertise, as a result of the distinction between that occasion and the glitzy fashionable Maypoles was fascinating. 

Fortunately, she agreed. 

First a little bit background: When Jean’s senior class was going by means of its end-of-year traditions in 1944, World Warfare II was raging. A lot of her male classmates had already enlisted and had been scattered across the globe. 

 On the entrance web page of the Portales Every day Information for Could 11, 1944, there was a plea for Roosevelt County residents to gather extra wastepaper for the battle effort — solely a half of a boxcar loaded had been gathered and “with the intention to ship the paper it must be in carload tons.” 

“Assist Wanted to Fold Bandages” was one other headline, detailing an effort by the American Crimson Cross to get 18,000 bandages folded to make room for an extra 36,000 anticipated to the arrive the subsequent week. 

“Folders are wanted every afternoon within the jury room on the Court docket Home,” the article learn. 

Native film goers may select between Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Set off starring in “Cowboy and the Senorita” on the Yam Theatre, and Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette in “Rootin’ Tootin’ Rhythm” on the Kiva. 

One web page 2, I discovered this tiny merchandise: “Friday – Senior class evening and the winding of the Maypole, 8 p.m., Junior Excessive Faculty.” 

“All issues had been held on the junior excessive fitness center,” Jean advised me, “as the highschool constructing didn’t have a fitness center with bleachers for the general public to sit down on.” 

Jean despatched me a letter, handwritten on pink paper “since it’s springtime,” wrapped round her copy of the Senior Class Night time program from 1944, a yellowed mimeographed booklet with a hand drawn image of a boy and lady dancing barefoot in grass as they wind streamers round a pole. 

Solely factor is, “no boys wound the Maypole” that 12 months, Jean mentioned. 

The truth is, on the Junior/Senior banquet held the week earlier than on the First United Methodist Church, the Portales Every day Information famous that junior class president Billie Joe Tucker gave the welcome, “mentioning particularly these boys who had been unable to attend as a result of they’ve deemed the service of their nation the foremost and have donned uniforms.” 

Aside from sharing the identical title and primary idea as at this time, the 1944 version of Maypole was “so quite simple,” Jean mentioned. 

“The Maypole was simply that,” she mentioned, “an enormous pole, in all probability put in storage for subsequent 12 months’s use. We college students took strips of crepe paper, hooked up it on the prime, and we wound it round … walked in circles across the pole up and down till all of the paper was on.” 

For decorations, “one lady and I took a sack over to Abilene Avenue,” Jean mentioned. “We knew a woman with plenty of rose bushes. She allow us to lower them and we positioned them across the base of the pole on the ground.” 

Based on Jean’s class evening program, 36 younger girls wound the Maypole that night, forming 18 pairs. 

“We solely practiced a few times at most,” she mentioned. “We simply signed as much as wind. The lady I wound with (Margaret Gwin) was my bridesmaid additionally.” 

Jean’s floor-length gown — no hoop skirts for this crowd — was made by her grandmother from mild yellow cotton materials strewn with pink rosebuds. 

“She later lower off a number of the skirt so I might use it for church,” Jean mentioned. “No hairdos. My grandmother did let me put on lipstick. She let me put on fingernail polish, too. Some ladies weren’t allowed that. No corsages. No events or something allowed. No meal. All very strict and plain.” 

And but, oh so memorable. 

Jean has outlived most of her classmates now; she believes that Jim Warnica who died in September was “the final of the boys.” 

However once they had been nonetheless having reunions, the category of 1944 “had the perfect ones,” Jean mentioned. 

Maybe that was partly due to the battle and maybe partly as a result of recollections had been made so merely and so sincerely — with crepe paper streamers and a yellow cotton gown and roses gathered contemporary from simply down the road. 

Betty Williamson needs a lovely Maypole to the category of 2022. Attain her at:

[email protected]