I went a school that no longer exists. For someone who is mildly obsessed with reunions and Facebook, it is disconcerting to be so disconnected from a place where I spent eight years of my childhood.
Recently, I stumbled upon a Facebook group for people who studied at Vail-Deane in either Elizabeth or Mountainside, NJ. I couldn’t believe it! Here were old friends and teachers. Right here!
It was a very small class (I’m pretty sure there were only eight girls in my class of 15 or so in seventh grade), so we really knew everyone. There are current pictures and yearbook pictures of people. I spent quite a while foraging through the pictures and remembering my time there.
If any of you out there went to Vail-Deane and remember my class (class of 1994, although I left in seventh grade), I’d love to be in touch!
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I only have yearbooks from 1987-1990 – and I took pictures of the underclassmen pages from the years 1987 and 1990 and tagged everybody’s faces.
Almost immediately, much to my shock, other Vail Deane alumni started linking faces not just to the names as I did, but started linking them to their FACEBOOK accounts. Every few hours I see more real people being linked up to their school pictures – truly in the spirit of Facebook itself!
I only started Sunday morning, and by Tuesday morning, eight people tagged over 30 classmates, and the circle grows wider and wider.
If you have yourself a digital camera and a Vail Deane yearbook, do what I did and get some of those pictures online. We may yet be an all digital alumni for a school that now only exists as the common shared memory of a several hundred scattered souls.
Kenneth Udut, class of 1990, now in Naples, Florida
Thanks so much, Kenneth! I really appreciate what you’ve done and I’m sure others do, too.
Facebook is really amazing.