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Pocatello High School Yearbook Set (1940–1945) — WWII Home Front to Victory, Same Original Owner — "The Poky High Collection"
A remarkable four-year run of yearbooks from Pocatello High School, Idaho, tracing one American high school from the last year of peace through the entirety of WWII — all four copies from the same original owner, a beloved teacher named Miss Evans.
Together, they form a continuous, documentable narrative of a single school community's experience of the war — from the last carefree yearbook before Pearl Harbor, through the shock of the war's outbreak, into the heart of the war effort, and finally to the year the war ended. Because all four belonged to the same teacher and are inscribed by her students throughout, you can trace one woman's years at Poky High across both the pre-war and wartime annuals — a rare, cohesive provenance thread that's hard to find across a single yearbook, let alone four.
The Set
1940 — The Last Year of Peace
Published nearly two years before Pearl Harbor. Nicer pre-rationing cloth cover with an embossed tipped-in photo of the school. Includes a die-cut, fold-out accordion travel booklet (illustrated, rhyming verse) and a tipped-in program for the operetta "Sweethearts" (March 1940). Lithographed by Graves & Potter, Inc.; edited by Walton Kirk. Inscribed to Miss Evans ("Here's to a grand teacher").
1942 — The Year War Arrived
Covers the 1941–42 school year — the actual transition from peace to war. Two-page "Pocatello High School Takes Part in Defense" spread quotes the school's response to Pearl Harbor directly, and names Vernon Nipper, the school's former student body president, as the first Idaho youth killed in the war. Includes a tipped-in program for "The Red Mill" (March 1942) and a hand-lettered closing verse on wartime fads.
1944 — "Dear Joe": A Yearbook Written as a Letter to a Soldier
The entire book is structured as a running letter to a fictional soldier, Pvt. Joe Pocatellian — cover embossed like a censored V-mail envelope, postmarked June 1944. Documents the Harvest Vacation potato/beet effort ("over $22,000" earned), teachers doing wartime bandage-rolling and canteen work, and closes with a genuinely moving send-off to Joe from the whole student body. Extensively inscribed by students, several thanking Miss Evans by name.
1945 — The Year the War Ended
An In Memoriam page names three Pocatello students killed in service. A collaged newspaper-headline spread covers FDR's death, the Battle for Berlin, and the crossing of the Rhine alongside photos of alumni home on leave. Includes "Jobs for Jills — Spud Drudges" (girls harvesting potatoes for the war effort), a typed memorial poem for a fallen classmate, and visibly thinner, rationed paper stock — a direct physical contrast to the 1940 copy.
Why This Set Matters
Most wartime yearbooks mention the war in passing. This run documents it from four different vantage points in real time — anticipation-free peacetime, the shock of entry, the grinding middle years of the war effort, and the war's end — narrated, inscribed, and lived by the same school community, and preserved by one teacher who kept all four.
Condition
All four books show honest wear consistent with age (80–86 years old) and heavy use/inscription:
- 1940: cloth cover, generally solid; condition consistent with age
- 1942: please see individual notes; includes tipped-in program insert
- 1944: cover residue/staining, some spine tightness/creasing, otherwise good for its age
- 1945: heavy classmate signatures throughout in ink, spine wear near binding, some cover staining
All four are sold as a set, as originally kept together by their owner.
