The year was 1943. The Casablanca Conference between Churchill and Roosevelt was held. Hitler ordered the "scorched earth" policy and the massacre in the Warsaw ghetto occurred.
Other notable historic headlines of 1943 also included Eisenhower announcing Italy's unconditional surrender; Noel Coward wrote "This Happy Breed;" Ernie Pyle wrote "Here's Your War;" Betty Smith wrote "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn;" "Casablanca" won the Academy Award for the best picture and frankfurters were replaced by victory sausages.
All over the country there was a wartime ban on the sale of pre- sliced bread. Shoe rationing began, limiting the purchaser to three pairs for the remainder of the year and the George Washington High School class of 1943 was dancing to "Mairzy Doats," "Oh What A Beautiful Morning,"" I'll be Seeing You" and "A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening."
That class of 1943 came back home over this past weekend, gathering at Belle Haven Country Club to celebrate 60 years of friendship.
"We were expecting about 100 people," said Robert McArter, one of the organizers of the event. "Most everyone is from our class, but we do have class members who married people from other classes, so there will be some other groups represented."
Like many of his classmates, McArter had joined the military to fight in World War II and left shortly after graduation. There is a monument to those GW High School graduates who gave their lives in that war.
GW opened its doors in 1935, bringing together students from George Mason High School in Del Ray and Alexandria High School on King Street. By 1971, when GW had its last graduating class, many things had changed. The school became a junior high school and is now a middle school, but those who remember it as a high school get together regularly to celebrate the school and the friendships that were made in its hallways.
THOSE WHO ATTENDED last weekend's celebration came from across the country, from Florida and California and from Idaho and New York. Among those in attendance were a federal judge, a former assistant Alexandria city attorney, patent attorneys, lawyers, doctors, military retirees and retired civil servants and entrepreneurs. What they have in common is, according to McArter, "a love for the years they spent in that old art deco brick and stone schoolhouse at 1005 Mt. Vernon Avenue."
Their school motto was on the lips of many at Saturday night's party, as it was in 1943 — "On GW."