Class of 1940 plans to meet after 70 years

The Brownsville High School Class of 1940 will hold its 70-year reunion in October.

On a scorching day earlier this month, organizer Vangie Hanggler stood in her living room, flipping through the yellowed pages of an old yearbook. A few of her old high school classmates sat on the couches.

The group has been getting together the past few months to plan the event, and is hoping to bring together as many people as possible.

"We hope people can make it, although we understand a lot of people cannot come because they can no longer travel or some have died," the sprightly, 83-year-old woman said.

Back in the day, Brownsville only had one high school. Families all knew each other. So most in the class met in first grade — some go as far back as kindergarten.

They’re a strong bunch. They lived through the Great Depression and both World Wars, which they said made them a close-knit group and part of a resilient generation.

"The Depression toughened us for what was coming, which was the war and the loss of so many of the boys we knew just out of school," Nena Garcia Malone said in Hanggler’s living room.

Sitting next to her, Sarah C. Walker remembered the poverty.

"We did not realize we were poor because everybody in the city was poor," she said. No one, not even the teachers, had a car — except Frank Yturria, a son of one of the wealthiest families in Brownsville.

"I never dreamed I would be alive to witness another monetary problem," Walker said of the most recent recession. "But (the first depression) was a blessing because it made us hard-working. We learned the value of a dollar."

And the group remains thrifty. They plan to spend only $179.42 on this last celebration. They have already mailed out hundreds of invitations, which has been tricky. At one reunion a few years ago, Hanggler recalled, a classmate thought to be dead attended the party.

"We were so excited to see him," Hanggler said. "He promised to come to every one after that, but he did not make it to the next one."

The class had its first reunion in 1960 and began getting together every 10 years after that. Recently, they started holding class gatherings every five years—then every two years because, as Hanggler put it, "we all started dropping like flies."

This 70-year reunion "will probably be our last," she said. "We probably will not last much longer."