Graduations are always a time to look forward. And back.
As the Staples High School Class of 2025 took its place in history, Josh Berkowsky looked way back.
For the past few months he’s researched and documented the lives of people buried in Saugatuck Church’s Evergreen Cemetery, for the church’s Cemetery Commission.
He has pored over census data, directory notices, draft cards, and much more.
Staples’ 1939 yearbook.
Including Staples’ 1939 yearbook.
There, in the “literary” section — wedged between a class history, and the ambitions of those students — was a piece of writing by senior Seymour Breslow.
Titled “Democracy Faces the Future,” it poignantly and skillfully expressed the great anxiety that permeated the world in that dark hour.
Austria and Czechoslovakia had already been annexed by Germany. Soon, the invasion of Poland would plunge the world into its deadliest conflict ever.
Seymour was born in 1921 in New York City to Jacob and Ethel Breslow, Jewish immigrants from Poland. Sometime before 1935, he and his family moved to Westport.
In the 1940 census, his father was listed as general manager of a candy store. The Breslows rented a house on 178 Riverside Avenue, right next to Staples.
The 1939 Staples yearbook noted Seymour’s many activities.
Seymour — the oldest of 3 children — acted in the Senior Play of 1939, George M. Cohan’s “Seven Keys to Baldpate.” His ambition was to become a doctor.
Seymour Breslow (back row, 2nd from left), and fellow seniors in the Staples class play.
Josh hopes that Seymour’s words “may ring out among his neighbors and countrymen yet again, so we may find they apply to today’s world as much in 2025 as they did in 1939.” Seymour wrote:
The audience has arisen and the graduates begin the last step in high school life.
After 12 years of concentrated study, we, the graduates of 1939, are leaving to make a place for ourselves in the world.
Some of us will continue work in colleges and professional schools, and some of us will seek positions at once, but regardless of what we do, we will all be faced with the problems of today.
Today, more than in other days, we are disturbed by the problems of government upheaval in various parts of the world. On one side we see wars of aggression, invasion of innocent countries, and the consequent activities which make one wonder if the world is entitled to be called civilized; on the other side dictatorship is spreading, casting its evil eye on the small countries unable to defend themselves.
We in America are not in immediate danger of invasion by aggressors or of having our government overthrown by communists or fascists, but we are constantly being propagandized with the materials released by these groups.
In 1939, the “new” Staples High School was just 3 years old. It was built next to the original 1884 building, on Riverside Avenue. Today, it’s Saugatuck Elementary School.
When we consider that, for over 150 years, we have lived happily under the democratic form of government, it is indeed difficult to acknowledge the value of any other form of government for us in this country.
Under no other form of government can the people and the press state their views and opinions without fear of death or oppression. We have only to take into account the sufferings of people in other countries before we can appreciate the blessings of democracy which we enjoy.
In Germany, for example, we find oppressed people filling the concentration camps, suffering unspeakable miseries of horrible torture and inhuman treatment. In the United States people fill the lecture halls and amusement places.
With utter disregard for the fundamental liberties and rights of human beings, Fascism has brought into use methods which were condemned in the Middle Ages as barbarous.
We in the United States are fortunate in that we have both the Atlantic and the Pacific as natural boundaries. These mighty barriers are not yet easily penetrable by modern airplanes and bombing expeditions.
In 1936 — when Seymour Breslow was a sophomore — President Roosevelt made a re-election campaign stop at the Westport YMCA (now Anthropologie). Five years later, he was a wartime president.
We are also fortunate in the fact we are almost self-sufficient. We are not dependent upon other countries for food and the other great essentials. We have only to look at England, which is separated from the continent of Europe by but a few miles, and France, which is located in the midst of her enemies, before we can realize just how lucky we are.
Bombs cannot be flown across our great barriers to hail death and destruction on our civilians and property. The principal danger of an attack on us can come, as many men have said, from within. The United States has less to fear from guns and bombs than from the subversive efforts of enemies within the country.
Other nations spend millions of dollars for propaganda alone. We are bombarded daily by propaganda from foreign governments trying to spread their doctrines.
We Americans detest communism, fascism and Nazism. If there are any good points in their doctrines let them become developed in their own countries instead of being forced on us. If the principles are good and sound, we will eventually adopt them.
But the evidence thus far available points with very little likelihood in that direction.
In bringing these words to a close, I would like to say in the years we have spent at Staples, we have seen fine examples of democracy at work, in our classes, in our class meetings, our clubs and activities. Our teachers have cooperated with us in a manner befitting grown men and women of a free country.
It is my fervent hope that the democratic spirit which has been instilled in all of us will remain in later life.
Seymour attended Cambridge Harvard University. He apparently finished his degree before being called up for war service on June 30, 1942, at Fort Jay, Governor’s Island, New York, as a private. He rose to the rank of captain.
Seymour Breslow’s draft card.
He survived the war, though information on his service is unavailable.
By 1960 he had married, settled in Stamford, and had a dental practice in New Canaan.
Seymour Breslow died on April 26, 1987, age of 65. He is buried in Norwalk’s Beth Israel cemetery.
Josh says: “Seymour’s words were not only prescient for his own time, but for ours as well, 84 years hence.
“We continue to be bombarded daily by propaganda from foreign governments trying to excuse their heinous actions, innocent nations being invaded by aggressors, methods once thought medieval have returned to the world stage.
“Will we find that democratic spirit which has been instilled in us remains, later in life? I hope so, neighbors. I hope so.”
(“06880” is where Westport meets the world — now, and always. If you appreciate stories like these, please click here to make a tax-deductible contribution supporting our work. Thank you!)
Seymour Braslow’s story, in the 1939 Stapleite yearbook.
When I saw that draft card I was afraid to keep scrolling!
Terrific research and a great find by Josh!
On a local note, it seems that George Powers was much more than a legendary athlete at Staples as I see him listed in the cast of the senior play.
Finally, I don’t think Breslow went to Cambridge University. That draft card seems to indicate he was at Harvard’s Eliot House in 1942.
Again, kudos to Josh for unearthing this.
Fascinating, thank you!
Hi Dan-
Great article and beautifully written!
Do we see history repeating itself today!!
Just a thought- The mailing address on the draft card is Cambridge Mass Eliot 133-
Could he have gone to Harvard and resided in Eliot House in Cambridge Massachusetts?
From Wikipedia- Eliot House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University. It is one of the seven original houses at the college. Opened in 1931, the house was named after Charles William Eliot, who served as president of the university for forty years (1869–1909).
My bad on Cambridge. It’s been fixed!
“We are also fortunate in the fact we are almost self-sufficient. We are not dependent upon other countries for food and the other great essentials.”
A lesson we forgot or ignored for decades, whether through wrong-headed policy or purposeful. A lesson brought into the spotlight during COVID. Thankfully we’re starting the process to reverse this dangerous path. We need to maintain our future in our own hands.
we don’t grow our own food. We don’t have precious minerals. We don’t have our own pharmaceutical supplies. We are not self sufficient
Yes, that’s the point.
Terrific story, so pleased it was dug up and reported.
This post caught my eye and sent me digging through family pictures are stories and mementos. The headline immediately caught my eye and the connection to what we are experiencing today would have held my attention by itself. However, the mention of the Staples class of 1939 sent me to the family scrapbooks. I have a Fifty-first Anniversary Commencement Exercises program with the names of the class of 1938. Both my mother and Father attended Staples and while my dad went on the Peekskill Military Academy my mother graduated from Staples, and I did in 1958. Once upon a time I had her Commencement program. Her class was the 50th! I was in the last class to graduate from the Old Staples in 1958. (Our ceremony was in the New Staples) Back to the article. I looked at the names of the students that were a part of the play. The director is Gladys Mansir. She was still teaching when I was a student! Other very familiar names: Herbert Baldwin, John Leahy and Charles DeMaria. Mr. DeMaria, if my memory doesn’t fail me was a well-loved and long-established barber in town. He had a son who was lost during WWII and I wondered if his name was Charles. I think I remember that his plane went down and was never recovered. The final hook: I have three family members buried in Evergreen Cemetary! What a wonderful read! Thank you for the memories.
this is a great story. thank you for sharing. yes we do need to become self sufficient again with our food, manufacturing and materials in the 🇺🇸
Good luck with that.