Old Aylmer High School photo comes home

East Elgin Secondary School history teacher Dan Reid, left, showed Teresa Johnston, 90, of Chatham where his aunt Ruth Reid was in a entire student body photo of the old Aylmer High School from the class of 1938-39 when Mrs. Johnston and her daughter Linda Henderson, right, visited Aylmer on Thursday morning, June 25. Mrs. Johnston grew up in the Aylmer area and attended the former Aylmer High School for two years until the end of Grade 10 when it was common for many students back then to leave school for other pursuits. She is in the photo in the second row on the middle right. To her surprise, EESS already had a copy of the same photo, although enhanced with all of the students’ and staff members’ names, already prominently on display on a wall in the school office. The left hand portion of that photo can be seen behind Mrs. Henderson. After visiting EESS, Mrs. Johnston and her daughter planned on taking the photo to the Aylmer-Malahide Museum and Archives where they hoped it would be accepted as a donation to the collection of artefacts. Back in 1938-39, the former Aylmer High School had about 150 students and six teachers. In 2015, EESS has about 1,300 students and 85 teachers.