An April Fools’ Day prank
Bill Henry is in the center of the first row of this seventh-grade class photo from Fifth Ward School. Alfred Bruno is on the left in the first row, and Pete Celani is in the third row, third from right.
When Bill Henry retired as a commander from the U.S. Navy, he settled in Honolulu, Hawaii. But the Washington native still has ties with his hometown.
“First thing every morning, I read my local paper and then go online to the Observer-Reporter,” he said by telephone last week. “Boy, was I surprised to see that picture. ‘That’s me!’ I thought.”
Henry, 79, recalled that it was an April Fools’ Day prank set up by newspaper photographer Ron Christman and he is the boy holding the string. He said the photo was taken on the east corner of Houston Street and LeMoyne Avenue in Washington, the sidewalk stretching toward Elm Street.
An excursion through microfilm in the O-R’s archives confirmed Henry’s thoughts. We found the photo in the April 1, 1948, edition of The Reporter with the following caption: “The roving photographer – keeping in mind the significance of today, April 1 – also kept an eye out for enterprising youngsters bent on properly observing the occasion, and came rushing into the news room with this offering. The scene was probably acted out numberless times today.”
Although the caption identified no one in the photo, Henry is sure he’s the boy standing and the boy next to him probably is Alfred Bruno, who is still living in Washington.
Rich Celani of Washington was the only other reader to contact us about this week’s Mystery Photo. He was able to confirm the location. The Alexander and Murphy families lived in the houses on East Maiden Street visible in the background, according to Celani. He said several older people lived in the large house on the right, and “they wouldn’t even let us touch that fence,” Celani said. “If we hit a ball in that lot, we’d have to go over to the Murphys’ house and sneak in through a chain-link fence to get the ball out.”
Celani and his brothers lived on East Maiden Street and attended Fifth Ward School, where Pete Celani and Henry were classmates.
When Henry was three years old, the youngest of four children, his father died while working as a carpenter in Arkansas for the Work Projects Administration. “My mother had to go on what was then called Mothers’ Assistance, but then she went to college to study chemistry and got a job at Findlay Refractories,” he said.
Henry graduated from Washington High School, earned a scholarship to Washington & Jefferson College and attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business for a year before joining the Navy. The Navy eventually sent him to George Washington University to finish his master’s degree. He retired after 26 years. He never married.
“I put the Navy ahead of everything,” Henry said. And the Navy sent him to 73 countries. Henry donated his Navy memorabilia to the Washington County Historical Society, and it is on display in the military museum of the LeMoyne House.
Some of our readers might be familiar with Henry because of a feature story appearing in this newspaper about five years ago. That story reported that since 1959, Henry has been exchanging the same Christmas card with Bob and Irene Franz of Prosperity. Bob Franz and Bill Henry were best friends and fraternity brothers at W&J.
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.