I love collecting. I think it comes with the territory of being an historian. Someone who is interested in the past begins to maybe live in the past a little bit as far as possessions go.

For a long time in our living room, I would say that the 21st century stopped at our door. We had no TV nor phone in that room, but a 1926 player piano, a wind-up eight-day clock and, my personal favorite, a 1927 wind-up phonograph. Granted, you can’t play 45s or vinyl LPs on the machine, but to a hopeless collector like myself, I have stacks of 78s that seem to grow with every trip to Goodwill.

Each one of our kids has their favorite record. For example, my favorite is an Enrico Caruso Italian classic, “Veni Sul Mar,” and my son Arthur loves “Easter Parade” featuring the vocals of a young Bing Crosby. My son Paulie loves them all and is especially eager to hand crank the machine to give it the power to play the timeless music. Many evenings are spent around that old phonograph and the memories made there are sweet.

Collecting local objects seems to also interest me these days, and I have pursued the Internet, antique shops and garage sales looking for new little things to add to my collection. Recently I have collected a few local yearbooks, specifically from Weir High School. I think my favorite one is the 1927 edition of “The Onawa,” a precursor to the “Weirite” any graduate of Weir High remembers fondly.

The 1927 book is Volume 6, suggesting that not all years of the school’s existence, beginning in 1917, had a yearbook. One may ask, why collect yearbooks at all, but I believe they are a time capsule of a moment in history. The 1927 copy of “The Onawa” shows not only the students at Weir High, but also great illustrations of Weirton Steel at that time, like the blast furnaces, the mill administration building located on Main Street — the same that is used today for that purpose — and men at work at various departments within the mill. One specifically shows a man shoveling coal with no shirt, hard hat, safety glasses or the like, certainly a snapshot of a bygone era.

Something else interesting about that specific yearbook is that on every page there is another fact about the mill. For instance, in 1927 Weirton produced more milk cans than any other city in the world; they averaged 15 freight cars per hour in and out during 1926; and there were 8,000 workers employed by the mill in 1927 and their monthly payroll was about $1,500,000. In today’s money that is more than $23 million.

Another group of yearbooks I enjoy are those from Weir High during World War II. The 1943 “Weirite” is dedicated “to Weir High’s class of 1942-1943 and the faculty, students and alumni members that are, or will be, in our country’s service … As the world looks today, every student will, at some time in the near future, be serving his county either abroad or at home. With this in mind, we gladly make our dedication to our future heroes in all corners of the earth.”

In those tumultuous years of war, one can see how world events shaped our humble town high school. In 1944, one will only find a small blue paperback pamphlet showing only the seniors of Weir High School. According to the publication, “the senior class voted to publish its own yearbook as a wartime substitute for the Weirite. They suffered from scarcity of paper, plates, funds and time.” It was a cooperative effort of students volunteering to do typing and errands, teachers and the “Office Practice Class” who “did the typing of letters to engraver and printer … for without them there would be no yearbook for the seniors of 1944.”

On one of the last pages of the yearbook, there is the class of ’44 Honor Roll which lists the members of the class who were then serving their country at the time of publication: Army: Pvt. John Simirtzakis, Pvt. Leon Gabia, Pvt. Alvin Lenhart, Pvt. Albert Daugherty and Pvt. William Niesslein; Navy: Jack Richards, Theodore Kolanko, Samuel Radakovich and Frank Battista; and Marines: Matthew Magnone.

The class history relates on Feb. 8, “We’ll miss Lenhart on the basketball court and Niesslein in the band for ‘They’re in the Army Now.'” A great tribute to the students as they went off to fight. Mr. Lenhart is one man I knew growing up as he was the grandfather of one of my best friends. A true American hero.

For a historian, these little vignettes are so personal and speak to what was important in that year. Also in some yearbooks, there are advertisers in the back of the book who gave freely of their finances to make the book possible. In the 1927 copy, there is quite the selection of advertisements of area businesses. Some familiar — Weirton Steel Co., the Peoples Bank, the Hub and Alpert’s Hardware. Some are new to me — Rouse Brothers Confectionary, the Paris Grocery & Meat Market, Entinger’s — The High School Confectionery, Heil’s Market, Enelow’s Boot Shop and the Steel Restaurant Annex, to name a few.

The yearbooks of the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and later are interesting, too, as I recognize more and more folks who I know and have known during the years. Despite all of this, these simple publications, no matter the year, have the power to transcend the years and connect us. The introduction of the “Weirite” 1946 sums it up nicely. “Turn on! Observe! And let memories of your high school days come into existence … If this should be brought about, we the Class of ’46, will have felt that this book has expressed our ideas far better than such meaningless words can ever hope to do.”