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John S. Neary (1863-1935) was appointed to the New Jersey State Normal School in 1898 as “steward,” later business manager, where he worked for over 32 years retiring in 1930. He also founded the Camera Club (also known as the Normal Photographic Arts Club) for students in 1919. Some of his photographs appear in The Signal.

Vivian M. Rolandelli (1911-2003) graduated from New Jersey State Teachers College and State Normal School at Trenton in 1930, and was a teacher for 47 years at Elementary School No. 1 in West New York, New Jersey.

Jessie R. Turk (1920-2009) graduated from Montclair State Teachers College in 1942, then obtained a master's degree from Oberlin College and doctorate from Columbia. She was a Professor of Geography at Trenton State from 1947 to 1982. An oral history interview with her in 1991 is available to view at https://www.njvid.net/show.php?pid=njcore:17492

Rosena Craig Foster was born September 2, 1890, to Samuel P. Foster, founder of a local bank and editor of the Elmer Times Newspaper, and Fannie Bateman Foster, in Elmer, Salem County, New Jersey. She attended Bridgeton High School, then New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton where she studied Music and Manual Training. According to the school’s Grade Books and Reports, Volume III, her grades were favorable and her final evaluation read: “Has teaching power. Individualizes well and manages a primary grade well. Lacks ease in speaking, but has a sweet voice.” In the spring of 1910, she completed her student teaching in Millville, New Jersey, and graduated in June 1910. According to family history provided by her granddaughter, she was assigned to work at Lafayette Elementary School (to teach music, dressmaking, and shop), in Highland Park, New Jersey, along with her Normal School classmate Mary Celia Whitlock (1891-1977), with whom she shared an apartment. During this time, she met Mary’s brother Frank Boudinot Whitlock, a banker, whom she married on May 28, 1913, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They had four children and made their home in Highland Park, where Rosena lived for over 70 years. After her marriage, she stopped teaching, but volunteered through much of her life, including for the Red Cross during WWII and local and national chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She died at age 99 on March 5, 1990.

Mary Jane Sergeant was born August 24, 1837, to Gershom Craven Sergeant and Charity Ann Howell Sergeant in Raritan Township, near Flemington, Hunterdon County, New Jersey. She was in the first class of the New Jersey State Normal School, beginning October 1855, when classes were held in Trenton City Hall before the new school building opened in the next term in 1856. Her first teaching experience was in Lambertville School in 1857-1858, before graduating from the Normal School in February 1859. Afterward, she taught in Copper Hill School in Raritan Township. On March 26, 1863, she married Dr. Cornelius Wilson Larison, also an educator, as well as a physician and proponent of phonetic spelling. He founded the Seminary at Ringoes and the Academy of Science and Arts at Ringoes where Mary taught mathematics and other subjects from the 1870s to early 1900s. They had two children: Mary “Polly” L. (Blackwell), and Benjamin. Mary Jane died on April 17, 1917. Her daughter, Mary Blackwell, donated her diary to then Trenton State College during the Centennial celebrations of 1955, where it was transcribed and portions were published in The Signal newspaper.

Head of the Girls' Dormitory at New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton.

Head of Department of Mathematics at New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton.

Head of Department of Pedagogy at New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton.

Instructor in Kindergarten Practice at New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton.