Blanche Smith was born on June 27, 1881, to Sarah and Andrew Smith in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. When she enrolled in the New Jersey State Normal School, she was living in Lambertville with her great-uncle Amos Smith (1830-1901), her grandfather William Smith’s brother. Amos’s household also included his niece Clara Tomson and her children, including Grace Tomson (1896-1990) who graduated from the Normal School in 1915. At the Normal School, Blanche received high grades. Her final evaluation in Grade Books and Reports, volume 1 on page 130, said: “Earnest, enthusiastic over her work. Has teaching power. Discipline good. She needs to cultivate repose of manner, tho’ this need is not noticeable in the classroom.” She graduated in June 1901, with a certificate to teach primary grades. She taught in Belmar and Garfield, N.J. school systems until she married Winthrop T. Woodford in 1907, and had two children: John W. (1909-1996) and Saramae “Sally” or “Sallie” (Conn) (c.1914-2000). They resided in Garfield and later Westfield, where she died at age 100 on April 1, 1982.
Rebecca S. Smith was born in approximately 1842. She entered the New Jersey State Normal School on September 2, 1861, and listed her hometown as Trenton. She graduated in 1863, and her final averages, printed in the Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey State Normal School 1863, indicated that she was among the top of her class. She received a Teachers’ Provisional Certificate on July 16, 1863, for Delaware County, Pennsylvania. A year later, she applied and was rejected for a job at the Philadelphia Mercantile Library. Her collection was donated by her nephew Dewitt Clinton Smith of Pennsylvania, whose father, Albert Smith, lived in Trenton.
Florence Susan Spragg was born on October 16, 1878, in Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey, to Jane Mason and Arthur Spragg. Her parents had immigrated to the United States from England by the early 1870s, and she was the second of four girls who survived into adulthood. She enrolled in the New Jersey State Normal School in September 1897. She graduated with a certificate to teach primary grades in June 1899, with a final evaluation in Grade Books and Reports, volume 1 on page 88, of: “Has teaching power, but does not herself see essentials. She will interest little children. Judgment has improved very much.” In the 1900 census she was listed as a schoolteacher and living back with her family in Bloomfield. In 1905, she married Thomas Earl Rittenhouse. Their daughter Eleanor Jane was born in 1912 (died in 2004). By the 1920 census, Florence was widowed, and she and her daughter were living with her sister in East Orange, New Jersey. By 1930, she was working as a salesperson in a department store. Two years later, she emigrated to Canada. She died in Toronto on June 9, 1952.
Anna “Annie” Maria Lake was born on September 12, 1880, to Mary Ann Chester and John Hammitt Lake, a sea captain, in Port Norris, New Jersey. It is unknown if she attended any teacher training school (although several of her childhood classmates attended the New Jersey State Normal School), but by the 1900 census, she was listed as a school teacher in Port Norris where she lived with her widowed father and younger siblings. On June 24, 1908, she married Frank Mortimer Lore (1880-1950) who was a carpenter working in shipbuilding. They had two children: Frances M. (Horner) (1911-2001; who also was a schoolteacher), and Jean (Spaeth) (1915-1993). Annie died April 18, 1964, in Glassboro, New Jersey.