Whirling Square

 

Like many students during World War II, Barbara Stanley dropped out of high school because she was needed elsewhere. Her sister’s husband left to go to war, so Barbara left Salt Lake’s West High School to help her sister with her kids. She was twenty-three when she herself got married. She didn’t intend to have a big family of her own. She wanted to teach physical education. “I was tired of tending,” Barbara said. But she ended up raising seventeen children. “It just happened,” she explained. Barbara is ninety-two now, and one thing she’s always regretted is that she never earned her high school diploma. This year her granddaughter, Sheri McFarland, reached out to West High’s administrators to see if they could rectify the situation. Last month, Barbara’s diploma arrived in the mail. “Oh, my goodness, it’s gorgeous,” she said. “Now can you take me to the prom?”