Teen Angel

The photo in the September issue on page 70, for “The Rise and Decline of the Teenager,” brought back memories to my family. The Seattle football team in the picture was the Roosevelt High School Roughriders. My siblings and I all attended Roosevelt, my sister in 1955, when the game was played. The Roughriders might have won the game (my sister thinks they lost, although when shown in Life magazine that year, the photo caption said they won), but the celebration was for the team’s first touchdown in two years. The cheerleader was Jean Forstrom, who became Mrs. Booth Gardner and the first lady of Washington State when her husband was elected governor. Governor Gardner reported that when he saw the beautiful blonde in that photo, he said she was the girl he’d like to marry. He didn’t attend Roosevelt, but he managed to find her later in college, and they’ve been together ever since.