Her Aim Was True

Helen Marie Tighe was nineteen years old when she posed for this photograph. She was a student at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, Class of 1925. Her family home in Pittston is still standing, literally in the shadow of a Catholic church and in the heart of anthracite coal country where the Molly Maguires once worked and struggled and hanged.

Before you read any further, have a look at Helen in her glory. Click for "Full Size" --She's at the far right of the Girls' Rifle Team, posing with a .22 cal Winchester 1885 model falling block "Low Wall" Winder rifle. But it's the deadly look on her face and the ocelot fur coat that caught my attention last week when a friend in Oregon posted the picture to me. No one knew anything about her, but I simply had to find out more.

Today I stopped in at Drexel's archives and looked through some old yearbooks and then did more research from home. The team picture was taken when they were competing at the University of Maryland on March 7, 1925. They lost by one point (each team fired 500 shots; the score was 497 bulls' eyes to 498).

Helen's father was a lumber contractor, and her mother kept house. She had a brother and a sister, both older. By her address, her coat, her being away from home for college, and her dad being in business, I surmise that the family was affluent but not very rich.

I have the names of all the team's members as well as two group photos of them on their home campus, but only Louise "Picky" Pickard (3rd from Left) and the team captain Ruth "Oof" Killinger (center of photo) --and of course Helen --have been matched names-to-faces. I may be able to discover more with another visit to the archive, but thus far the trail has not led to any compelling stories (although Ruth seems interesting).

Helen Tighe apparently never married. In 1930 (age 24) she was the stenographer in a bishop's residence and still living in her parents' home. In 1940 she's at the same job and still at home, but she's only 30 years old. Those were days when unmarried women lied about their age. I'm not sure yet, but she probably died in New Jersey in 1996 at 90 years of age. I regret to say it, but Helen seems to have been so cool, so dangerous-looking, and so alive as this in the context of the one picture where I first saw her. She simply did as she was told for all her life before and after those days of her youth.

Some of the other team members are the daughters of such as farmer, metallurgist, and school teacher. The photograph has proven to be a wellspring of story that could be developed endlessly if someone set their mind to the task.

One thing puzzles me. The caption for this yearbook shot ends with: "Helen, you know, is accomplished along all the lines the modern girl should be." Why did her snarky schoolmates italicize "lines?" Any guesses?