How the Yearbook Got Its Name

Williams High School, formerly known as Burlington High School, originated the Doe-Wah-Jack annual in 1924. In 1976, the yearbook staff conducted an interview with Mr. Arnold Lea Holt to find out more about the annual’s unusual name; as the yearbook’s first editor, Mr. Holt was part of the choosing of the title. Mr. Holt’s father owned the Burlington Hardware Company.

One day after school, the young Mr. Holt and his friends were spending time at the hardware store and noticed the words “Doe-Wah-Jack” written on a stove. After researching the phrase, they found it came from a Native American word meaning “beginning.” Believing this to be the perfect name for a new yearbook, the editor submitted it to the student body and they agreed!

Other research into the stove and the phrase has given us further information. According to a letter from the Round Oak Stove Company in Dowagiac, Michigan, they manufactured the stove around which Mr. Holt and his friends sat that fateful day in 1924. One 1981 alum, Betty Cooler, wrote a letter to the Chamber of Commerce in that small, Michigan town. She learned that the phonetic phrase “doe wah jack” was a pronunciation guide for Dowagiac. She was also told that it came from a Potawatomi Indian word “ndowagayuk” which means “foraging ground,” a different meaning from what Mr. Holt had found.

The annual’s title surely has an interesting and rich history, much like Walter M. Williams High School itself. We are pleased to have such an unusual and fitting name for the publication which has preserved our memories for almost one hundred years!
- Betsy Lee, former Doe-Wah-Jack Advisor

(Compiled from the 1976 Doe-Wah-Jack entry and the research information provided by Betty Cooler, with help from Karen Garrison, Doe-Wah-Jack Advisor from 1974 to 2009.)