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Shirley Chisholm — named to
the Purington Chair at Mount Holyoke in 1983 “My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear, is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn’t always discuss for reasons of political expediency,” she once said. Shirley Chisholm was unafraid of controversy. Her unpredictability and brashness often left her at odds with her colleagues, black and white. But that did not stop her from using her incisive speech to excoriate Congress when she felt it was being unresponsive or from lambasting members of the Congressional Black Caucus, of which she was a founding member in 1969. She was born Shirley Anita St. Hill in Brooklyn. She was the oldest of four daughters of a Guyanese father who was a voracious reader and student of political activist Marcus Garvey and a Barbadian mother who groomed her girls to use their poise and education to take their rightful place in the world. From age three to eleven, she (and two younger sisters) lived in Barbados with her maternal grandmother. She attended the rigorous, British-style schools, where she learned to speak and write easily, she said. In Barbados, she also gained the clipped Caribbean accent evident in her speech. In 1934, she moved back to Brooklyn and later graduated cum laude from Brooklyn College. She made the decision there to become a teacher, believing that she could improve society by helping children. Her first job was at a child-care center in Harlem, where she worked for seven years. She attended night school at Columbia University and received a master’s degree in early childhood education in 1952. She became director of a day-care center and then served as an educational consultant with the Division of Day Care in New York from 1959 to 1964. Her nascent interest in politics, which began at Brooklyn College, bloomed in the 1960s when she became engaged in local Democratic politics. In 1964, she was elected to the New York State Assembly, where her independent style took shape. After four years in the Assembly, she ran against James Farmer, the former national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, to win the newly created 12th District of New York (Bedford-Stuyvesant). She built a grass-roots campaign to counter Farmer’s well-financed operation and used the slogan, “Fighting Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed,” which came to characterize much of her political career. As a ‘freshman’, Chisholm was assigned to the House Forestry Committee. Given her district, she felt the placement was a waste of time and shocked many by demanding reassignment. She was placed on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Soon after, she voted for Hale Boggs as Majority Leader over John Conyers, even though Boggs was white. As a reward for her support, Boggs assigned her to the much-prized Education and Labor Committee. In 1972 she made a bid for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, received 152 delegate votes, but ultimately lost to Senator George McGovern. She said she ran for the office “in spite of hopeless odds,” “to demonstrate sheer will and a refusal to accept the status quo.” Mrs. Chisholm’s candidacy signaled significant change on the American political landscape as a new generation of blacks and women made its way into mainstream politics. To the surprise and displeasure of many, she visited presidential candidate George C. Wallace, once a strident segregationist, after he was shot in 1972. And she endorsed Republican Nelson A. Rockefeller as Vice President from the floor of the House in 1974. In a 1982 interview with a Washington Post reporter on the eve of her retirement from Congress, she responded to criticism about her support of Rockefeller’s nomination and her hospital visit to Wallace. “I don’t take one incident of a person’s total life and hang the person with it forever,” she said, adding that Rockefeller’s support when she was in the state legislature outweighed her own reservations about him. “Just like George Wallace standing in the door of the University of Alabama preventing black young people from attending.... I went to the hospital when he was shot.... and later he was the man who helped get the votes on minimum wages for black women.... I believe there is good in everybody, maybe that’s a weakness I have.” Throughout her career, Mrs. Chisholm stood on her convictions and refused to be defined by party politics or racial affinities. She fought for the working poor, Haitian refugees, Native American land rights and poor mothers. One of her greatest achievements, she once said, was the inclusion of domestic workers under the minimum wage law. She was a vocal opponent of the draft and supported reductions in military spending while advocating increased funding for education, health care, and other social services. A founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus, she supported the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortions throughout her Congressional career. She wrote the autobiographical works Unbought and Unbossed (1970) and The Good Fight (1973). She announced her retirement from Congress in 1982. History professor Joseph Ellis, Dean of Faculty at the time, suggested to then-president Elizabeth Kennan Burns that they invite Chisholm to teach at the College. At a series of initial meetings with the Congresswoman on campus, Ellis recalled a group of students asking her for advice on becoming social activists. “Learn how to raise money,” she told them. Chisholm accepted the offer, was named to the Purington Chair, and came to Mount Holyoke in 1983 to teach politics and sociology. She taught for four years. Ellis said, “Her message was always ‘Blacks and whites need to do this together.’” Her 30-year marriage to Conrad Chisholm ended in divorce in 1977. Her second husband, Arthur Hardwick Jr., died in 1986. She had no children. “She was an activist, and she never stopped fighting,” said Jesse L. Jackson, who in 1984 announced his own candidacy for the presidency. “She refused to accept the ordinary, and she had high expectations for herself and all people around her.” While she recognized the implication of her political firsts, they were not the achievements for which she wanted to be remembered, she once said. “I’d like to be known as a catalyst for change, a woman who had the determination and a woman who had the perseverance to fight on behalf of the female population and the black population, because I’m a product of both, being black and a woman.” Besides, the former nursery school teacher thought her political career a “foolish reason for fame”. In her autobiography Unbought and Unbossed (1970), she wrote: “In a just and free society, it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.” What a woman! We hope you’ll check out the class web site (www.mhcclassof1960.net) — and send your news to Sheila at Porter1vt@yahoo.com. In order to access the class directory on our website, use the
following login: With warm regards, Sue and Dana Addenda: 1) Don’t miss her passionate speech to the House concerning the Equal Rights Amendment. August 10, 1970. See following URL: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/shirleychisholmequalrights.htm 2) Sources include MHC College Street Journal of 28 January 2005;
Encyclopedia Britannica 2002; and Wikipedia. ________________________________________ 1865? – December 9, 1938 In 1882 a Mount Holyoke woman wrote home saying that there was a “colored girl” at her table, that her table represented 10 states and that it should be called “the Cosmopolitan Gormandizing Table.” That “colored girl,” arguably the first Black graduate, was Hortense Parker. (1) She had entered the Seminary with 16 others in 1878 but because it became necessary for her to take time off, she graduated in 1883. She was noted for her musical ability and she had planned to study the piano in Europe but her patron died during her senior year. One of her classmates wrote, “In all my years I have never heard ‘Home Sweet Home’ with variations, played with such beauty and pathos as Hortense used to play it in Seminary Hall; the variations were her own composition.” Classmates described her as “modest”, “retiring”, “graceful”, “with great self control”, “tena cious of her beliefs”, and said that she “seldom expressed an opinion unless urged”. After graduation she married and taught music in Indianapolis, Kansas City, Newark, NJ and St. Louis, MO where she lived with her second husband, Professor M.Y. Gilliam. He was the principal of one of the city schools and had received his degrees from Cornell and Wilberforce University. In 1932 she and her husband returned to Campus, stopping to visit classmates on the way. She was delighted with the “fine buildings” and “extensive grounds”. In 1933 she attended her 50th Reunion and she was one of the two from the class of 1883 to contribute to the Centenary Honor Role. We know much more about her father who bought his own freedom from slavery and moved to Ripley, Ohio where he started an iron foundry/machine shop which became a successful business. He was involved in the Underground Railroad (1845), moving slaves from Kentucky and is credited for helping over 400 fugitive slaves escape. The son of a white Virginia aristocrat and a Black woman, he married in Ripley and had 6 children. One son graduated from Oberlin and Hortense from Mount Holyoke. “His Promised Land” is his oral autobiography {as told to Frank Moody, a newspaper reporter, after the Civil War when no possibility of publication existed. It surfaced years later in the Duke library and was brought to light by a civil-rights attorney who joined forces with Charles Nuckolls, the man responsible for the movement to restore Parker’s house in Ripley}. A review says it is “a chilling and timely morality tale that prods readers to remember the sou rce of much of what ails our country to this day.” Parker admitted, “there was an excitement about the game that appealed to me in my younger days and I really believe I enjoyed the nightly adventures with my ever-changing flock.” He comments about those around him including the nature of the people he was helping to freedom. He was his own independent militant activist and needed neither authorization nor encouragement nor instruction in the anti-slavery cause. His riverside home in Ripley is undergoing restoration and part of this project is to research the genealogy of his family. We know nothing about his wife or details of his home life and nothing is known about his other two daughters. One might assume that all the children were born into a house that emanated “determination” and that education was encouraged but how and why Hortense came to Mount Holyoke is unknown. The restorers hope that after one visits this house, one will carry away a feeling of “risk, dedication, accomplishment and freedom.” In the fall of 1973 Professor William McFeely conducted a course called Black and White Americans. The students (probably an even distribution of Black and White) became curious about the Black women who had preceded them here. They were able to obtain records to research the women whose names were known. Remarkable profiles of these alumnae were produced. Some record of teacher comments existed and there were newspaper accounts of many of the women. In some instances students were able to conduct interviews with alumnae. Even though classroom records were not always available, simple generalizations did emerge and one was that the overwhelming number of Black women who attended Mount Holyoke in the early years came from families in which one or more parent had had a college background. Often this training had come at Negro colleges such as Fiske, Howard and Spelman. The study extended into the 50’s and evidence suggested that only in the 60’s did w omen begin coming to Mount Holyoke from homes where there was both economic poverty and lack of college background. “There was little evidence of the rich diversity of students that Reggie Ludwig has brought to Mount Holyoke.”(2) McFeely comments that although it is currently frowned on to identify women as interesting by referring to their husbands, the alumnae list contained Mrs. Frederick Douglass of the class of 1859. Helen Pitts, a white woman, was the second wife of Mr. Douglass, a noted colored leader, orator and champion of women’s rights. She was an “unusually bright and intelligent young lady, well-read and a woman of great force and character”. She was “educated, refined and cultivated.” After graduation she taught in a Freedman’s school in Norfolk (3) and later was hired by Mr. Douglass as a clerk to the Recorder of Deeds in Washington, DC. She was a radical abolitionist, a suffragette and an activist regarding convict lease system abuses. The marriage in 1884 was generally a subject of scorn by both white and African American residents in Washington. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, however, provided a main source of support. The couple remained d evoted for eleven years until his death. Afterward Helen continued her work as a teacher and activist until her own death in 1903. The study also reminded us that “firsts” are not really of first importance. We concur; and we are proud to be part of an Institution that has helped graduates of all races to prepare for achievement. Since we do not know Hortense Parker’s birth date, I had hoped to have this prepared to send you on Martin Luther King’s Birthday, a day memorialized and celebrated but which was especially exciting in Atlanta. It was also exciting to live in Atlanta when Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer from South Georgia, won the Presidential election, as he was a noted Civil Rights advocate and a man who has continued his campaign for peace and equality with zeal during his post-Presidential years. Although perhaps it may have no place here, I want to include a poem of his, a sad poem about racial division during his childhood: “This empty house three miles from town As boys we worked in Daddy’s fields, But then—we were fourteen or so— We only saw it vaguely then, Other comments: (1) Only photographs suggest that Sally Davis, an earlier student, may have been Black. There are no written records regarding her race. (2) Mc Feely’s article in the Spring 1974 Alumnae Quarterly quotes other Black Alumnae who graduated prior to the 50’s and these are very interesting. (It is also interesting that there is an article by our classmate Gretchen Hall in this volume.) (3) Many Mount Holyoke Alumnae went to teach in Freedman’s schools after the Civil War. One of our classmates, Sara Dalmas Jonsberg, has written a novel, “Yankee Teacher”, about women who pursued this vocation and her characters were based on research done in the Mount Holyoke Archives. Sources: Once again, we would like to remind you that the class web site, www.mhcclassof1960.net, has new material on the Message Board in addition to all of the Birthday Biographies. There are new links on the Links page and the Directory is up and running. To access the Directory, enter: Username as mhc1960 Remember that we can only provide updates when you send them to us. Be well, do good work and have a Happy New Year. Cheers! P.S. Is anyone interested in coming to a Mini-reunion on Campus at a time when classes are in session? ________________________________________ Harriet Newhall, former Director of Admissions born February 21, 1893 in Wilbraham
MA I will tell you two stories about Harriet Newhall and me. I’m guessing that neither story will surprise you. In autumn of 1955 my high school principal and five seniors from Bourne High School left Cape Cod on a day trip and made the rounds of UMass, Smith, and Mount Holyoke in a big finny automobile. It was like sitting on your couch while going much too fast. I had never been so far from home. I knew about Mount Holyoke only because my father’s mother, who had an eighth grade education but was nonetheless a librarian at Yale Medical School, had a close acquaintance who had graduated from Mount Holyoke. I had an appointment to meet with Harriet Newhall. I was frightened nearly beyond speech. Harriet Newhall attended Wilbraham Academy and Somerville MA high school, received her B.A. at Mount Holyoke in 1914, and first served the college as Assistant Secretary to the President, Mary E. Woolley (1915-16). Harriet took a year at Simmons College to secure a B.S., then returned as Secretary to the President until 1921 and became Assistant to the President from 1921-25. From 1925-27 she was Acting Secretary of the Board of Admissions. In 1928 she received an M.A. from Columbia University. In that year she returned to MHC to serve as Executive Secretary to the President. In 1937 she became Executive Secretary to the Board of Admissions, and from 1939 to 1958 held the title Director of Admissions. In 1950 she was promoted to the rank of Professor. She served as advisor to the freshman class in 1947 and 1948 and was academic advisor to the classes of 1952, 1953, and 1954. She was elected Class Honorary by several classes, and in 1950 received the Alumnae Medal of Honor “for her humor and wisdom, sense and judgment, and that attractive quality of leadership that marks you as one of the foremost daughters of Mount Holyoke College.” In a 1955 Quarterly article Harriet Newhall said, “I could tell you many stories about individuals who have been admitted—some as definite gambles, with most irregular entrance units, and examination scores that did not seem promising, but who came through with flying colors, as well as some with top scores, strong recommendations, and about whom there seemed to be not the slightest doubt of success, but who failed miserably. I will relate just one of our recent success stories…… Several years ago there was a girl who came from a small country high school in the Middle West, and when I say small, I mean small—a school of just over 100. She had never studied any foreign language, she could offer only 12 academic or acceptable entrance units instead of 16, and the record had to be stretched to find those 12, She had, however, led her high school class of 17 students for four years, made excellent scores in the the College Board tests, been active in school affairs, and was well recommended. She wanted to come to Mount Holyoke. There was considerable discussion in our meetings: Would it be fair to her to admit her with such an irregular group of units and rather sketchy preparation and foundation? Would she be able to do the work here and hold her own in the highly competitive academic group and in the completely different set-up?” She continued, “We argued back and forth, but all were agreed that there was something about her that seemed to indicate promise, and she was admitted. She was well worth the gamble. At the end of the first year she ranked fourteenth in a class of 345, had won a special prize in English for a critical paper, and seemed happily adjusted. At the end of the sophomore year she ranked seventh in the class and was named a Sarah Williston Scholar. She had been active, too, in extra-curricular affairs. In the junior year she ranked fourth in the class, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in that year… At the end of the senior year she was graduated magna cum laude, ranked fourth in a class of 280, and was a Mary Lyon Scholar. She was awarded a Fulbright, attended St. Hilda’s, Oxford,” and so on. I had never been inside a college, never been in the presence of a truly elegant older woman. Stunned by everything in her office including the carpet, the desk, and Miss Newhall, I sat practically paralyzed in the handsome chair. After some pleasantries concerning Cape Cod and my high school, she asked me if I had read any of “the classics.” It wasn’t a trick question. I had read several of “the classics” but at that moment couldn’t think of the title of a single one. I was in white-out mode. Les Miserables suddenly came to mind. With a decent French accent I said it. The problem was that I hadn’t read it. My only conscious thought was that I’d never be accepted at Mount Holyoke. Miss Newhall asked me something straightforward about one of the characters; but nearly simultaneously she realized my predicament and gracefully transitioned to a different subject—as though she had had a better idea that was going to be more enjoyable for both of us. Grateful for her generosity and reassured by her kindness, I somehow found my voice. She retired in June, 1958. In April of that year, during an interview with the Quarterly , she said with a smile, “Yes, I’ve had a rich, full life, but nobody should go into this work who isn’t a gambler at heart.” The element of chance had increased tremendously since she began admissions work. She went on to say that thirty years ago more than four-fifths of applicants to a college like Mount Holyoke wanted that college and no other. By 1958 admissions officers took it for granted that not more than half the accepted applicants would come. At a residence college located in a village, there was no margin for error in the living quarters. Each May, when the postcards from girls admitted for the next September came back, Miss Newhall watched each mail anxiously, haunted by the twin specters of an empty dormitory and ‘a trailer camp in South Campus’, the grim alternatives if she and the Admissions Board should have g uessed wrong on the number of candidates accepting their acceptance. One of the major rewards of admissions work, she said, is the “tremendously interesting people you meet.” She included first of all the 9,000 young women she shepherded into Mount Holyoke—and many of their fathers and mothers. Then there were the hundreds of school principals and guidance officers across the country whom she visited and consulted year after year. And her fellow admissions directors, particularly those in the other Eastern colleges for women who developed methods of mutual assistance in the midst of intense competition. One requirement for an admissions director which had not changed in thirty years is a lively sense of humor. “And courage,” Miss Newhall added after a pause. She might also have mentioned stamina—the kind that, after a succession of days on the road, speaking to school assemblies, interviewing applicants, and describing college life at sub-freshman teas, enabled her to rush back to her hotel room to write up a deft personality sketch for each girl seen and still have zest for dinner at the home of an alumna, for joking with the husband, admiring the baby, playing with the cat. From 1957 to 1960 she served as a trustee for the College Entrance Examination Board. She substituted during the 1962-63 academic year for the director of admissions at Wellesley College; and from 1963 to 1966 while living in Northampton worked on special projects at Converse Library and the Robert Frost Library at Amherst. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the League of Women Voters, AAUW, and various professional organizations. In 1972 Mount Holyoke announced the institution of a special tuition award to women graduates of Holyoke Community College. The Harriet Newhall Award opens up one place each year for a top student who, beginning in her junior year, enrolls as a non-resident student at Mount Holyoke. Tuition at MHC in 1973-74 was $2800. The other story I want to tell is about Miss Newhall sending me a gift of money. Part of my financial aid package entailed having a noisy room next to the bathroom. It was freshman year; it was South Mandelle, where most of the rooms were singles. When I wasn’t studying I liked to leave my door open so people would be inclined to socialize on their way to or from the bathroom. I don’t remember anyone locking doors in those relatively innocent days. It was just before the holiday break and on top of my bureau I had a few gifts for my family and about $10 in loose bills for finishing Christmas shopping. That was it. When I went back to my room after supper, I saw right away that the money was gone. I felt sick. I’d been robbed by someone I knew; and I was broke. Within an hour there was a house meeting. Whoever took the money was given a chance to put it in an envelope with my name on the outside and leave it on a much-passed side table by morning. No ques tions would be asked and that would be the end of it. But the next morning didn’t bring the return of the money. What it did bring was an envelope in my mailbox from Harriet Newhall. Inside were a $10 bill and a letter. “Dear Miss Bradley,” the letter began, “There is a special fund at Mount Holyoke for assisting our students at a time like this. I hope that you will accept this gift. Best wishes for a wonderful holiday with your family.” Now there was a woman for all seasons. Wishing you signs of spring, Sue Bradley Cabot (amitybc@maine.rr.com) ________________________________________ Dear Classmates, Virginia Galbraith – Renowned Economist I met Ginny Galbraith on the first day of classes in the fall of 1953. As a freshman (first year), all faculty members looked old to me—but among the men of the Ec-Soc department, she was clearly YOUNG. It didn’t take long to learn from upper-class classmates that we were indeed fortunate. “She is the only one who can make curves understandable,” I was told. And they were right. But stories about Ginny extended far beyond her teaching prowess. There were the stories whenever the other Galbraith (John Kenneth) came to dinner. No, they were not related; but they did flirt. Then there were stories of beaus from up and down the east coast. Fortunately, she moved out of Wilder into an apartment of her own in 1954. Otherwise, the stories would have extended to window entries for sure. I can vouch for the truth of at least one apocryphal story. She did, indeed, receive a bathtub full of roses for Valentine’s Day in 1955. My husband will swear to seeing them, as he used to hang out in her apartment when I was working on an independent project with her. They were all from one unnamed man and she maintained there was nowhere else to put them. Ginny had been married before she came to Mount Holyoke in 1950; she never married again, but she was never without a man in her life. And then there were the worshippers from a distance. At some time in the early ’70s, Ginny came to New Haven to speak to the Alumnae Club about banking. The room was full of husbands who scoffed at the idea of a woman who was barely 5 feet tall telling them about banking. But tell them she did and the questions had to be halted when it was past closing time at the meeting location. Ten years later they were still talking about her. In the days when women economists were rare, she was the first female head teaching assistant at Berkeley, with 18 men working for her. They were still rare in 1958, when she testified before the Massachusetts PUC (carefully dressed in hat and gloves). She was described by the Boston Globe as “probably the most attractive witness ever to testify as an expert economist before the Department of Public utilities.” Joan Steiger reports that she had lunch with Ginny right after she testified and Ginny was VERY proud to have worn a “white sharkskin suit.” and wasn’t too embarrassed about the effect created when she crossed her legs in the slim, short skirt. She wooed the DuPont leadership into heavily supporting the program on Complex Organizations, of which she was a founder. Ginny knew how to use her feminism when she needed it, but in the end it was her mind that impressed. I thought I knew how to write when I met Ginny. After all, I had been editor of my high school paper and worked for news Bureau at Mount Holyoke. I quickly learned otherwise. Ginny was a writer and she brooked nothing but the best. She demanded that I write, as she taught – concisely and clearly. I remember the costs curves, and the economics has stood me in good stead, but the most important skills I learned from Ginny were to write and to teach. In 1976 I was her teaching assistant in the Complex Org Financial Analysis course. The class had an equal number of Amherst men and Mount Holyoke women. It was clear on day-one that the boys (I use that term intentionally) thought they had it easy; they were going to dominate the class. Ginny and the Holyoke women disabused of that idea quickly. Ginny remained at Mount Holyoke until she retired in 1983. But her professional career extended to training managers as well as college students. She served for many years on the Board of the Arthur D. Little Management Training Institute and for six years trained management personnel in African, Asian and Latin American under-developed countries. Among my favorite “Ginny stories” is one she told about an event that happened one summer at the University of Minnesota, where she was doing some work. She heard a student knock on the door of the faculty office across the hall from her office every day for a week. And every day the faculty member said “I’m busy, come back anther time.” Finally, when she heard the student in the hall, she stepped out of her office, crossed the hall and knocked on the door in his stead. When asked who is it, she replied “It’s Ginny.” In response to “Come in” she opened the door, pushed the student in, shut the door and returned to her office. Then there was the house on Greenwood St., all glass and steel and filled with African masks. Eat your hearts out—it was built for $15,500, won architectural awards and was featured in House and Garden. It was exactly Ginny—one large airy room to share with friends and students, one small room to sleep, a wall kitchen that could be covered with folding doors from which she could produce ANYTHING. Ginny loved France, and some years before her retirement, built a house in Duras, a small town in the Bordeaux region. Because Americans could not own property in France in those days, she arranged for the house to belong to the Mayor of Duras, who was also the butcher. The house overlooked the rolling hills that surrounded the medieval town and the patio was perfectly sited for that late afternoon glass of wine before dinner. In the years before her retirement, she rented the house to an American artist in the winters. As proof that there are only 40 people in the world and the rest is done with smoke and mirrors, I met that artist years later and we shared our love of the house and its site. But my fondest memory of visiting Duras after Ginny retired there was standing in front of the TV in the Mayor’s house arguing French politics in French. I don’t think Ginny or I convinced him of anything. Ginny’s life in Duras was cut short and by early ’89 she was in Holyoke Hospital with breast cancer. But she was still Ginny. Several of us who visited her regularly never saw her without makeup. When she lost her hair, she had a proper wig, penciled eyebrows, lipstick and a smile. She was a role model and mentor for many of us. P.S. We hope to hear from you regarding the possibility of a Campus
Mini-Reunion. More details in the Class letter. ________________________________________ Try as we may, we cannot find a candidate with
an April birthday but we have long wanted to do a brief review of the
years between Mary Lyon’s death in 1849 and Mary Woolley’s
presidency in 1901. The 50th anniversary of the Seminary
was celebrated on June 30, 1887 and the charter was granted for the
Mount Holyoke Seminary and College. Of the golden jubilee an editorial
writer said, “Not Victoria upon her throne, but Mary Lyon regnant in
the hearts of lives of more than three thousand pupils…” The work of
the missionaries was honored. The accomplishments of alumnae in fields
such as prison reform, the temperance movement, establishment of
orphanages and industrial schools and, of course, teachings were noted.
Even then many alumnae held executive or administrative positions. Once
the charter was signed [and we may add that this was not without bitter
opposition], entrance exams were revised and elective courses were
introduced. The ability to grant B.A.’s and B.S.’s had been
achieved. Elizabeth Storrs Mead, the first to assume
leadership who was not an alumna, became president in 1890 and she faced
many significant challenges which tested her talents for leadership. She
stated:” In the trial of new methods of work and of Government, and
the bringing in of a larger life, the effort has been made to enlarge
but not to rend; to preserve the aim of the founder, and yet to renew
and extend in every needed direction required by the broader purpose of
a College.” She encouraged scholarly development of the faculty by the
attainment of advanced degrees, study abroad, reduction of non-teaching
duties; she wanted curriculum reform and the phasing out of the seminary
course which would further validate the petition for collegiate charter.
She encouraged building to accommodate the increasing numbers of
students and the phasing out of the domestic work program, and all of
her goals emphasized the need for endowment. She dealt with the
destruction of the original seminary building by fire in 1896 and three
years later the campus had been expanded significantly with the addition
of nine new buildings. [Brigham, Safford, Porter, Pearsons, Mary Lyon
Hall, Rockefeller, South Cottage, Wilder, Blanchard] __________________________________ Check Message Board of class web site www.mhcclassof1960.net Ann Carey Edmonds, “A Memory Book-Mount Holyoke College 1837-1987 Papers in the Archives ETC. I want to add a comment from Ellen M. Spencer regarding the article
on Virginia Galbraith which we sent last month: “I very much enjoyed
the article on Virginia Galbraith. She was my advisor, as economics was
also my major at Mount Holyoke. I agreed with so much Judy said, but
particularly with how fascinating and understandable she made the
subjects she taught. She certainly stimulated my interest in finance
which took me to graduate school, Wall Street, and several banks/trust
companies as well as to a myriad of financial volunteer positions.” ________________________________________
May 8, 1893m - March 27, 1993 MHC 1915 “As of this moment I am doing what everyone else in the class has done years ago—getting rid of papers, journals and such that shouldn’t be left around for someone else to handle.” She continues, describing scrapbooks, photo albums and a compilation of her husband’s illustrious career. “I am trying to put my house in order—about time at 77—to paraphrase Milne, ‘an extraordinary age for so young a person to be.’ Elizabeth grew up in the Boston area but she was born Sarah (Sadie) Elizabeth Holloway on the Isle of Man while her parents were on summer vacation. Fast forward a number of years… years where independence was encouraged by both parents…years she spent at Mount Holyoke, graduating in 1915 with a BA in psychology; and then, “Those dumb bunnies at Harvard wouldn’t take women so I went to Boston University.” She graduated Law School in 1918. During this period she had kept an ardent suitor, William Marston, waiting. They were married in 1919 and she continued her education after her marriage, completing an MA in Psychology at Radcliffe. In addition to having a law degree and PhD in psychology from Harvard, her husband wrote and worked for Universal Studios, applying psychology to every branch of the activities of the Studios. [This was truly a power couple]. In 1929, the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly contains the following written by her husband: “It occurred to me that her friends ought to know she is still on deck. Do you know that Betty…was managing editor of Child Study Magazine…wrote many interesting and successful trade articles and ‘broadsides’ for the Policy Holders Service Bureau Metropolitan Life Insurance Company…left to become a member of the Editorial Department of the Encyclopedia Britannica, handling psychology, anthropology, medicine, physiology, law and some biology?...worked as editor and wrote an article on ‘Conditioned Reflex’ to appear as a signed article in the Britannica—until August 28, 1928, when she had…a son?…that she has been doing graduate work at Columbia in Psychology for her PhD?..that she collaborated very largely with her somewhat soft-witted husband in writing ‘Emotions of Normal People’…and is now co-author of a general psychology to appear next fall…that she has been an instructor in Psychology at Washington Square College in N.Y.U. for a couple of years?...that she is the best wife and mother who ever lived in addition to her outside activities? There is something for your flyer, Miss Voorhees.”(1) Her editorial comment is: “Do we see other husbands seizing their pens?” Our editorial comment would be that during this time, a young student of Marston’s, Olive Richard Byrne, moved in with the couple and they lived openly in a polyamorous relationship, both women bearing him two children. Olive’s children were formally adopted by the couple. In 1937, Elizabeth wrote that she is a “‘working mama’ which means a job all day and four children all the other waking hours…We eat buffet suppers en masse or cook weinies in the orchard fireplace…with usually about ten children and a dozen or so adults.” The two combined psychological insights to write about the physiology of deception and they developed a crude polygraph machine which they never marketed. She indexed the documents of the first fourteen sessions of Congress, lectured on domestic relations, commercial law and ethics in addition to the accomplishments listed above. Before creating a new cartoon character in the 1940’s, her husband consulted with her evoking the comment: “Come on, let’s have a Superwoman! There are too many men out there.” He used his wife, a truly ‘liberated woman’, as the inspiration for the character of Wonderwoman , a superheroine, living on the Isle of Paradise who entered our violent dimension to combat the aggression of history’s males through the Amazon philosophy of love and strength. “SHAZAM!” His character promoted “global psychic revolution” through the use of non-violence by forcing evil doers to look into their own hearts where some good always resides. Wonderwoman continues to battle “prudery, prejudice, sexism, crime, hatred and racism with the Power of Love.” William died in 1947. The women remained together until Olive’s death in the late 80’s. Later in life, Elizabeth communicated regularly with Mount Holyoke,
providing address changes and inquiring about classmates. Several of
these letters were answered in an affectionate manner by Carolyn Berkey,
Executive Director (2). In 1985 Elizabeth attended her 70th Reunion and
wrote to compliment Allen Bonde who played the piano at a dinner which
Carolyn had been unable to attend. Carolyn assured Elizabeth that Allen
would continue to play at the Loyalty Reunion every year as long as he
was willing and then advised her of the whereabouts of one of her
classmates, assuring Elizabeth that she was doing fine. For the last
three years of her life Elizabeth lived with one of her sons; she died
at the age of 100. Wonderwoman, as they say, lives on! (2) Carolyn Berkey served the College in many ways. Besides being Executive Director of the Alumnae Association, she worked in the Development Office. She was the wife of Robert Berkey, Professor of Religion. She died this year. Sources: Fondly, Sue and Dana amitybc@maine.rr.com
dlfwhyte@comcast.net ________________________________________ Martha Locke Hazen Like a detective piecing together clues to find a missing person, Martha Locke Hazen did some sleuthing to recover more than a thousand stars that astronomers believed were ‘lost’. Using what she called “forensic astronomy,” as curator of the collection she examined glass-plate photographs of the heavens and researchers’ notebooks at Harvard College Observatory to bring the wayward stars back into the record books. The collection had “fallen into disrepair” since the early 1950’s and until Hazen joined the Observatory staff in 1960, said Alison Doane, who succeeded Dr. Hazen as curator of the astronomical photograph collection when the latter retired in 1991. “Martha painstakingly pored over the working notebooks of many under-appreciated researchers, mostly women, to locate markings on the original discovery plates and correct positions or identities of 1,174 stars,” said Doane. She conserved deteriorating logbooks, consolidated location and instrumentation for the nearly 100 telescopes used in making the observatory’s plate collection (“the world’s largest”). Her organization of the collection, which then consisted of some 300,000 glass-plate photographs of the skies dating to the 1890s, made possible the current and planned digitalization program of the Center for Astrophysics’ complete plate collection. “Over her nearly 40 years of stewardship of the plate collection,” Doane said, “Martha hosted and instructed countless astronomers worldwide as well as local students…… she was very matter-of-fact and no fuss, no frills. She was an absolute optimist, always moving forward and willing to take things on.” “Martha was the one who kept us honest,” said Owen Gingerich, a retired Harvard University astronomy professor, for whom Dr. Hazen had been a teaching fellow at the Observatory. “She was a feminist and was always keen that women got their due share of time in the lectures and kept us on our toes for any misstatements.” Martha grew up in Belmont Massachusetts. Her father taught engineering at M.I.T and her mother, Katherine, studied science at Mount Holyoke, graduating in 1926. Both parents loved nature, and Martha was exposed to the outdoors at an early age. She had been interested in astronomy since elementary school. “No one told me I couldn’t take physics or math……. so I did.” Throughout her life she encouraged other women to enter science. In 1953 she graduated from Mount Holyoke Phi Beta Kappa, as a Mary Lyon Scholar, with a degree in astronomy. She received her doctorate from the University of Michigan. Dr. Hazen entered astronomy at a time when few women did and became an expert in variable stars – stars that change their brightness over a period of time. She was an officer for the American Association of Variable Star Observers. “Martha was one of the trailblazers for the rest of us,” said Elizabeth Waagen, of the Cambridge-based Association. Martha received the Association’s Merit Award in 2005. In 1993 she was awarded the Alumnae Medal of Honor, with this tribute: With your intellect, initiative, and humor – the same your classmates enjoyed in undergraduate years – you have raised your family and pursued a career in astronomy, first at Wellesley and then at Harvard. Your schedule, however, has always included time for Mount Holyoke. Deeply involved in fundraising, you have been a Cornerstone representative, reunion gift caller, and member of the Alumnae Development Committee. Your knowledge of scholarship and academic life has been invaluable to the Alumnae Honors Research Committee, which you now chair. The Alumnae Association salutes your loyalty and energetic efforts for Mount Holyoke and, with pride and affection, presents to you its Medal of Honor. Martha’s first marriage ended in divorce after twenty-three years. In 1991 she married Bruce McHenry, a former ranger in the National Park Service. Joan Corcoran Steiger has an “old story” about the early days of that connection: “Several years ago I enjoyed the happy circumstance of sitting on the Alumnae Association committee that recommends potential honorary degree candidates. Martha, with her hard-won academic achievements, was ideally suited for the work of the committee and took it very seriously. One evening before our meeting began; this serious scholar announced that she had signed on with a match-making service. I distinctively remember the collective gasp of the other committee members. I think there were questions about what sort of person she might meet and how dangerous this could be. Uncharacteristically, I thought, Martha shrugged it off. It turned out that our words of caution were too late. Martha had already met a man through the service and planned to marry him. She gave us a few details about him and calmed us somewhat. At our next meeting Martha brought her new husband for us to meet. He was a wonderful, down-to-earth, delightful man – outdoorsy and obviously crazy about Martha. We all fell in love with him and knew instantly why Martha had, too.” It’s fitting that Martha’s Bruce have the last word here: “Martha was a wonderful lady full of energy to the very end,” he said (she was a breast cancer survivor who died of leukemia). “We were both adventurous, both curious, and our lives just fit together. A month before she died, we went up in a hot air balloon in Albuquerque. She was just a great lady.” [The above bio draws substantially on staff writer Gloria Negri’s Boston Globe obituary of January 6, 2007, and on material from MHC archives.] We hope you’re enjoying your summer — and that one of you will suggest a subject (and, why not, a biographer) for the September birthday girl. Warm regards, Sue and Dana P.S. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE WRITTEN AND EXPRESSED AN OPINION REGARDING THE PROPOSED REUNION REFORMATTING. THE STAFF OF THE ALUMNAE ASSOCIATION LISTENED TO US ALL AND THEIR DECISION HAS BEEN MODIFIED SO THAT THE 50 th REUNION CLASS WILL MEET DURING COMMENCEMENT WEEKEND.
________________________________________ Viola Florence Barnes Viola Barnes’s father has been quoted as saying, “I desire that my children be strong and forceful.” He, himself was a talented, albeit overbearing man with many interests. As she grew up in Nebraska, she attended University of Nebraska School of Music and demonstrated promise as a composer, but decided to put aside this creative side in order to become an academic teacher. She graduated from Nebraska with a BA and MA in English literature with a minor in history. After teaching at the University for five years, she completed her PhD at Yale, studying under Charles McLean Andrews. Her thesis, “The Dominion of New England” is considered to be an American history classic and it helped establish her reputation. Her biographer intimates that even at this time, she had conflicting feelings about leaving her creative musical talents behind and that she was already demonstrating signs of what could now be considered paranoia. Although her heart belonged to Yale, she was concerned about potential pirating of her research and the corrosive influence of her mistrust extended its reach over time. She began teaching at Mount Holyoke in 1919, (the year Charlotte Haywood graduated), joining the History department composed of Nellie Neilson and Bertha Putnam. Ellen Ellis, a political scientist, was also a part of this “composite” department but stress resulted from initial differences of opinion and organization based on ‘class”, background, age and interests; these conflicts continued for the duration of Viola’s career and, although she is credited for greatly expanding the American history curriculum, it was not without a personal and professional struggle. She had ambivalent feelings about both President Mary Woolley and President Ham. She was a proponent of interactive teaching and her advanced classes were taught by assigning reading lists composed of primary source material whenever possible. Her students were encouraged to form opinions and discuss issues in class under the severe scrutiny of classmates. She defended an individual’s right to her own opinion as long as the opinion was based on adequate preparation and logical consideration of the evidence. Although many seminars are taught in this fashion currently, the method was innovative during her tenure as was experimentation with the interdisciplinary method. She was instrumental in the establishment of the American Culture major which later became American Studies. Throughout her career she wrote many articles and was a member of many professional organizations. In 1928 she was co-founder of the Berkshire Conference of Woman Historians and served as its second president. She received the Alice Freeman Palmer Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the Social Science Research Council. In 1940 she was named one of the 100 outstanding career women in the United States by the Women’s Centennial Congress. She was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Nebraska. She was proud of her role in the celebration of the Mount Holyoke’s centenary in 1937 where she was part of a committee of three who pressed the Trustees to commission Arthur C. Cole to write a history of Mount Holyoke College. In the 1920’s when few thought such a program would be popular, she rented horses and a local barn; she hired a riding master and supervised the riding program for five years. The program was so successful that the College built a barn, (the one we knew), to stable the horses and incorporated riding into the physical education program. It was through a common interest in riding that she met her life partner, Mildred Howard, a member of the Physical Education department during our time. {One wonders if she ever visited the current Equestrian Center in her later years!} From about 1926 to 1970, she focused her research on the history of Great Britain from 1760-1776 and completed a 3 volume manuscript that has never been published, despite even a posthumous attempt, by several scholars. Her mistrust of people had centered on the rejection of this manuscript, although Reid, her biographer says,“…although with time even that became a metaphor for a pervasive suspicion that supported the notion of a plot large and complex enough that its supposed activities ranged from postcolonial Africa to the peaceful streets of South Hadley.” He also shows that she remained suspicious of both male-orchestrated discrimination and of modern feminism. She despised the organized student revolts of the late 1960’s, commenting,“ I cannot see any reason for turning Mary Lyon’s missionary factory into a tart camp.” Despite the fact that she had taught at Mount Holyoke College, a fairly protected place for women, the stresses of being a female professional historian, tormented her even after World War II when things were “supposed to get better” for women academicians. By her own testimony, despite her many physical and emotional illnesses, she lived a “happy old age.” She was modest about her own contributions but retained a great pride in her student’s achievements. She had resisted gender-related and other obstacles but in doing so, she had entrenched characteristics in herself which became counter-productive and held her back from the acceptance she desired from others. John Reid considers this to be her “personal tragedy” but reaffirms that it never did “crush her spirit.” Sue Cochran Swanson who was a history major in our class at Mount Holyoke comments, “I feel that Viola Barnes career is another testimony to the importance of Mount Holyoke College. I seriously wonder if she would have been able to reach her full creative and intellectual potential and make so many contributions to professional history in a collegiate environment where women were not given equal opportunity for advancement. As Chair of the history department at Mount Holyoke, she was able to expand the history curriculum and develop the American Culture major. My experience as a historian was very different. In 1960, I felt my options were limited. I could teach on a high school or college level or pursue museum work. Teaching became my lifetime love, but I moved away from academia. Instead I spent my career bringing local history to the general public. I did this through the system of historians appointed by the government executives in the State of New York. I served as the town historian in Pelham, NY for 15 years and as Westchester County Historian for 11 years. In those roles I helped develop a 4th grade local history curriculum, wrote books, produced exhibits and media projects, lectured, worked with the county’s social studies teachers and students to celebrate U.S. Constitutional events. On a government level, I videotaped all the county legislative sessions, created video interviews with retiring county commissioners and created and ran a county historic preservation program. I helped 35 town historians establish similar programs. I worked with regional historical associations and, as President of the New York State County Historian’s Association, worked with the State Historian in Albany to create statewide projects with 60 other county historians. It was great fun and a wonderfully creative outlet.” Lynda Morgan who currently teaches History at Mount Holyoke confirms that scholars have noted that there was a decline in the number of female historians with full professor-ships after WWII (16% to 0%) and that it was only in the later 1960’s that these figures began an upswing. Stanley Katz is a historian at Princeton University. He is the son-in-law of Roger Holmes who was a professor of philosophy at Mount Holyoke College while we were there. Indeed, he was a class honorary. Katz who considered Viola Barnes to be a noted and accomplished historian asked his father-in-law about her one day. Professor Holmes was puzzled as he had not known of any famous historian at Mount Holyoke. His reaction to his son-in-law’s accolades was one of incredulity and it was not altogether flattering to Viola. “Well,” commented Katz, “thereby hung the tale of the relations between an older generation of women who had dominated the college and the newer generation of male professors and presidents who had infiltrated the oldest women’s college in the United States by the 1940’s.” Sources: P.S.
Be in touch.
________________________________________ Mount Holyoke has a history studded with many women of great distinction. Some are memorialized in the names of dormitories or other buildings on campus. September 5 is the birthday of one who is unknown to most students and alumnae Annah May Soule. It is somewhat paradoxical that this woman, perhaps the most beloved of all Mount Holyoke faculty, and originator of several important traditions, including probably the most important—the honors program, should be so little known. She died young, and taught at Mount Holyoke for only eight years, but the great outpouring of love and appreciation from faculty and students, both during her brief tenure here and, especially at her untimely death seems unmatched in our College’s long history. Annah was born in Port Huron, Michigan, in 1861. Her father was a captain (later a major) in the Grand Army of the Republic, and fought throughout the Civil War. We know little about her childhood, beyond what was recorded in her files at Mount Holyoke. She went to public schools in Michigan, except for one year at a convent school in Canada. She attended a state teacher’s college, then known as a Normal School, in Ypsilanti, for three years. Leaving without a degree, she spent six years teaching American History courses at two state Normal Schools in Michigan. She then attended the University of Michigan for two years and graduated at the age of 35 with a bachelors and a masters degree in history. Armed with these degrees she arrived at Mount Holyoke College in 1896—the year old seminary building burned down. She took up her duties in the department of History and Political Economy, which had just been created. She resided in the newly-built Safford Hall, and was apparently some sort of “house mother.” A few surviving documents in the college archives give a fascinating insight to the social and cultural life of the College at the turn of the century. There are numerous poems written about her or to her by students. She cajoled the faculty into joining the ragged band of Civil War veterans in the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the South Hadley Commons - a tradition that continues to this day. A more senior faculty member said of her, “Miss Soule always entered into the spirit of Mount Holyoke and all of its traditions as fully as if she had been an alumna.” In the 1890’s William Gaylord, a local philanthropist, offered to build a public library for South Hadley. It was to be located across the street from the college gates, which was the site of the original town cemetery, dating from 1728. This necessitated moving the graves to a new location in the nearby Evergreen Cemetery, which had opened in 1868. Annah Soule was ever mindful of opportunities to get her students involved in local history, so in 1903 she organized five of them in a project of recording the information from the gravestones before they were removed. The resulting “Soule Book” now reposes in the South Hadley town archives, and is the only record remaining of many of the early settlers. Sometime in that year, Annah, seeing how much time was spent in the transcribing of information from the gravestones by her students, petitioned the faculty to give academic credit for the project. After some debate, this was granted and a few years later this precedent developed into the first honors program. It is likely that Mount Holyoke was one of the first, if not the very first college in this country to initiate academic recognition for independent research projects, so this is an enduring memorial to her efforts. This was to be among her last contributions to the College. Having been an active participant in the revolutionary changes in the College with the advent of Mary Woolley in 1901, and the departure of the last of the old faculty who had known Mary Lyon she left in 1904, and died shortly after. It is doubtful whether there has ever been a more heartfelt and emotional memorial service at Mount Holyoke than that for this young woman, whose “bright face and cheery voice” had won so many friends in her brief tenure. ________________________________________ May 22, 1905 Recently, Fran Hall Miller wrote, “Well I sure remember a line Dean Cameron delivered at Orientation in 1959 and it was, ‘You study the liberal arts to save yourself from middle age.’ I hadn’t a clue what she meant then, but the phrase stuck with me, and I sure know what she meant now. I also remember that she told us that if we were ever in trouble (on a date?) we should call her, day or night, and she’d come and get us. My mental picture of her ever after was of a lady with black hair back in a bun driving up to ‘get me’ somewhere in the middle of the night, dressed in a granny gown and nightcap, carrying a candle.” At that time, Meribeth Cameron was only 55 years old! Ten years later she was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by President David Truman who said, “The College is proud to recognize the achievements of a truly remarkable woman. A respected scholar, beloved teacher, able administrator, and wise and witty human being, Meribeth Cameron has left an indelible impression on the institution which she has served so well for twenty-two years. Although she has never been associated with the Women’s Liberation movement, its adherents could well take vicarious satisfaction in her accomplishments [for] how many women serve as college presidents, top educational administrators, and presidents of international organizations and reach the rank of full professor in a highly competitive field? She is living proof that intelligence has no gender.” Ms. Cameron was born in Ontario, Canada. She attended Stanford University, obtaining her BA in history in 1925, an MA in 1926 and a PhD in history and political science in 1928. Before joining the Mount Holyoke College faculty in 1948, she taught at Stanford University, Reed College, Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve and was Dean and Professor of History at Milwaukee-Downer College. Her area of specialization was Far Eastern history. She joined the faculty of Mount Holyoke as Academic Dean and, as such, served on most of the major committees of the College while also teaching a course on the History and Civilization of Eastern Asia. She is said to have had no faculty enemies. In addition she served as acting president of Mount Holyoke in 1954, 1966 and 1968-69, the last following the resignation of Richard Glenn Gettell. (1) In 1954 and 1966 she served as Academic Dean while she continued to teach her course; during this pe riod in 1966 she was also chairman of the Four-College Committee on Asian and African Studies. (Mary Lyon would have been proud of her ability to multi-task!) From 1959-1962 she served as President of the International Federation of University Women, a diverse organization with member associations in 55 countries. One of these organizations was the American Association of University Women of which Dean Cameron was a member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the National Committee on International Relations. As part of her work for these organizations, she attended planning sessions and conferences throughout the world. Ms. Cameron is the author of “The Reform Movement in China, 1898-1912” and co-author of “China, Japan and the Powers”; she has written many articles and reviews and has edited a number of journals. She holds four Honorary Degrees and she is an honorary member of the Mount Holyoke College Alumnae Association. She was a member of the Massachusetts Advisory Commission to the United States Committee on Civil Rights and has served on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In a release to the New York Herald Tribune in 1949, she said, “It is too late to save the Nationalist forces in China, and they probably could never have been saved by foreign aid anyway…an all out aid from the United States to the Nationalists might well invoke active Russian participation in the Chinese crisis and bring on WWIII…The Chinese Communist movement is not a recent Russian conspiracy but is a ‘Chinese Revolution’ which started decades ago. For us to view the Chinese revolution as a mere episode in our contest with the USSR is short-sighted. The American people must become better informed about the origins of the revolution so that, as it progresses, we can support policies which are not opportunistic and short-range.” In 2006 a fund was endowed in honor of Meribeth Cameron. This prize is awarded to two faculty members for excellence in teaching. It was endowed by Janet Hickey Tague, 1966, who remembered the Dean as “a formidable, intellectual presence on campus.” In 1981, ten years after her retirement, Dean Cameron reported: “I find retirement a blessed condition. I have traveled…written a couple of articles, reviewed many books for professional journals, and made a few speeches. I read widely to make up for all the years when I despaired of having the time to even open a book. I enjoy music…and, to my surprise, I watch birds!” Granny gown, indeed? Are “we” finding retirement to be a “blessed condition?” (1) An interesting article in the Harvard Crimson in October, 1958 discusses the speech by Richard Glenn Gettell in which Mount Holyoke and the ‘Uncommon Woman’ are defined. Dean Cameron is quoted liberally describing the honor’s program and compares it to that at Harvard. Sources: Papers in the Archives Kate Bracher has this addition to make to the biography on Martha Hazen released in August: “In addition to her (Hazen’s) distinguished professional career as an astronomer, she taught at Mount Holyoke College for two years, 1957-1959; I think this was just before she finished her PhD at Michigan. She left Mount Holyoke to marry Bill Liller, her first husband and a fellow astronomer. I took a couple of courses from her, including astrophysics, and she was one of the people who (by example) made it clear to me that women could do astronomy. I used to see her occasionally at astronomical meetings, and she was always glad to see me and to see one of her students being a successful professor of astronomy. I enjoyed knowing her, and was very sorry to hear of her death.” The 1960/2010 Connection Project has been launched. Several of us met with the class board of 2010 in early September. They were enthusiastic about the project. Later eleven classmates attended “More for Sophomores” where we were introduced and talked with many of the 300 sophomores who attended the event. It was reported that “our” table was the busiest, most active one in Chapin! We hope to post our plans and talk about the events we participate in on the class web site. This is a work in progress. Nancy Bloom would like an e-mail from those of you who might want to participate in the 1960/2010 Connection events on campus (nancyerb@aol.com). We also hope to set up email contact with the Class of 2010 for other interested parties. These young women are determined and FUN! Be in touch. Sue and Dana ________________________________________
Susan
Lincoln Tolman Mills Susan Tolman Mills typifies Mary Lyon’s image of the early graduates of Mount Holyoke; she remained on campus to teach, she did missionary work and she was dedicated to the higher education of women. At her 80th birthday celebration, Mrs. Mills was honored with many speeches: “Susan Tolman Mills has lived and worked for the higher education of women…her experience goes back to the days of Mary Lyon and the old Mount Holyoke, to the institution built in South Hadley in faith and hope and from which so many influences for good have gone out to every land and almost every home. Mrs. Mills can remember how good men looked on the experiment of educating women with fear and trembling.” The deathbed wish of Susan Tolman’s mother was that her six daughters be educated under Mary Lyon, “that pioneer in the education of women.” Susan graduated in 1845 and returned as a teacher. In 1848, she married Reverend Cyrus T. Mills and they sailed with other missionaries, to Ceylon. It has been said that there was a revival on board the ship which resulted in the conversion of the captain and many crew members. In Ceylon she and her husband were associated with Batticotta College, an institution for the education of native teachers and preachers and were also in charge of several day schools for girls. Failing health obliged them to return to America after six years where they recuperated, accepting a call to the Presidency of Oahu College of the Hawaiian Islands two years later. This institution had been established especially for the education of sons and daughters of missionaries and other foreign residents. Mrs. Mills taught the natur al sciences and English and, in addition, had the care of the boarding department for an extended family of about fifty. Again, poor health compelled them to return to America where in 1865 they purchased the Mary Atkins School for Girls at Benicia, which was the only school for girls on the West Coast. This became Mills Seminary and later Mills College. She had already elevated the status of the sciences in women’s education to that of Greek and Latin. She later included history, music and painting. Interested in the mind-body interaction, she added calisthenics to the program. A spectator wrote, “The music, the grace of motion, and the precision of evolution of the young ladies excited much enthusiasm on the part of the spectators.” The couple devoted “their worldly fortune and strength of their mature years” to the building of this institution for the Christian education of “young ladies.” When its reputation had been established, they deeded the entire property to a board of trustees, to be held for the higher education of women, and to be Christian but non-sectarian. Although influenced by her devotion to Mary Lyon, who was a personal friend and roommate during her teaching years, it has been said that she never tried to make Mills a copy of the mother institution. When Dr. Mills died in 1884, his wife was found to be thoroughly competent in managing the affairs of the institution and it advanced steadily. In 1885, a college curriculum was added and a college charter was received from the State, giving it the power to grant degrees. For this accomplishment, Mrs. Mills was granted an honorary degree by Mount Holyoke College in 1901. When she died at the age of eighty-seven, only three years after retiring, those delivering her eulogy said, “Quite as thoroughly and completely as Mary Lyon was Mount Holyoke, Susan Tolman Mills was Mills College, though its administration had passed into the hands of trustees…she was a brainy brilliant scholar, a born teacher, an administrator and a business woman beyond comparison.” Another added, “Those who knew her personally revere her memory for her wisdom, broad charity, helpful sympathy and her single-hearted devotion to the work of morally elevating womanhood.” Another: “She built for the benefit of mankind. She strove to make the world better and wiser, labored to erect a fountain of knowledge that would send forth pure and sparkling streams.” An article in the Mills Quarterly written at the beginning of the twentieth century describes potential growing pains of the College. The writer refers to the fact that New England colleges were preparing students for “learned professions,” and making little effort to interpret “the increasingly complex American life.” Reference is made to the fact that the United States was no longer isolated and warns against an on-coming wave of material development and prosperity. The education of women (one hoped) would “save us from materialism” but this would only be possible if we can “understand and appreciate each others’ ideals.” (During this period understanding Oriental Culture was implied.) The writer states that Mills College will continue to have a useful future if it does its part toward interpreting twentieth century life and recognizing its international responsibilities. She states that women “of al l countries should meet in increasing numbers on the Mills campus to pursue studies which will enable them to understand each other and those problems, the solution of which involves the peace of the world.” This is a noble endeavor and a speech which rings true today. Mills College has endured and prospered and remains a respected institution of higher learning for women. Without such pioneers as Mary Lyon and Susan Tolman Mills one wonders exactly how the timeline of women’s education would have read. In a speech delivered to the National Association of Collegiate Alumnae by Mrs. Mills in 1908, she praises Mary Lyon for her courage and foresight. She praises her tirelessness and her vivacity calling it “happy enthusiasm which vitalized everything.” Indeed these same words have been used to describe Susan Tolman Mills. ________________________________________ Sources: Papers in Mount Holyoke College Archives We hope you have had a colorful Autumn and that your northern gardens are bedded down for the Winter. I know you join us in hoping that there will continue to be a winter season! Have a happy Thanksgiving and be in touch. Sue and Dana
________________________________________ FROM DANA AND FROM
SUE We’re celebrating the Odyssey and its very recent move into adjacent renovated quarters. And we’re celebrating Romeo’s great gifts to us and the Valley -- of course the Odyssey but also his courtly, witty, thoughtful, bright, kindly, and visionary self. Romeo created, and was, a gift that keeps on giving. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM ODYSSEY BOOKSHOP’S WEBSITE [with italicized asides by assorted admirers]: The Odyssey Bookshop was established in 1963 by Romeo Grenier, a French-Canadian immigrant who arrived in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1923 at the age of thirteen. Despite a limited high school education, he became a passionate reader, buying a book a week. In 1935 he became a pharmacist, and in 1957 he bought Glesmann’s Pharmacy across the street from Mount Holyoke College, one of the Seven Sisters and the first women’s college in the United States. [ I truthfully have no Glessie’s stories because I was almost afraid to go into the place -- too “sophisticated” for me. My attachment came post graduation...... ] Soon Glessie’s, as it was affectionately known by town-and-gown, became a literary gathering place. The soda fountain, booths, and especially the round table were filled with students, faculty, and townspeople often engaged in spirited discussions about books and current events. Romeo decided to move the toothpaste and aspirin aside to create a book department at the front of the drugstore. He began this new adventure with 500 Penguin titles. [ I remember him as absolutely a figure of authority because of his white pharmacist’s coat and name badge, and because of his mellifluous voice and measured, precise way of speaking -- and because he was the magus who created a Left Bank cafe in the rear of Glessie’s. He did it with a couple of booths, a round table, art posters, some serious paperbacks, classical music in the background, and his presence. The whole place was alight, buzzing with intellectual energy and purpose .] But it did not stop there, and five years later Mount Holyoke College asked Romeo to open a full-fledged bookshop. Thus, in November of 1963, with the help of the Mount Holyoke community, boxes of books were moved several buildings over to the Odyssey Bookshop. [ In those days the store was small, cluttered, and magic, and it seemed to hold thousands more books than a Barnes and Noble holds now. Romeo sat in the center of the shop. He talked. He did his book-keeping. He examined books. ] During the next two decades, the Odyssey became known throughout Massachusetts as a unique place to look for books. But in the 1980’s the store suffered two major fires. With the help of Mount Holyoke College, many generous members of the community, and a dedicated staff, we rebuilt. In 1991, the ownership of the business passed to Romeo’s daughter, Joan Grenier, who oversaw the re-location of the shop to its present location as the anchor store of the Village Commons. In 1998, Neil Novik joined the business as co-owner, bringing his expertise in the crime fiction genre, management, and technology. The Odyssey continues to be a vital part of the Mount Holyoke College community. In 2001, the Odyssey won a contract from the college to provide the books for all courses and in 2003 started carrying art supplies required for the college’s art studio courses. In addition, many of the Odyssey’s events are planned in conjunction with college faculty and departments. We have also kept up with the growth of book E-tailing, with the development of a full service website, www.odysseybks.com, offering customers the opportunity to order books 24 hours a day. We believe that many customers need to look at, touch and feel a book before they buy, so being a ‘clicks and mortar’ store can afford them the best of both worlds. We have also lived up to our goal of bringing readers and writers together, with a literary event schedule including more than 150 events a year for adults and children, and attended by more than 2,500 people annually. In addition, in 2001, we initiated the Signed First Edition Club. Each month, club members receive a signed First Edition of a newly published book selected by the Odyssey for its literary merit and potential collectibility. The club now boasts 280 members. The Odyssey Bookshop is proud of its history and its continuing role in community life. We will be celebrating our 45th anniversary in 2008, and expect to celebrate many more. Odyssey: 413.534.7307 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM COLLEGE STREET JOURNAL OF NOV 21 1997: In Memoriam : Romeo Grenier, former owner of the Odyssey Bookshop and a familiar face to many long-time members of the MHC community, died November 8 at the age of 87. What eventually became the Odyssey Bookshop began in the 1950s, when Grenier stocked a shelf of books in the pharmacy he operated. By 1963, there were more than 25,000 books, and employees suggested he decide whether he was running a pharmacy or a bookshop. Over the years, countless MHC students, faculty, and staff were frequent visitors at the Odyssey. Among them was Musicorda director Jacqueline Melnick, who recalls Grenier’s love of good music and travel as well as his passion for literature. “Everyone found him incredibly interesting,” says Melnick. Mary Lyon Professor of Humanities Penny Gill says Grenier was a bridge between the South Hadley business community and the College. She remembered him talking with faculty and students at his store, attending campus events, and “practically holding court during alumnae reunions and commencement weekends, greeting a parade of alums who wouldn’t dream of coming to campus without a visit with Romeo.” The College acknowledged this deep link by creating the Edward Hitchcock Bowl award for Grenier in 1980, “in recognition of singular service to the College community by a friend of Mount Holyoke. (This is ) a most deserved tribute to a man whose contributions to our community and to our college are beyond adequate measure or recognition.” The citation said in part: “Having made your way, with sure purpose, down the Connecticut River from Quebec to the city of Holyoke and an apprenticeship in the pharmacy of Simon Flynn; and having attached yourself, with surer purpose, to Miss Elizabeth Flynn; you then, with surest purpose, pointed your destiny at the town of South Hadley, the drug store of Glessmann, and the college of Mount Holyoke. You had resolved to be the most cultivated apothecary since John Keats (1795-1821). Daily, after long breakfasts complicated by culture, you motored to work, fashionably late, in superannuated Cadillac convertibles, meditating changes involving profound value judgments. Soon aspirin and toothbrushes had to be sought with difficulty amid shelves and more shelves of books and records and prints. Putting first things first, you abandoned your pharmacopeia and moved to your grand new emporium of arts and letters. You gave an intellectual home to the colleges of the Valley. You gave us credit, you gave us discounts, you cashed our perilous checks. You remembered our names, young and old. You loyally displayed, and occasionally sold, the fugitive productions of Mount Holyoke professors. Air stagnant with Muzak and stunned with Rock you purified with Mozart. You made us confident that at least two seats would be filled at every significant college event. You saw to it that every book worth having could be had at the Odyssey. You have done all that a man can do to civilize us, and we thank you.” With best wishes and high hopes for the new year,
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Helen Griffith
Helen Griffith was the model of a dedicated teacher. After earning a B.A. at Bryn Mawr (1905), a master’s degree at Columbia, and a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, she served on the Mount Holyoke faculty, in English, from 1912 until retirement in 1947, and when she retired she taught some more, first at Bennett College in North Carolina, later at Tougaloo University in Mississippi, and finally at Piney Woods School, also in Mississippi. She went to Tougaloo to stand in for faculty there who wanted to go north for graduate study, and she refused any payment beyond room and board so that what would have been her salary could assist in that mission. She had a strong interest in Black Americans’ struggle toward educational parity and civil rights—scribbled notes in the archival collection for talks on the topic to students and alumnae suggest her usual careful research on this as on other topics. Her post-retirement work was a substantive contribution to the goal, giving the best she had to give. Students at Mount Holyoke admired this teacher who, in Alan McGee’s words at a memorial gathering in 1976, “preferred ideas to come from the students’ own minds in the congenial atmosphere of discussion.” She wanted, McGee said, “to encourage spontaneity and courage in students’ thinking.” She knew how to guide students, even correct them, without ever “dispiriting” them – a too rare teacherly gift. In addition, she was a leader on the faculty. McGee recalled her role, as Chair of the Academic Committee, in curriculum revision that was adopted in the year of her retirement. The new Basic Courses, he said, “encouraged an intellectual freedom which had not been possible in more traditional study. The Mount Holyoke student was permitted a degree of self-reliance and maturity unusual in the bachelor’s degree.” She established, in other words, a trend that continues to this day and from which we of the Class of 1960 clearly benefited; our distribution requirements may have been slightly annoying, but even today, far more nit-picky requirements can make students in some schools feel like they will never have time to pursue their own academic goals. Writings by Griffith in the archival collection are few but striking in two common elements: meticulous thoroughness in research and a beguiling sense of humor whether the topic is Time Patterns in Prose, a tedious monograph published in 1929, or Horace: A Study in Popularity – The frivolous inquiry of a non-classical student, a talk to be given to Mount Holyoke students after time away on sabbatical leave. Her masterwork, if you will, was written in retirement and published locally: Dauntless in Mississippi: The Life of Sarah A. Dickey, 1838-1904. Griffith was astonished at Tougaloo to come upon the portrait of a dignified white woman, who was, the attached plaque said, “our founder” and 1869 graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary! Who was this woman, she wondered, and how did she come here? What did she do? Founder of what? Meticulous research again, in Mount Holyoke’s archives and around and about Clinton, Mississippi. The result of her work was a biography written with affectionate admiration. A flyer and order form circulated at the 1965 publication of Griffith’s book provides the best summary: Among the heroic figures of the post-bellum south was Sarah Dickey, a Northern white woman who dedicated her life to the education of the emancipated Negroes. She first taught in Vicksburg in a mission school for her church, the Evangelical United Brethren, during the last nineteen months of the war. Returning north, she worked her way through Mount Holyoke Seminary, 1865-1869. Then, back in Mississippi, she taught in one of the first Negro public schools established by the Reconstruction government, lived in the home of a Negro, and withstood the attempts of the Ku Klux Klan to drive her out of the state. Indomitable, she held to her purpose of founding a school for young Negro women on the pattern of Mount Holyoke, and single-handed, she did just that. An illustration in the book [of ten handsome black women] shows the class of 1897 at Mount Hermon Seminary, the name she gave to her school. Though nothing of Mount Hermon remains [whatever was left was subsumed into Tougaloo], Sarah Dickey’s story has considerable relevance for our time. In an era when racial prejudice was at its height, she gradually won for herself and her school the respect and gratitude of the town that had once ostracized her. The last paragraph in the book illustrates what power and hope Griffith found in Dickey’s story and gives us a sense of the writer, her own steady faith in the possibility of enduring goodness in humankind: How cheering it is to know that the change here recorded took place in the heart of Mississippi! Cheering also that this beneficent change centered in the life and work of a woman who accepted without reservation the statement that faith can remove mountains. That the mountain-movers raised up for her were fellow townsmen is perhaps the most cheering aspect of this case history, for what happened once can surely happen again. Sarah Dickey has blazed the trail. There are men of good will all through the South to follow it. The power of an individual must never be underestimated. The life of Sarah Dickey proves it. The last chapter, so to speak, in Dickey’s life hold a little moral for us as we approach 2010! When Dickey’s classmates assembled in 1919 for their 50 th reunion (the same year, by the way, that Charlotte Haywood graduated and Viola Barnes joined the MHC faculty), the building of Clapp Laboratory to replace a science study center destroyed by fire was in process. The class of 1869, proud to have the largest proportion of living grads present in a reuning class, gathered funds to name a room in Clapp for Dickey. Contributions came from every living graduate of the class! $5000 for the Dickey memorial and $12,000 for the general fund, no small feat of fundraising for women of those times! As for Griffith, she lived to the age of 94; her last years spent at a Quaker-sponsored retirement community in Pennsylvania. Evidence in the archives proves that her lively mind never shut down—she continued her tradition of composing sonnets for her Christmas greeting to friends to the very end of her days. After her 70 th birthday, the annual fourteen lines celebrated all the good fortunes of her life; the ending couplet noted the “greatest pleasure” of all: It’s that of friendship. So, my friends, I send Our thanks to Sara Dalmas Jonsberg who volunteered to research and write these biographies of two Mount Holyoke - connected women whose histories became intertwined. We plan a mid-winter "Elfing" for the class of 2010 from the class of 1960 and, in addition, Nancy has received the names of 70 women in that class who want to communicate with us by email regarding careers, perspectives, geographic locations etc. She will be contacting you about your interest in participating. She can be reached at nancyerb@aol.com. We hope you will respond to the winter class letter regarding your interest in a mini-reunion on Campus to be held September 29-October 1, 2008. We will be able to attend classes at that time. Fifteen of you have already written us. We will furnish you with more details as they become available but we hope to do this by email only and not by additional class letters. We hope you have a grand new year. Cheers,
Sue and Dana
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EGYPTOLOGY and MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE Carolyn Ransom Williams (and others) February 24, 1872 In the spring of 2007, a conference was held at Mount Holyoke for the purpose of discussing an exhibit at the College called “Excavating Egypt: Great Discoveries from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archeology.” Listening to the speakers and watching the slides, we became aware of a number of “connections” worth mentioning. Anyone who has visited the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum has seen artifacts from Egypt and, indeed, they have been represented in the College’s collection since the late nineteenth century. Amelia Edwards, an honorary member of the class of 1891, was a British novelist and journalist and her most successful book, “A Thousand Miles up the Nile,” is the account of her only trip to Egypt in the 1870’s. She was horrified by the rampant looting of tombs and sites and truly believed that there should be a more scientific approach to excavation. She became a tireless advocate and fundraiser on behalf of Egyptian Archeology and was responsible for the founding of the Egyptian Exploration Fund. She was Flinders Petrie’s greatest backer and because of his extensive, scientifically directed excavating techniques, many artifacts were discovered and preserved. Women attached themselves to these expeditions but worked primarily as sorters and labelers while learning principles of excavation on the job. (The accounts of English women who undertook these adventures make fascinating narratives.) While on a lecture tour in 1889-1890, Amelia spoke on Egyptian art at Mount Holyoke and was so well received that the class of 1891 made her an honorary member. She accepted graciously and commented that she was glad this honor was not dependent on an entrance exam as she would have “ignominiously failed upon the multiplication table, an abstruse science that she had never been able to master.” The College Museum was a member of this Egyptian Exploration Fund, a subscription system that helped fund excavations. Participating institutions from many countries received a share of the finds with the approval of the Egyptian government’s Antiquities Service. Mount Holyoke College was a participant in the program because a woman named Mary Dickinson (class of 1854) paid for Mount Holyoke’s membership. All we know of Mary was written by a Dr. John Todd who said, “She was a woman of dignified presence with a mind enriched by travel…and through a long life, devoted herself to high ideals and kept in touch with the world’s work…” She was, “one of the brightest women” he had ever met. Louise Fitz-Randolph (class of 1872), founded the Department of Art History. She taught this and Archeology at the College from 1892 through 1912. She had advanced her knowledge of the subject by travel abroad and by association at various times with Harvard, Boston University, University of Chicago, Columbia, the British Museum, the Sorbonne, University of Zurich, Berlin and the American School of Classical Studies at Rome and Athens. It was during her tenure that the first Art Building at Mount Holyoke, Dwight Hall, was funded and built. Louise pleaded, “An Art Building at Mount Holyoke should include galleries suitable for the exhibition of casts and pictures to be scientifically arranged in some historical sequence with the purpose of affording most direct aid to the students…a large, well - lighted lecture room…a series of smaller reference rooms…space for the technical study of art…” She had a passion for Egyptian art a nd archeology and made a concerted effort to bring more objects into the collection. She traveled to Cairo and Luxor a number of times always advancing Mount Holyoke’s collection of Egyptian artifacts. The Alumnae Quarterly carries letters written about her voyages to Egypt, “the land of her temporary adoption.” She received her MA from Mount Holyoke in 1904 and in 1932 she attended her 60 th Mount Holyoke Reunion: “she was one of the five of eleven living members of the 60 year class to attend the reunion. She wore her graduation dress of white organdy with a blue sash and, as a former president of her class, headed the little band of silver-haired women…” America’s first professionally trained female Egyptologist was Carolyn Ransom Williams. She attended Erie College (which was, coincidentally, a daughter college of Mount Holyoke.) Her parents allowed her to transfer to Mount Holyoke because her aunt, Louise Fitz-Randolph, was a respected professor in residence. When Carolyn graduated in 1896, she and Louise went on a grand tour of Europe and Egypt where she fell under the spell of antiquity. The discipline of Egyptology had just been recognized as a degree program at the newly opened University of Chicago and Carolyn was admitted to the program. Professor Breasted regarded Carolyn as a promising scholar and he encouraged her to continue her studies abroad under the leading German Egyptologists. Later she returned to complete her PhD at Chicago. Her distinguished career included: Chairman of Department of Art and Archeology at Bryn Mawr College, Assistant Curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Honorary degree recipient at Mount Holyoke College in 1912, Curator of Egyptian collection of the New York Historical Society. She remained active in her field after her marriage and was responsible for cataloguing over 4000 gold and silver pieces of jewelry by deciphering the hieroglyphics. She spent seven years on this project and the book publishing her results was described as “one of the most important contributions to the field.” It laid the foundation for the proper appreciation of Egyptian jewels “yet to be published from the tomb of Tutankhamen.” She published other books, was elected a life member of the New York Historical Society, an honorary curator of the Egyptian collection in Toledo (her home town) and she taught courses in Egyptian art and Middle Egypti an, the language of about 2000 BC, at the University of Michigan. She undertook many engagements with universities having Egyptian collections. She was a part of the Oriental Institute of Chicago which studied inscriptions on a wall of Rameses III and she received an honorary degree from the University of Toledo in 1937. On a humorous note, in 1936 when she responded to a questionnaire sent by the Alumnae Association of the College for the 100 year directory, she responded: “This bores me to extinction. Questionnaires are my bete noir; I think they are an imposition on the time of busy people.” At the time of her death, a friend wrote: “…an abbreviated summary of achievements fails to portray the woman herself…she was a true gentlewoman, devoted to family, church, each alma mater, to friends in all walks of life at home and abroad…She was esteemed by other colleagues, erudite in her field, [and] warmly interested in contemporary life and in people. Her devotion to Mount Holyoke was evidenced in gifts to the Library and to Dwight Art Memorial, and more substantially …in 1945 [with the establishment of] the Louise Fitz-Randolph Fellowship in Art…In her thought, in her conversations and actions, she expressed continually a living interest in the College…” There are Conferences and Exhibits on Campus frequently. Attending them can be hazardous to your health and free time for attendance can lead to flights of research and fancy like the above! Many of us are participating in the 1960/2010 email Connection that Nancy Bloom is facilitating. It is quite exhilarating to see the paths these communications are taking. Write us about your experiences. Write and tell us your thoughts about attending a mini-reunion on campus September 29-October 1st, 2008. In three words: be in touch. Fondly, Sue and Dana Sources:
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Ruth Douglass, Professor of
Music
Born March 19, 1902, Chestertown NY HONORS:
Born the first child of a small-town Methodist minister and his wife, Ruth was in many ways a daughter of the nineteenth century as much as of the twentieth -- and lived into the first year of the 21st. Graduating from Saratoga High School while WW I was still dismantling the Western world, she received the Yaddo Medal for Scholastic Excellence, and majored in music at Mount Holyoke. After several postgraduate years during which she studied voice in New York and history of music at the University of Berlin, she joined the music faculty at Mount Holyoke, becoming Professor of Music and chair of the department during President Gettell’s tenure. Throughout her forty years at the College, she gave voice lessons. A colleague said of her, [She].....“could find the voice in any student.” During her years as choral director, the choir and glee club were well-known for the quality of their performance. The annual Town Hall Concert in New York City became a holiday tradition. In a letter written in the grandly idealistic and visionary language of the Victorians, she said: “Music never relinquishes its hold on its disciples.” She was serious, earnest, dedicated to the importance of musical expression as an art. “Let’s erase from our musical vocabulary that adjective applied with its stigma of inferiority and utilitarianism!.......Perhaps choral groups can bridge the gaps between the college and the world at large. The ensemble performer learns how to contribute without protruding, to subordinate ...without self-effacement; when to take the tonal foreground, when to become a supporting background. An ensemble is....a place for a good citizen in the community of sound. Such “blending” of talent and mind focused on great literature under artistic guidance results in Music -- history and theory are outgrowths of it.”(2) During one semester in 1958 Ruth traveled widely in Europe and the Far East. In a piece published January 1st of that year in The Boston Globe, she said about Indian Ragas, “An accomplished performer can extend one of these for nearly an hour through his own invention as he sings. Complicated embellishments, tiny quarter-tones, amazing coloratura passages, intricate rhythmic patterns, all stemming from the original melody, none of them written down, bring humble admiration from a note-bound westerner. Teachers rejoice when, after years of study, students assert their individuality in improvisation.” Teachers “rejoice” when “students assert their individuality.” Spoken like a great teacher. In 1967 she retired from Mount Holyoke. Thanking students, alumnae, her colleagues, her friends for their contributions to an endowment in her honor and for their expressions of gratitude, Ruth Douglass wrote, in part, “May you ever keep a song in your heart and on your lips, as you gain energized perspective through a deep breath, group consciousness through ensemble experience, and spiritual insights through musical communication of ideas.” In 1978 Ruth spoke at the 55th reunion banquet of the class of 1923 -- her class. She called her remarks Affectionate Recollections of Three Mount Holyoke Presidents and she began with Mary Woolley. “It was my privilege during those years from 1919-1938 to hear hundreds of addresses and mini-sermons by her in Mary Lyon Chapel. May I remind you of a few of those whose substance has remained with me through the intervening decades: 1. Don’t use yourself up in small change. This may seem a sentimental remnant of the Woolley era. To me these.....have become a recipe for living. ” Ruth’s remarks on that occasion are so vivid and memorable that I’ll include a little more. At the end of 1938, her difficult last year at the College, “Miss Woolley went to Westport, New York, on the shore of Lake Champlain to the home of Miss Marks. (Prior to that Miss Marks had moved out of the president’s house and rented a house belonging to the College where she and Harriet Newhall and Ethel Dietrich lived for a few years.) My sister and I called at the Lake Champlain house once. Miss Woolley had left for Europe a short time before, but Miss Marks was delightful and cordial. When Miss Woolley died, Miss Marks telephoned me from Westport and asked me to sing at the crematory in Troy for the final rite. My mother and I went to Troy on the appointed day and I sang, ‘Hark, hark my soul’ as the body went into the furnace.” Despite increasing deafness and lack of mobility, Ruth continued to teach voice to one of her caretakers and to oversee the music at the South Granville Congregational Church, which she and her family had long attended, giving it up only during the few months of her final illness.
Dana Feldshuh Whyte Sources:
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“Jennie”—the Skeleton in the Closet
“Jennie”, indeed, may only be known to science majors for she is the human skeleton used to study and clarify human anatomy in the laboratory. What follows is an excerpt from the Mount Holyoke College Newsletter dated January 23, 1918: “Jennie Dons Cap and Gown” “A human skeleton robed in a senior cap and gown keeps faithful watch over the physiology office and laboratory in its new quarters in the basement of Mary Lyon Hall. Rather a dismal monitor, you may think. Not so: for “Jennie” is a distinct novelty and has become endeared to the students. When the department sent calls for assistance in the way of materials and specimens to supplement their losses in the fire of Williston Hall, “Jennie” was one of the first to come in response. “Jennie” is the generous gift of Dr. George E. Hunt and Dr. Alice E. Hunt of Holyoke. She is the skeleton of an Indian squaw 35 years old. As soon as “Jennie” arrived she was initiated into her new life in the Physiology Department. Some kind senior gave her a cap and gown and she continues to wear it with passive dignity.” It has recently come to our attention that it was necessary to place “Jennie” out of circulation into a more respectful setting. A study had been initiated to determine whether or not “Jennie,” was, indeed, that of a Native American woman. There is a government repatriation law that requires all Native American objects to be returned to their Tribes. A “box” has been constructed by Facilities Management so that if “Jennie” needs to leave Mount Holyoke College, she is ready. She has served students at Mount Holyoke for ninety years qualifying her as a deceased Mount Holyoke-related woman. ____________________________________________________________________________________ September 29th-October 1st, 2008 Come see the Campus in action, Attend Classes, Meet Professors Let us know if you are interested! (dlfwhyte@comcast.net) Many of you already have, On-line registration will be available soon. First come---First served Be in touch,
Sue (amitybc@maine.rr.com)
Dana (dlfwhyte@comcast.net)
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Cherokee
Seminary for Girls, Tahlequah, Oklahoma Imagine a small chorus of lovely Cherokee maidens singing their alma mater: “The Seminary our garden fair The Cherokee Heritage Center is a cultural museum in the small town of Park Hill in Eastern Oklahoma. It is the site of performances of “The Trail of Tears,” an outdoor drama that traces the cultural and political development of the Cherokee people. In front of the Center are three brick columns, physical remnants of what was once the pride of the Cherokee Nation, the first Cherokee Female Seminary. Completed in 1851, the school educated several generations of young Cherokee women to adapt to a world and way of life quite different from that of their tribal past. The nondenominational Cherokee Female Seminary was unique as it had been established and maintained by the tribe, was open only to Cherokees, and offered students a course of study patterned after that of Mount Holyoke Seminary. Although Christianity was stressed, the term seminary actually referred to any institution of higher learning that also trained students for employment in other fie lds. As at Mount Holyoke, the curriculum at the Cherokee seminary did not include any aspect of Cherokee culture. Despite this omission, the school was filled to capacity with Cherokee students, and many alumnae later graduated from other colleges and universities becoming physicians, business women, educators, and social workers. The seminary was created during a tumultuous period in Cherokee history. Only ten years before, the tribe had been removed from its homeland in the East and resettled in southern Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. By mid-century, tribal members were attempting to reestablish their nation in an area surrounded by lands occupied by whites and other tribes. Because of the continued influx of “white blood” and white values into the tribe, the Cherokees’ consciousness about race, class, and culture became more pronounced. Cultural changes accelerated, causing intratribal political and social rifts to reemerge as they had in the East. There was cultural ambiguity as the tribe consisted, in part, of those who resisted white culture, those clinging to tradition, and those who knew nothing about Cherokee culture and who appeared to be Caucasian. The student body at the newly found Seminary represented these different factions. Three thousan d Cherokee women were educated here over the course of the years. Because of financial difficulties, the school was closed from 1856 until after the Civil War. It was reopened in 1871, but fire destroyed the original building in 1887. (The original Seminary building at Mount Holyoke was destroyed in 1896.) It was rebuilt at a nearby site, re-opening in 1889, and it still stands as the oldest building on the campus of Northeastern State University. In 1909, the new state of Oklahoma bought the school from the Cherokee Nation, renaming it Northeastern State Normal School. Currently, it exists as Northeastern State University. In 1847 David Vann and William Potter Ross, both Cherokees representing their Nation and the latter a Princeton graduate, journeyed east in order to make first- hand observations of Mount Holyoke and its methods. They consulted with Mary Chapin, the school’s acting principal, and chose as their principal and teacher, Ellen Whitmore and Sara Worcester. The duties of these alumnae would be to instill the standards and traditions of their alma mater at the new seminary. The original journal of Miss Ellen Whitmore reveals something of the spirit that impelled the serious-minded early New Englander to brave the hardships of the western territories in order to spread this doctrine of education and religion. It also acknowledges the firm determination that permeated the minds of Cherokee people to secure educational advantages unsurpassed by any for both their sons and daughters. The journey to Indian Territory required perseverance and patience that could only be endured by those with a strong conviction of duty and high ideals of unselfish service to others. Ellen Whitmore, a Massachusetts native, attended Mount Holyoke in the class of 1851, leaving to become co-founder and principal of this Cherokee National Girls Seminary. Her journal has furnished much of what we know about the overland and river journey. Regarding the river trip, she described her fellow passengers as “motley” and “not the most agreeable in the world.” She speaks of her boat “running aground.” She characterized one captain as “…an inefficient man who loved his cups more than the comfort of his passengers.” Apparently one of the stewards later shot the bartender. While a passenger on another river boat, she wrote, “I never had any idea of filth until I boarded there. Sara and I had the most comfortable state-room on the boat…but the sheets and covering were of doubtful color…and we were well nigh devoured by mosquitoes and fleas.” Upon transferring to a wagon, she cont inued,”…one without springs, the seats were simply boards placed across the bed…Our ride was very hard and rough, the road by no means a New England road and our carriage not a New England carriage.” She resigned from her new post after two years, marrying a missionary, Warren Goodale, whom she accompanied to Hawaii. She died there in 1861. There is a letter to President Chapin begging her to send a replacement from Mount Holyoke. She stated that it is a “responsible situation—and of course by no means free from trials.” She continued, “…it will contain about fifty scholars this year…The branches attended to this year will be Latin, Algebra, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, Botany and Vocal Music. The situation is…a desirable one...the salary is large—being 800 dollars a year the school is very pleasant—the country delightful—the society in the neighborhood of a superior order, and the religio us privileges good…Though far from home and friends, I have found warm friends here whose unremitting kindness I can never repay…Mr. Ross is my constant friend and support. He is anxious with regard to my successor. He desires that this should become as much like Holyoke as possible—and hopes you will send just the right one…” Ellen had struggled with her decision to go West and one may say that she followed a “path of duty.” Her daughters attended Mount Holyoke graduating, in 1873 and1884. Other descendants of Ellen’s attended Mount Holyoke and her diary is in the possession of one of them, Elizabeth Howard, class of 1945. She wrote profusely, and many letters are preserved at the Cherokee National Archives. Ellen was accompanied by Sara Worcester, class of 1850, who was to be assistant principal. Sara already deserved the name of traveler as she had come these 3000 miles before with her father who was a missionary. Reverend Samuel Worcester had, indeed, drafted the proposal for the school in conjunction with Vann and Ross. His mission was located close to the site of the proposed building of the Cherokee Seminary so Sara was, in truth, going home. She had been born in Cherokee Nation East (now Georgia), but as a little girl had travelled with her missionary family over the “Trail of Tears”.(1) The family had set up their home, their mission school and their printing press at Park Hill to give Oklahoma a printing history older than its history as a state. Her family was as enthusiastic about education as the Cherokee themselves. Grandfathers, uncles, cousins (one of dictionary fame), father, mother, sisters, and brothers all had the best education 19th century New England offered. Sara chose Mount Holyoke as it had been founded by the classmate of her mother! A letter indicates that she was eager to instruct students in the “social graces” and “meticulous refinements of good breeding” as well as academic disciplines. They also show that she was distressed with the influx of other denominations into the school. In 1853 she married Dr. Dwight Hitchcock, an Amherst/Bowdoin alumnus. She died just four years later.
In 1852, after the brief but significant service of Ellen and Sara, Harriet Johnson, class of 1846, also a Massachusetts native, became principal of the Cherokee Seminary. Pauline Avery, class of 1850 assumed those duties from 1853-1855. Pauline was also born in Massachusetts and was the daughter of a Mount Holyoke trustee. She, like the other women, married a missionary, O.L. Woodard. She was principal when the first twelve Cherokee women graduated in 1855 and the next fourteen in 1856. Pauline died shortly after the birth of her daughter and the child was raised by an aunt, Carolyn Avery, class of 1845. Her husband’s second wife was Esther Butler, class of 1853. Ella Noyes, class of 1872, was principal briefly after the school’s re-opening in 1873. Other Mount Holyoke alumnae who made the journey to teach at the Seminary were May Avery, Harriet Johnson, and Henrietta Woodfort. Delia Vann, a Cherokee, daughter of David Vann, attended Mount Holyoke briefly with the class of 1856, leaving to devote her time to teaching at the Cherokee Seminary. Florence Wilson became principal from 1875-1901. She was not a Mount Holyoke alumna but had been taught in Arkansas by Laura Graham, class of 1848. She then attended LeGrange Female College in Tennessee. She believed in physical education and preventative medicine. Her students took long walks and received doses of castor oil to lubricate the excellent teaching. Although they were in their early twenties, these were already dedicated young women. They were not missionaries in the official sense, but rather they were members of that group who are missionaries in truth, though not in fact. They were teachers. Ruth Muskrat, daughter of a Cherokee father and Caucasian mother transferred to Mount Holyoke from the University of Oklahoma, graduating with the class of 1925. She had a distinguished career as a specialist in American Indian affairs. To our knowledge, she was the only Cherokee daughter to attend Mount Holyoke. In 1987, Wilma Mankiller, the first female Chief of the Cherokee, spoke at Mount Holyoke College. She spoke on “The Changing Role of the American Indian Woman,” focusing on employment and community planning inclusive of community self-help programs, which seemed in a delicate balance with preservation of culture and heritage. Focusing on the interconnectedness of all things, she reiterated that whites and Native Americans can learn a lot from each other and that there must be value placed on historical native wisdom and culture. She confirmed the long association of Mount Holyoke College with the Cherokee Nation emphasizing how the bonds were formed early and remained strong. In the Archives, one finds extensive correspondence between librarians at Mount Holyoke and Maggie Culver Fry, a Cherokee and the elected Poet Laureate of Oklahoma in 1985. Ms. Fry utilized the resources of the archives at Mount Holyoke when she wrote her history of the Cherokee Seminary. She recalled stories that she had heard from both her mother and her aunt who were alumnae of the latter. Anne Edmonds, then head of library services, commented that she had been pleased to help further strengthen the bonds between Mount Holyoke College and the Cherokee Nation. It was, indeed, this series of fortuitous connections that supplied the Female Cherokee Seminary with a curriculum, books, and teachers. Sources: Cherokee Female Seminary Days -- Maggie Culver Fry Cultivating the Rosebuds -- Devon A. Mihesuah Papers and Letters in the Mount Holyoke College Archives Cherokee Advocate Internet articles ______________________________________________________________ (1) “The Trail of Tears” described the tragic relocation of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia to Oklahoma. The term originated thus: “The mothers of the Cherokee grieved so much that the chiefs prayed for a sign to lift the mothers’ spirits and give them strength to care for their children. From that day forward, a beautiful new flower, a rose, grew wherever a mother’s tear fell. The rose is white for the mother’s tears. It has a gold center, for the gold taken from the Cherokee lands, and seven leaves on each stem that represent the seven Cherokee clans that made the journey. To this day, the Cherokee Rose prospers along the route of the “Trail of Tears.” It is the official flower of the State of Georgia.” After the initial excessive casualties due to starvation during this relocation, Chief John Ross, a relative of William Potter Ross, persuaded authorities to allow him to lead his people in small bands allowing them to forage for food and water in a way to which they were more accustomed. Casualties were reduced but the Nation was saddened and weakened. ______________________________________________________________________ As soon as the on-line registration for our Mini-Reunion, September 29-October 1 is available, we will be sending the link to all of you who have expressed interest. We will then send it to the rest of the class with a follow-up postcard. Feel free to contact me (dlfwhyte@comcast.net) or Luisa Tavares (ltavares@mtholyoke.edu) about this. Hope you are enjoying the spring. Fondly, Sue and Dana ________________________________________
________________________________________ Carolyn Berkey, Communications Expert August 9, 1931
At Commencement weekend in 1982, Alumnae Association Executive Director, Carolyn Berkey was admitted to “Honorary Membership in the Alumnae Association of Mount Holyoke College, with all its rights and privileges.” This was met with a round of vigorous applause for she was said to have “guided the staff with creative vision, inspired enthusiastic participation of volunteers, augmented the stature of the Alumnae Association in the College community and gained the respect and affection of all those who have worked with her.” She was, indeed, instrumental in achieving the world-wide birthday celebrations for Mary Lyon’s birthday which helped produce national and international acclaim for Mount Holyoke when the Associated Press ran the story. Television viewers also saw a member of the “Today Show” wear a Mount Holyoke sweatshirt during the first celebration. (Since this time I have heard that Bill Cosby has also worn one o n his TV show.) Who was this non-Alumna who became the Executive Director of “our” Association, making her responsible for implementing the programs of the (then) 23,000 members and working with the volunteer board of directors and committees to “create and continue the variety of activities which support the interests of Mount Holyoke?” She came to Mount Holyoke in 1958 as a young wife and mother when her husband, Robert Berkey, accepted a position as professor of religion. (Retired 1999/ Died in 2006) We are told that her home became a “gathering place and haven for students seeking counsel, inspiration and renewal.” Using her master’s degree in religious education she served the community as executive director of the Holyoke YMCA and as a volunteer in the South Hadley Congregational Church. She joined the staff of the Development Office at Mount Holyoke in 1973 and became head of annual giving where she “inspired countless alu mnae to new heights of financial support and dedication.” She was appointed as Executive Director of the Alumnae Association in 1980, retiring in 1988 in order to accompany her family to England on Sabbatical. During her tenure, she had made an effort to reach alumnae in many countries both when she visited privately and on Alumnae Association sponsored trips. It was said that “programs burgeoned in creative content and scope reaching throughout the country and around the world.” For these things she received the Alumnae Medal of Honor. Carolyn was born in Egypt to missionary parents and she returned much later to teach English there. She was an “Egyptologist” but her true love was England. She traveled extensively; she loved Art; she did brass rubbings; she loved music and poetry. It was fitting that a favorite poem of hers by Emily Dickinson was read at her memorial service: The Bustle in a House The sweeping up the Heart, When I (Dana) moved back to South Hadley in 2002 and became acquainted with Carolyn Berkey, I was impressed by her grace and contagious enthusiasm. She seemed to have boundless energy as she traveled with her grandchildren and continued to respond to any community need with warmth and joy that endeared her to everyone including me; a newcomer! Indeed, she and I were in the early stages of planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands with our respective young granddaughters. While spending time in the Archives collecting material for these “Birthday Biographies,” I read many letters from Carolyn which had been written to countless (featured) alumnae during her tenure. She responded to what seemed to be the most minimal query. It might have been a request from an older alumna about a classmate or a change of address or a procedural question or an opinion about a policy as well as an enthusiastic response to a reunion that alumna had just attended. To an o lder alumna concerned about the possible death of a classmate she wrote that, indeed the person in question had just visited another classmate in Florida so that she was “fine and traveling” only a month before. She had extensive communication with Elizabeth Halloway Marston (aka “Wonder Woman”) during her later years and they read as letters to an old friend. She responded in a gracious fashion to alumnae of all ages. Her responses referenced each question and they were answered with palpable warmth and a sense of caring that tended to make one feel valued by the Institution she represented. She was, indeed, an expert at communication, an uncommon woman and an ambassador for Mount Holyoke College.
The Link to the on-line registration for our Mini-Reunion in September (29th-1st) can be found on the class web site www.mhcclassof1960.net on the Mini-Reunion page. To date 35 classmates have registered. Professor Vinnie Ferraro (Politics) will be joining us for dinner on the 29th. He will talk about foreign policy issues in the elections. The summer has flown by…but time HAS flown in recent years. Stay in touch. Cheers, Sue and Dana ________________________________________ Toshi Miyagawa
[Although we know that none of you are waiting near the computer for the offering of the month, we have come to feel that we have not gotten our homework in on time if we skip a month. This time we will blame it on the fact that the College Archives were closed all summer. This and some intensive planning for the Mini-Reunion held on the Mount Holyoke Campus only days ago have occupied our time.] In 1893, Toshi, (aka Martha Gulick), was the first woman of Asian descent to graduate from Mount Holyoke College. In response to the notification of her 25th Reunion in 1918, she wrote, “Since I am so far away, I cannot have the pleasure of seeing you.” She was eager to see old friends but conditions for travel were not permissive. Toshi, of Chinese birth, was abandoned as an infant in North China. The infant’s father spent his life mining coal and her mother was forced to labor long hours. A missionary couple, Mr. and Mrs. John Gulick, had recently lost a child at birth and readily took on the care of the newborn, Mrs. Gulick discovering that she was even able to nurse her. (1) They took the infant to Japan. As she grew up, she often accompanied her parents on horseback as they made their missionary journeys. Mrs. Gulick had visited Mount Holyoke in 1872, at which time, despite the fact that she herself was English, she began to “cherish the hope” that her daughter might be educated there. Toshi’s early schooling began in Tokyo in the American School for Girls and she was a member of the first class to graduate from Kobe College in 1882. Arrangements were made for her to attend Mount Holyoke but before she departed on the long voyage, she became a Japanese citizen . She studied at Mount Holyoke from 1890 to 1893. A letter describing her trip home indicates that she stopped to visit the “Dickinson girls” and then proceeded to Oberlin College, Chicago, Winnipeg and Vancouver. She writes of the Fair Grounds in Chicago with the “night illuminations being very fine…” “It seemed so wonderful to think how all these things were brought from all parts of the world!” Upon her return to Yokohama she taught at Kobe College and was one of the outstanding teachers of English to her own people. She married the Reverend Yoschimichi Hirata and they had five children, two of whom died in infancy. She became an enthusiastic helper in the Church. Her home was destroyed in the earthquake of 1921 but she was not injured. In a letter to the College, she says, “I wish my students appreciated Shakespeare more. They think he speaks too much of love and so he is not good for young boys and girls to read.” She continues, “I am so glad to hear that the girls have a beautiful reading room, but don’t you wish the glorious ’93 could gather once more in that old lecture room and fight our battle o’er again? You do not know how your letters make me wish we were all together again at Mount Holyoke and digging again through the gold lay deep in the mountain.” Chinese by birth, Japanese by citizenship, with a British mother, and an American father, Toshi was truly an International student who appreciated her connection to the Mount Holyoke community. Much has changed since 1893. Current statistics indicate that in 2007 there were 266 Asian-American students enrolled. Also in 2007, there were many of Asian citizenship at Mount Holyoke. The breakdown was as follows: Bangladesh: 11, China: 50, India: 21, Japan: 8, Korea: 1, Nepal: 22, Pakistan: 17, Philippines: 1, Singapore: 2, South Korea: 18, Sri Lanka: 6, Taiwan: 1, Thailand: 2, Vietnam: 12. (1) “Who’s Who” describes John Gulick as born of American missionary parents in Hawaii. He worked as a miner in California, graduated from Williams College and attended Union Theological Seminary. He married in 1864 but I was unable to discover anything about his English wife. He was a missionary in Kalgen, China before going to Japan from 1875-1899. He wrote a great deal about Darwinian topics. ________________________________________________________________________ From the toast to Paul Newman, through the charismatic talk by Professor Vincent Ferraro, through vigorous class attendance and mingling in Blanchard and the Odyssey, to the Dessert Reception for 2010, this Mini-Reunion “rocked.” A detailed description will be on the class web site soon, complete with photos. We all wonder why we haven’t done this before. Seeing the “Campus-in-Action” was an energizing experience. Be in touch! Fondly, Sue and Dana amitybc@maine.rr.com dlfwhyte@comcast.net ________________________________________
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Pattie J. Groves, M.D.
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Brown" To Annie Brown Leslie who with lively human sympathy and the understanding of a keen mind, in the double role of "Nancy Brown" and Mrs. J.E. Leslie; has conducted for twenty years the column "Experience" and written a daily editorial in The Detroit News. She has induced wholesome individual and group attitudes toward life in the everyday activities and crises among thousands of citizens in a manner worthy of the best traditions of Mount Holyoke College.
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________________________________________ Billy Collins says "The job of poetry...is to make sure that prose is never allowed to have the last word." This anthology of poems and lyrics is our last mailing to you. We're feeling a mix of emotions, including happiness and melancholy. Attitude In these poems you will seek in vain for exactitude and rectitude If there are themes to be unearthed among the lines, they might be the vicissitudes and the beatitudes and the fortitude and plenitude in just being here.  Now the swinging bridge is quieted with creepers ...... like our tendrilled life. (Basho) This Bridge by Shel Silverstein This bridge will only take you halfway there To those mysterious lands you long to see: Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fairs And moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk a while with me and share The twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only take you halfway there -- The last few steps you'll have to take alone. In this short Life by Emily Dickinson In this short Life That only lasts an hour How much -- how little -- is Within our power. We grow accustomed to the Dark by Emily Dickinson We grow accustomed to the Dark -- When light is put away -- As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye -- A Moment -- We uncertain step For newness of the night -- Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark -- And meet the Road -- erect -- And so of larger -- Darkness -- Those Evenings of the Brain -- When not a Moon disclose a sign -- Or Star -- come out -- within -- The Bravest -- grope a little -- And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead -- But as they learn to see -- Either the Darkness alters -- Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight -- And Life steps almost straight. Turtle by Kay Ryan Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way To something edible. With everything optimal, She skirts the ditch which would convert Her shell into a serving dish. She lives Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery Will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, The sport of truly chastened things. Holding Action by Jeanne Murray Walker Letters, be the memory of this moment, Ruth's 3-legged Golden Lab sniffing for news beneath the hedge, grass glittering with rain, the bird feeder mangled by our car. Years from now I want to remember how we walked the splendid earth and saw it. When children read this and smile at its old-fashioned vision, then words, stubborn little boxcars lugging meaning across the rickety wood bridge to the future, hold, hold. Couple against time, bear the red geranium, the slender birch -- you, sentences -- glitter against the massive dark of nothing. Tell of feet that buffed this doorsill till it gleams, of cartwheeling children. Remember the Rosetta stone, the hum of xerox machines, remember monks copying, how a prisoner in solitary picked up a pebble to scribble stories on the wall. Letters, I tell you, even if your paper yellows in the attic, even if it's torn and thrown into the sea, each of you separate from your brothers, swim through the ocean, row across the sky, walk through the wasteland, find a reader. Stay together. Hold. Kirchfeld's Coffee by Sarah Lindsay He begins each class with a foam cup of the reconstituted brown powder one calls coffee, and the next in a series of cigarettes; as his students watch, fascinated, he writes on the chalkboard behind him without getting up, creates on the table before him a mess of chalk dust and ashes, and transfers some to his necktie, some to his coffee, lecturing all the while, or interrupting himself with his dry uninflected laugh. In this room only the chalk is capable of as many words as he is. He knows the proper pronunciation of rationale, cynosure, congeries (he chalks them behind him). yet rumor says he came to English late, after Hungarian and Latin, along with Russian, German, French, Greek, and something else, all of which he speaks fluently, without accent. Not that you've actually heard him. These undergraduates grew up in jellied English like sprouts in agar. They've never turned leaves of parchment from animals skinned these eight hundred years, or stood in a library full of a book written out on clay. One good earthquake and it's so much grit, one good flood and it's paste. All the books he owns now are curing themselves of immortality with internal acids, turning tobacco-gold; in his dotage each will be a heap of dust between covers. Powdered language. He swallows what's in his cup, still thirsty, always thirsty. FORGETFULNESS by Billy Collins The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue, not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall, well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart. Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes by Billy Collins First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer's dividing water, and slip inside. You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom, motionless, a little wide-eyed, looking out at the orchard below, the white dress puddled at her feet on the wide-board, hardwood floor. The complexity of women's undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a polar explorer through clips, clasps, and moorings, catches, straps, and whalebone stays, sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness. Later, I wrote in a notebook it was like riding a swan into the night, but, of course, I cannot tell you everything - the way she closed her eyes to the orchard, how her hair tumbled free of its pins, how there were sudden dashes whenever we spoke. What I can tell you is it was terribly quiet in Amherst that Sabbath afternoon, nothing but a carriage passing the house, a fly buzzing in a windowpane. So I could plainly hear her inhale when I undid the very top hook-and-eye fastener of her corset and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed, the way some readers sigh when they realize that Hope has feathers, that reason is a plank, that life is a loaded gun that looks right at you with a yellow eye. Self-Exam by Sharon Olds They tell you it won't make much sense, at first, you will have to learn the terrain. They tell you this at thirty, and fifty, and some are late beginners, at last lying down and walking the old earth of the breasts---the small, cobbled, plowed field of one, with a listening walking, and then the other---- fingertip-stepping, divining, north to south, east to west, sectioning the little fallen hills, sweeping for mines. And the matter feels primordial, unimaginable---dense, cystic, phthistic, each breast like the innards of a cell, its contents shifting and changing, streambed gravel under walking feet, it seems almost unpicturable, not immemorial, but nearly un- memorizable, but one marches, slowly, through grave or fatal danger, --------------------------------------------------------------------- Dead my old fine hopes and dry my dreaming but still... iris. Blue each spring. (Shushiri) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Why so scrawny, cat? starving for fat fish or mice ... or backyard love? (Basho) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Buddha on the hill ... from your holy nose indeed hangs an icicle. (Issa) --------------------------------------------------------------------- This snowy morning that black crow I hate so much ... but he's beautiful! (Basho) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Paperweight by Gjertrud Schnackenberg (born 1964, B.A. Mt. Holyoke 1975) The scene within the paperweight is calm, A small white house, a laughing man and wife, Deep snow. I turn it over in my palm And watch it snowing in another life, Another world, and from this scene learn what It is to stand apart: she serves him tea Once and forever, dressed from head to foot As she is always dressed. In this toy, history Sifts down through the glass like snow, and we Wonder if her single deed tells much Or little of the way she loves, and whether he Sees shadows in the sky. Beyond our touch, Beyond our lives, they laugh, and drink their tea. We look at them just as the winter night With its vast empty spaces bends to see Our isolated little world of light, Covered with snow, and snow in clouds above it, And drifts and swirls too deep to understand. Still, I must try to think a little of it, With so much winter in my head and hand. The Little Boy and The Old Man by Shel Silverstein Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon." Said the little old man, "I do that too." The little boy whispered, " I wet my pants." "I do that too," laughed the little old man. Said the little boy, "I often cry." The old man nodded, "So do I." "But worst of all," said the little boy, "it seems Grown-ups don't pay attention to me." And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand. "I know what you mean," said the little old man. A Phone Call to the Future by Mary Jo Salter 1. Who says science fiction is only set in the future? After a while, the story that looks least believable is the past. The console television with three channels, Black- and- white picture. Manual controls: the dial clicks when you turn it, like the oven. You have to get up and walk somewhere to change things. You have to leave the house to mail a letter. Waiting for letters. The phone rings: you’re not there, You’ll never know. The phone rings, and you are, there’s only one, you have to stand or sit plugged into it, a cord confines you to the room where everyone is also having dinner. Hang up the phone. The family’s having dinner. Waiting for dinner. You bake things in the oven. Or Mother does. That’s how it always is. She sets the temperature: it takes an hour. The patience of the past. The typewriter forgives its own mistakes You type on top sheet, carbon, onion skin, The third is yours, a record of typeovers, clotted and homemade-looking, like the seams on dresses cut out on the dining table. The sewing machine. The wanting to look nice. Girls who made their dresses for the dance. 2. This was the Fifties: as far back as I go. Some of it lasted decades. That’s why I remember it so clearly. Also because, as I lie in a motel room sometime in 2004, scrolling through seventy-seven channels on my back (there ought to be more—this is a cheap motel room), I can revisit evidence, hear it ringing, My life is movies, and tells itself in phones. The rotary phone, so dangerously languid and loud when the invalid must dial the police. The killer coming up the stairs can hear it. The detective ducks into a handy phone booth to try to strangle him with the handy cord. The cordless phone, first noted in the crook of the neck of the secretary as she pulls life-saving files. Files come in drawers, not in the computer. Then funny computers, big and slow as ovens. Now the reporter’s running with a cell phone larger than his head, if you count the antenna. They’re Martians, all of these people, perhaps the strangest being the most recent. I bought that phone. I thought it was so modern. Phones shrinking year by year, as stealthily as children growing. 3. It’s the end of the world Or people are managing, after the conflagration. After the epidemic. The global thaw. Everyone’s stunned. Nobody combs his hair. Or it’s a century later, and although New York is gone, and love, and everyone is a robot or a clone, or some combination, you have to admire the technology of the future. When you want to call somebody, you just think it. Your dreams are filmed. Without a camera. You can scroll through the actual things that happened, and nobody disagrees. No memory. No point of view. None of it necessary. Past the time when the standard thing to say is that, no matter what, the human endures. That whatever humans make of themselves is therefore human. Past the transitional time when humanity as we know it was there to say that. Past the time we meant well but were wrong. It’s less than that, not anymore a concept. Past the time when mourning was a concept. Of course, such a projection, however much I believe it, is sentimental-- belief being sentimental. The thought of a woman born in the fictional Fifties. That’s what I mean. We were Martians. Nothing stranger than our patience, our humanity, inhumanity. Our worrying about robots. Earplug cell phones that make us seem to be walking about like loonies talking to ourselves. Perhaps we are. All of it was so quaint. And I was there. Poetry was there; we tried to write it. A Reason for Poetry by M. E. Douglas (1964) A deep unrest is felt within - Most happy times seem rather thin - A loss of nothing yet something gone - perhaps God's way to help us on - Within each heart a bursting need to give -- to start - have someone heed - A pencil handy - a piece of paper - find words to cover all the dither. The Things by Donald Hall When I walk in my house I see pictures, bought long ago, framed and hanging --- de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore ---- that I've cherished and stared at for years, yet my eyes keep returning to the masters of the trivial: a white stone perfectly round, tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell, a broken great-grandmother's rocker, a dead dog's toy -- valueless, unforgettable detritus that my children will throw away as I did my mother's souvenirs of trips with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens, and bundles of cards from her mother Kate. Why do you keep putting animals in your poems? by Lance Larsen I open windows to catch a glimpse of grace on the horizon, and in they sneak, coyotes and crows, pikas and the scholarly vole, dragging scoured skies I can see myself in. Much cheaper than booking a flight to the Galapagos. And they teach me. Badgers rarely invent stories to make them sad about their bodies. And the wrinkliest of Shar Peis never dreams of ironing its face. My happiness is like a flock of sparrows that scatters when a bus drives by, then re-strings itself two blocks away, a necklace of chirps festooning a caved-in barn. Capuchin monkeys will bite a millipede to release a narcotic toxin, then pass the millipede to a neighbor as if it were a joint at a concert. In a Rhode Island nursing home, Oscar the miracle cat curls up with residents hours before they expire, converting death into purrs for the next world. A poem is a grave and nursery: the more creatures you bury in one place, the more hunger bursts forth somewhere else, like bats at Carlsbad when the brightest day turns dark. The night I stood on my sister's feet and learned to waltz, a porcupine braved four lanes of asphalt and hurtling machines to chomp our windfall apples-- two miracles of syncopation held together by a harvest moon. As Marianne Moore taught us, an hour at the Bronx Zoo in a tricorn hat leaves one happier than nine months with a shrink. Comes a time you just have to wiggle your pin feathers, wag your ghost tail, feel your teeth grow long for the ragged salmon throwing their bodies upstream. Sunday Discordancies by Jim Harrison This morning I seem to hear the nearly inaudible whining grind of creation similar to the harmonics of pine trees in the wind. My outrageously lovely hollyhocks are now collapsing of their own weight, clearly too big for their britches. I'm making notes for a novel called "The End of Man, and Not Incidentally, Women and Children," a fable for our low-living time. Quite early after walking the dogs, who are frightened of the Sandhill Cranes in the pasture, I fried some ham with a fresh peach, a touch of brown sugar and clove. Pretty good but I was wondering at how the dogs often pretend the Sandhill Cranes don't exist despite their mighty squawks, like we can't hear the crying of coal miners and our wounded in Iraq. A friend on his deathbed cried and said it felt good. He was crying because he couldn't eat, a lifelong habit. My little grandson Silas cried painfully until he was fed macaroni and cheese and then he was merry indeed. I'm not up to crying this morning over that pretty girl in the row boat fifty-five years ago. I heard on the radio that we creatures have about a billion and a half heartbeats to use. Voles and birds use theirs fast as do meth heads and stockbrokers, while whales and elephants are slower. This morning I'm thinking of recounting mine to see exactly where I am. I warn the hummingbirds out front, "just slow down," as they chase me away from the falling hollyhocks. February Afternoon by Edward Thomas (1878-1917) Men heard this roar of parleying starlings, saw, A thousand years ago even as now, Black rooks with white gulls following the plough So that the first are last until a caw Commands that last are first again, -- a law Which was of old when one, like me, dreamed how A thousand years might dust lie on his brow Yet thus would birds do between hedge and shaw. Time swims before me, making as a day A thousand years, while the broad ploughland oak Roars mill-like and men strike and bear the stroke Of war as ever, audacious or resigned, And God still sits aloft in the array That we have wrought him, stone-deaf and stone-blind. Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head, Pretending he just doesn't see? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind. The Pasture Gate by Jimmy Carter This empty house three miles from town was where I lived. Here I was back, and found most homes around were gone. The folks who stayed here now were black like Johnny and A.D., my friends. As boys we worked in Daddy’s fields, hunted rabbits, squirrels, and quail, caught and cooked catfish and eels, searched the land for arrowheads, tried to fly the smallest kite, steered barrel hoops with strands of wire, and wrestled hard. At times we’d fight, without a thought who might be boss, who was smartest or the best; the leader for a few brief hours was who had won the last contest. But then—we were fourteen or so-- as we approached the pasture gate, they went to open it, and then stood back. This made me hesitate, sure it must have been a joke, a tripwire, maybe, they had planned. I reckon they had to obey their parents’ prompting. Or command. We only saw it vaguely then, but we were transformed at that place. A silent line was drawn between friend and friend, race and race. The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan Come gather 'round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown And accept it that soon You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you Is worth savin' Then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin'. Come writers and critics Who prophesize with your pen And keep your eyes wide The chance won't come again And don't speak too soon For the wheel's still in spin And there's no tellin' who That it's namin'. For the loser now Will be later to win For the times they are a-changin'. Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'. Come mothers and fathers Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand Your sons and your daughters Are beyond your command Your old road is Rapidly agin'. Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand For the times they are a-changin'. The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The order is Rapidly fadin'. And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin'. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ American Names by Stephen Vincent Benet I have fallen in love with American names, The sharp names that never get fat, The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims, The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat, Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat. Seine and Piave are silver spoons, But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn, There are English counties like hunting-tunes Played on the keys of a postboy's horn, But I will remember where I was born. I will remember Carquinez Straits, Little French Lick and Lundy's Lane, The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane. I will remember Skunktown Plain. I will fall in love with a Salem tree And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz, I will get me a bottle of Boston sea And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues. I am tired of loving a foreign muse. Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard, Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman's Oast, It is a magic ghost you guard But I am sick for a newer ghost, Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post. Henry and John were never so And Henry and John were always right? Granted, but when it was time to go And the tea and the laurels had stood all night, Did they never watch for Nantucket Light? I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse. I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea. You may bury my body in Sussex grass, You may bury my tongue at Champmedy. I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Poems on aging are rarely jubilant, but there are those that cast old age in a more tender light. The twelfth-century Chinese poet, Lu Yu, offers this portrait of the old man in his poem "Written in a Carefree Mood": Written in a Carefree Mood by Lu Yu Old man pushing seventy, In truth he acts like a little boy, Whooping with delight when he spies some mountain fruits, Laughing with joy, tagging after village mummers; With the others having fun stacking tiles to make a pagoda, Standing alone staring at his image in the jardinière pool. Tucked under his arm, a battered book to read, Just like the time he first set out to school. The Dance by M.E. Douglas (1963) One step forward One step back One to the left One to the right A dancing step To all one's life A fine leap forward A stumble here A gay understanding Ending in fear A grab for freedom A dutiful wife Lovely children A source of strife The world spins fast And also slow So much confidence A need to know One step joyous One step sad A dancing step Wonderfully mad. Lines on Retirement, after Reading Lear by David Wright for Richard Pacholski Avoid storms. And retirement parties. You can’t trust the sweetnesses your friends will offer, when they really want your office, which they’ll redecorate. Beware the still untested pension plan. Keep your keys. Ask for more troops than you think you’ll need. Listen more to fools and less to colleagues. Love your youngest child the most, regardless. Back to storms: dress warm, take a friend, don’t eat the grass, don’t stand near tall trees, and keep the yelling down—the winds won’t listen, and no one will see you in the dark. It’s too hard to hear you over all the thunder. But you’re not Lear, except that we can’t stop you from what you’ve planned to do. In the end, no one leaves the stage in character—we never see the feather, the mirror held to our lips. So don’t wait for skies to crack with sun. Feel the storm’s sweet sting invade you to the skin, the strange, sore comforts of the wind. Embrace your children’s ragged praise and that of friends. Go ahead, take it off, take it all off. Run naked into tempests. Weave flowers into your hair. Bellow at cataracts. If you dare, scream at the gods. Babble as if you thought words could save. Drink rain like cold beer. So much better than making theories. We’d all come with you, laughing, if we could. In View of the Fact by A. R. Ammons The people of my time are passing away: my wife is baking for a funeral, a 60-year-old who died suddenly, when the phone rings, and it's Ruth we care so much about in intensive care: it was once weddings that came so thick and fast, and then, first babies, such a hullabaloo: now, it's this that and the other and somebody else gone or on the brink: well, we never thought we would live forever (although we did) and now it looks like we won't: some of us are losing a leg to diabetes, some don't know what they went downstairs for, some know that a hired watchful person is around, some like to touch the cane tip into something steady, so nice: we have already lost so many, brushed the loss of ourselves ourselves: our address books for so long a slow scramble now are palimpsests, scribbles and scratches: our index cards for Christmases, birthdays, Halloweens drop clean away into sympathies: at the same time we are getting used to so many leaving, we are hanging on with a grip to the ones left: we are not giving up on the congestive heart failure or brain tumors, on the nice old men left in empty houses or on the widows who decide to travel a lot: we think the sun may shine someday when we'll drink wine together and think of what used to be: until we die we will remember every single thing, recall every word, love every loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to others to love, love that can grow brighter and deeper till the very end, gaining strength and getting more precious all the way. . . Choose Something Like a Star by Robert Frost - 1947 O Star (the fairest one in sight), We grant your loftiness the right To some obscurity of cloud -- It will not do to say of night, Since dark is what brings out your light. Some mystery becomes the proud. But to be wholly taciturn In your reserve is not allowed. Say something to us we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says "I burn." But say with what degree of heat. Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. Use language we can comprehend. Tell us what elements you blend. It gives us strangely little aid, But does tell something in the end. And steadfast as Keats' Eremite, Not even stooping from its sphere, It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid. Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, And I say it's all right. Little darling it's been a long cold lonely winter, Little darling it feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, And I say it's all right. Little darling the smiles returning to their faces, Little darling it seems like it's years since it's been here, Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, And I say it's all right. Sun, sun, sun, here it comes. Sun, sun, sun, here it comes. Sun, sun, sun, here it comes. Sun, sun, sun, here it comes. Little darling I feel that ice is slowly melting, Little darling it seems like years since it's been clear, Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, It's all right, it's all right. A Committee of Scholars Describe the Future Without Me by Jimmy Carter Some shy professors, forced to write about a time that’s bound to come when my earthly life is done describe my ultimate demise in lovely euphemistic words invoking pleasant visions of burial rites, with undertakers, friends, kinfolks, and pious pastors gathered round my flowery casket eyes uplifted breaking new semantic ground by not just saying I have passed on joined my maker or gone to the Promised Land but stating the lamented fact in the best and gentlest terms that I, now dead, have recently reduced my level of participation. Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell Rows and flows of angel hair And ice cream castles in the air And feather canyons everywhere I've looked at clouds that way But now they only block the sun They rain and snow on everyone So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels The dizzy dancing way you feel As ev'ry fairy tale comes real I've looked at love that way But now it's just another show You leave 'em laughing when you go And if you care, don't let them know Don't give yourself away I've looked at love from both sides now From give and take, and still somehow It's love's illusions I recall I really don't know love at all Tears and fears and feeling proud To say "I love you" right out loud Dreams and schemes and circus crowds I've looked at life that way But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I've changed Well something's lost, but something's gained In living every day I've looked at life from both sides now From win and lose and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all I've looked at life from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all. The Coming of Light by Mark Strand Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow's dust flares into breath. The Long and Winding Road by The Beatles The long and winding road that leads to your door, Will never disappear, I've seen that road before It always leads me here, leads me to your door.......... From Us to You by The Beatles If there's anything that you want If there's anything we can do Just call on us and we'll send it along With love from us to you To you To you To you Over and Out, Fondly, Sue and Dana 50th Reunion Dates are May 20, 21, 22, and 23, 2010 Yellow Submarine by The Beatles We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine, We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine, And our friends are all aboard, Many more of them live next door, And the band begins to play. We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine, We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine, As we live a life of ease, Everyone of us has all we need, Sky of blue and sea of green, In our yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine, We all live in a yellow submarine, Yellow submarine, yellow submarine. ________________________________________
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Upon
reading Bessie Boyd’s obituary in the newspaper, classmate Joan
Corcoran Steiger wrote, “It has been a day to reflect on Bessie
Boyd. I never took one of her classes, but we became friends in
Leningrad in 1976. We attended a ball in the Hermitage; wore our
most elegant gowns and priceless jewelry as we glided down the
marble staircase, acknowledging all the crowned heads of Europe
gathered to honor us. At least that is what we pretended to do. My
gown was a dark green taffeta; hers was even more beautiful because
she had a better imagination. Once was not enough; I lost count of
the number of times we went to the second floor and gracefully
descended. Our object was to feel as regal as possible and NEVER
look down. We got to be pretty darn good at it too! I thought Bessie
was frightfully old to go along with my little-girl-playing-dress-up
approach to the palace, but now I find that she was then the age
that we are now!”
