55th Reunion

Summer 1958 Alumnae Quarterly:

A 55th reunion! Twelve of the original fifty-four were present: Alice Dunning Flick, Emilie Doetsch, Charlotte Jones, Letitia Ricaud, Florence Carmine Bankard, Clara Robinson Hand (just part of the time), Milly Benson Bielaski, Jane Hyde, Anna Slease, Edith Powell Pringle, Lottie Magee, and Eda Briggs Frost.
Age cannot wither nor custom stale the infinite variety of returning alumnae. I wish I had the literary ability to put the returning graduates before a reader in all their diverse characters. One may put them into different classifications, but they don't stay put, and that is the reason they are so interesting.
We were prodded into thinking about our speech, about modern education, about modern science - pleasantly and insidiously. The prodding was so deftly and so graciously done that it was surprising to find out that we were really thinking. The programs were most interesting and timely.
Our reunion was saddened by the death of Frances Doherty last winter. She had been our very loyal vice-president through all the years since our seniour year, a quiet, studious, but fun-loving person, who made an unforgettable impression upon those who knew her.
At our class meeting we elected Charlotte Jones as vice-president, to fill the place left vacant by Frances's death. Alice and Emilie will continue to serve, of course, as president and secretary. The class then voted to devote all future gifts to the Alumnae Fund to a Memorial. The memorial is to be "The Shefloe Language Laboratory"- a very modern development of language teaching adopted already by a few colleges. It calls for some highly complicated machines (some not quite ready for the market) and rooms specially planned and equipped for these new methods. The laboratory will be housed in the new "Activities Center" that you will be hearing about soon, for it is the next building, I understand, in contemplation on the campus. Perhaps the professor in charge of this would be known as the "Shefloe Professor of Languages." Some of this is tentative, but it is our goal and seems quite likely of achievement.
We had no special 1903 get-together, but we were all housed in the same corridor of Robinson House, in the new Anna Heubeck Hall, and we were very sociable indeed. With us were two daughters of 1903 - Dorothy Pringle and Amelia Bielaski, who looked after us, flattered us, and anticipated our wants in the most daughterly way, while we admired them proudly and posessively.
Nancy Nulton Larrick wrote a remarkably legible note from the hospital in Winchester, where she is making a gallant fight to recover from a paralytic stroke, and I think she will make it for she was never easily downed. Nancy Catching Shields expected to be with us, but was taken sick just before time to come. We were especially disappointed, after hearing that she ment to come. Neither Thyra Crawford Burton nor Claire Ackerman Vliet felt equal to the trip, nor did Mary Beavers and Mabel Day Parker, though the two latter might have made it if there had been easier solutions to their transportation problems. Mary Bunting says her trips now are confined to her summer vacations. Mollie Cullom had a long standing previous engagement and Octavia Nelson Long went out to St. Louis to the wedding of her granddaughter, Page Sharp. Octavia sent me her picture, and she is lovely. Margaret Hukill Taylor said she would already be in New Hampshire, and not able to come down to Baltimore. She was still busy in her Florida ship when she wrote. Have an of you seen her weaving? It must be something very good, for she finds it a profitable hobby. Luella Eakins Merry recalled that she was originally enrolled in 1904, then transferred to 1903 and that we might not remember her so well on that account. Indeed we do, Luella, and I never knew that you had not always been one of our class. Notes of regret from Helen Buoy Burrowes, Martha Land, and a telegram from Sara Leutz Key. Martha said that she was driven out to the new campus not long after the college moved out, by Alice Wood, and had seen pictures of it since and would love to see it again, sending her best wishes for the reunion. Mr. John Bailey, Lyda Norris Bailey's husband, wrote that Lyda sent best wishes; she has long been troubled with a serious affliction of the eyes, and has had to give up her very fine community work and many pleasures as well. Mary Abercrombie Verner has quite fully recovered from a serious major operation but the long trip east was out of the question. How pleasant it is to remember Mary and those wonderful gladioli! Bessie Matthews Detcher, writing from Rochester, says she is still working as a nurse at 78! That is wonderful, Bessie! I believe you and Margaret Hukill Taylor have the longest records for keeping on with your job, in our class. Bessie expects to retire one of these years and go to Florida- where I shall go,if I ever want to see my friends any more. All headed southward. Our busy president came late to reunion, for she attended the graduation of her granddaughter from high school up in Flushing, N.Y. the night of the 20th, getting out to Goucher just in time for lunch on Saturday.
The members of the class of 1898 sat at a table beside ours at the Alumnae Dinner and I am sure that no others at their reunions were enjoying themselves more than those 98's were, -interested, active, and planning for the future. We shall be in their places five years from now; let nothing interfere with your coming, or with any plans for the best reunion of all - our sixtieth.