When I Went to College

That September, Mother and Daddy loaded the trunk of the car with suitcases packed tight with all my clothes, plus a carboard box containing a set of bedspreads and draperies.  We drove 40 miles through little towns (which are now Fort Worth suburbs), taking me to Denton, Texas, to start my first year at Texas State College for Women. We called it “TSCW”.   That was almost seventy years ago. 

At Austin Hall my parents helped me move into the room in the dormitory.  Mother smoothed the striped spreads on the twin beds, while Daddy helped me hang the matching draperies.  I had seen similar sets advertised in Mademoiselle Magazine and thought my roommate would be delighted with the fashionable ensemble. 

My roommate stood scowling in the corner.  My roommate, whom I’ll call Buffy, did not like my choosing to decorate our room.  She did not like me much either.   She was a chubby gal with a round face and lanky brown hair; she did not think I was “cute enough” to date her brother, a senior at Texas A&M.  That was O.K.   During Christmas vacation I met Bob Adams who was to brighten my life for the next five years. 

The next year Buffy transferred to Sam Houston State in Huntsville, a coed school, and Emma Wright transferred from Sam Houston and became my roommate at TSCW.   Emma is brilliant. In spite of being handicapped (she is deaf), she maintained a B average in college without ever hearing a word a professor said.  She became one of my closest friends – and still is. 

Through all these years, although often separated by many miles, Emma and I nurtured our friendship through letters and getting together as often as we could.  When I returned to Texas in 2006 and bought a house in the Dallas suburb of Garland, one of my greatest pleasures with taking the train to Fort Worth to meet Emma for lunch at the Kimball Art Museum. 

Now Emma has moved to Austin to be near her son Lee and his wife.  Since she cannot talk on the phone, we communicate by e.mail.  Long e.mails tell each other how we feel about what is going on in our lives.  That is not as good as talking face to face (she reads my lips) – but it is still wonderful to hear from her frequently.

As I moved to Illinois and Michigan and Pennsylvania and New Mexico, I made other friends, most of whom never went to college.  I treasure them.  But the friends I made in college have continued supporting me through the bad times and sharing in good times.  Support I seldom got from my family.  Friends were the most valuable thing I acquired in college.  

I went to TSCW because it was the cheapest college I could find. My grandsons can not believe that when Grandma was in school, tuition at TSCW was only $25 a semester, no matter how many courses I took.  Some semesters I took 21 hours of classes each week.  Fees added another $10 each semester.  Room and board was less than $50 a month.  As for books, the college had a “book room” where, at the beginning of each semester, we checked out text books, just like checking out books at the public library.  During my entire time at TSCW, I had to buy only one book.  It was a compilation of “Modern British and American Authors” for an English literature class.  The book is out-of-date.  Lots of important writers were unknown seventy years ago.  But I still have the book!

My senior year I had a $100 scholarship from the journalism department.  After paying tuition and fees, I had money left over.  During that year I also worked twelve hours a week in the employment office.  For $25 a month!  Wages are another thing that has changed in seventy years.

But I hope that when my grandchildren are in college they find friends to last a lifetime.