Sophie Meranski 1923 Mount Holyoke
Year Book #841 p 28
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One of Sophie's
Hartford Public High School teachers Harriet Barstow interested Sophie in
attending Mount Holyoke College.In Pearsons Hall freshman year particular
friends included Eleanor Hall, Clara Michal(-opoulos, born in Smyrna) and
Becky Smaltz. Sophie scored a 98 in Economics sophomore year, and Professor
Alzada Comstock said Sophie wrote the best exam paper she had ever received
from a student.Sophie waited on tables and worked on the switchboard - the
last job arranged for her by Cora Hughes'22 so Sophie could afford a junior
prom date.Sophie's sister Bertha had a friend Sadie Slonaim of Hartford who
eventually married U. Mass journalism student Bert Quint,and they introduced
Sophie and Nandor Porges, who played football and dated Sophie 1922-l923 -
expect to study soil schemisty - used to commute by trolley from the amherst
campus to Mount Holyoke. Sophie studied statistics under labor economist Amy
Hewes who invited her to work in statistics laboratory while doing master's
degree (Young Offender and the Law in Massachusetts MA 1925.Sophie minored
in German with Grace Bacon, who went to France l9l9 with Army nurses.Sophie
enjoyed hearing Mary Woolley in chapel mornings and class singing. Her
father and mother attneded the 1923 graduation when Amerst's president
Alexander Meiklejohn was featured speaker. Sophie attende a gfootball game
1922 with Nandor against Mass. Aggie's traditional rival - he gave her his
fraternity pin the Saturday night before graduation - then raced to catch
last trolley to Amherst 9:50 pm, but she never heard from him again.MOUNT
HOLYOKE memoir text: ."..My home room & English teacher was Miss Harriet
Barstow, a young (l9l5) graduate of Mount Holyoke College,interested in
missionary work. Her sister was also a teacher. Miss Barstow encouraged me
to apply for Mount Holyoke College. Many of the girls had given up the idea
of college because the best girls' colleges just that year had decided to
require college entrance examinations for the first time in the year we were
scheduled to enter. [p.15] But Miss Barstow was persistent with me and
helped me to make out an application to Mount Holyoke College.She had sent
for the form. So I took the College board exams in English, Latin, and
mathematics as required at that time. Mount Holyoke agreed to accept me on
condition that I take trigonometry my freshman year, as my grade in geometry
in high school was unsatisfactory. So I reluctantly agreed to take
mathematics my freshman year at Mount Holyoke. My high school subjects
senior year were English, German, Latin, and Chemistry. I do not recall my
grades and have no record of them. As soon as I was sixteen years old, I
started to work Saturdays and summers at G. Fox and company.'s department
store on Main Street, where my brother Ben worked in the shipping
department. I sold notions. When I left at the end of the summer 1919 to
enter college, the department gave me a sewing basket filled with all the
pins, needles, darners,cotton,scissors,tape measure that a college girl away
from home really needs. When I wrote to the college accepting admission, I
asked for work to do to help pay expenses, and the college gave me a job
waiting on table for lunch and dinner seven days a week, except no Sunday
supper. Since none of my older brothers or sisters had attended college, we
were all enthusiastic, even though none of us knew how we could finance the
venture beyond my freshman year. My savings from working at Grant's and at
Fox's would cover freshman year but allow nothing for clothes or
recreation., To a seventeen year old girl who had never been farther from
home than high school, a trip to South Hadley, Massachusetts seemed too
much. So my beloved brother "Al" (Abe) volunteered to accompany me on the
train to college the Saturday before classes were to begin.My oldest sister
Esther, a bookkeeper for Swift & Company loaned me her suitcase,which was
more than ample because about the only clothes I had were those I was
wearing.She also gave me her fur lined leather winter coat which I used all
four years at school Since it was really only a jacket I really needed the
woolen skirt I wore with it. It was an uneventful trip - we took a train to
Springfield, changed there to a Boston and Maine train for Holyoke, then had
a long trolley ride to South Hadley. I was to live on the fourth floor of
Pearsons Hall [on the west side of the main road near the President's home]
, and as it was geting dark that September afternoon, the small room with
its bare furnishings did not look inviting, and I think my brother would
have taken me home if I had asked him to. At this point my "big sister"
appeared. She was a member of the class of 1921, who had written to me
during the summer. She was pretty and cordial, and her greeting to me and to
my brother helped, but she left almost immediately saying she would get in
touch with me again. Al had to leave for the trip home- so he was off, and I
was alone- left to a lonesomeness which I survived but which led many of my
classmates to leave. Fortunately I was scheduled to have dinner at 5:30 so
that I would be free to wait on table at six,& after the wholesome generous
warm food I felt a little better & managed to wait on my table without
seasoning the food with tears. But that Saturday evening was an eternity.
Freshman week was not observed at Mount Holyoke. I stood by the window in
that small room on the fourth floor looking out at the awful darkness and
struggled against my loneliness with nothing to do, as I had so few
possessions to unpack and so few stamps to waste on letter writing. Eleanor
Hall had the cubby hole next to mine, and Olivia Sherrod had the one across
the hall from me, and Clara Michal was next to Olivia. I didn't meet Eleanor
or Olivia for some time, but I met Clara on Sunday because she too waited on
table. Soon I knew all the girls who waited on table. and when I heard
Olivia sobbing in her room I went in to comfort her - but before the first
week was over,she had left Two freshmen Becky Smaltz and Frances David from
Germantown Friends School had a double room on that fourth floor -but the
rest of us had single rooms- there were Kay Trufant, whose family grew
cranberries on Cape Cod, Mildred Janney, Ruth Connally,, Anne Bell, and
Agnes Cormack.18- Soon after Olivia went, Anne Bell and Agnes Cormack gave
up too and went home. I was crazy about the cook,Elizabeth & she liked me,
gave me extra steak & vegetables & always offered me extra dessert. Her
warmth kept me there when others gave up & went home,& her food added
seventeen pounds to my weight so that the only way I could use my one
woollen skirt was to keep it together by a horse-blanket-sized safety pin
supplied by the cook,who could even make hash taste good.Since I always wore
a white middy blouse,the safety pin did not show.At most I had three middy
blouses but kept them clean in a well supplied laundry in the basement of
the dormitory. After I left Pearson's I went back every year to see
Elizabeth even after I became a member of the faculty. Those of us who
waited on table fared better at dinner than the other girls because we ate
first just as soon as the food was cooked & of course before there was a
shortage of any item. We had our lunch after the others ate. My subjects
freshman year were Chemistry, Trigonometry, German, and English. Except for
the "Trig", which gave me some trouble, I had no academic difficulty. I
concentrated on making friends with Clara Michal, Mildred Janney, Ruth
Connally, Becky Smaltz, and a few seniors. The greatest thrill of my life up
to that time came the Wednesday before Thanksgiving- because I was going
home after I served brunch. I could hardly breathe for excitement, as my
sister Esther had sent me the price of the round trip. I rarely wrote home
as I had used the few stamps I had and had no cash to buy one-cent or
two-cent stamps. I remember my joy when Julius Aronson, my brother Al's best
friend,wrote a letter to me enclosing one dollar early in my freshman year.
I used it at the college bookstore for theme paper. As I left the building
where my last Wednesday class let out at noon, I was overjoyed to be going
home. I greeted my father first downstairs in the grocery and general store
heowned - then my mother up in the kitchen - then my sisters and brothers as
they came home from work and school.I walked home from the railroad station
with my suitcase, and then walked back to the station Sunday afternoon with
Esther and my younger brother Pete. The next summer 1920 I went back to
Fox's notion counter and spent my sophomore year residing at South Cottage
and again waited on table to help meet expenses.My courses were German,
Physiology Economics, and Sociology.. Sophomore year I roomed with Eleanor
Hall who had lived next door to me in Pearson's,who drew a lucky number
enabling her to choose a room very early on the list,& she invited me to
join her in spacious quarters for two. {Eleanor later studied library
science at Simmons College. I saw her at reunions in 1978 and 1983]. There
in South Cottage there was quiet for study & soon after the mid year
examinations I received a note from Professor Alzada Comstock saying that
she had given me a grade of 98 on the Economics exam and considered my paper
the best she had ever read by a student. We used Taussig's text and recited
from David Ricardo: "Corn is not high because rent is dear. Rent is dear
because corn is high." Chapter One Sophie Family History p 75 #1254 second
part after Alzada Comstock, Taussig sophomore year Mt. Holyoke Edit
Taussig's text and recited from David Ricardo: "Corn is not high because
rent is dear. Rent is dear because corn is high." During the years after
World War I there was a period of great enthusiasm for singing at the
college. Our l923 class song "The SPHINX" was written (lyrics) by
archaeologist Marion Nosser with music by classmate Ruth King Dunne freshman
year,"Wind hushed, the desert lies dreaming Under the far eastern sky Only
the Sphinx keeps its secret, Waiting for daylight to die.Now 'neath the warm
blue of heaven,Rousing itself with a sigh,Softly it speaks & its whisper
Floats to the dome of the sky.Hark don't you hear the far echo? Borne on the
night wind to us? Now has the Sphinx told its secret "NON SIBI SED OMNIBUS"
(for all, not self).Faithful,we'll guard it forever, Marching Beneath it
unfurled Until the age-long secret lies in the heart of the world." . After
a fire destroyed Rockefeller Hall one November, forcing residents to live in
the gymnasium, several girls of our class wrote a "Fund=Raiser" song for
alumnae & friends, " Holyoke's RAISING College-BRED (BREAD) From the Flower
(FLOUR) of the land. From YEAST (y'east) & West with plenty of SPICE She
makes a superior brand.We KNEAD (need) a lot of DOUGH To RAISE the Fund 'tis
SAID. But WE are NEEDED (KNEADED) too,you see, For WE are COLLEGE=BRED
(BREAD)." Mildred Holt participated in that and led us in"Competitive Class
Sing" which we frequently won. One song used the melody of Triumphal Chorus
of Verdi's AIDA to the words "Where Peace & Freedom Reign, the Happy Songs
of Children Rise. The desolate of all the earth find here their sorrow
dies."That sophomore year I made the acquaintance of a Massachusetts
Agricultural College senior who occasionally came over to see me.His name
was George Quint,a journalism major whose fiancee Sade Slonim of Hartford
was my sister Bee's girl friend. (Their son Bert Quint was CBS-tv foreign
correspondent East Europe-Near East l970's.That summer between my sophomore
& junior years I worked with my sister Esther at H.L. Handy company near the
railroad tracks.Across from the company where I did filing that summer was
the Cohen Coal company, where a young man worked & smiled at us when we were
going to or coming from work. He was often outside directing his coal truck
drivers. When I returned to college for my junior year,my finances were
precarious but Mount Holyoke had initiated a new system of reduced rates for
some rooms,so I took a fourth floor room where I waited on the table of Miss
Amy Hewes, who was at the head of the Department of Economics &
Sociology.She told Miss Wheeler the house mother that my waiting on her
table was a complete joy to her. Consequently in my senior year I waited on
Miss Wheeler's table, where all her VIP guests ate.My courses junior year
were German, (with Grace Bacon, who had been in France with Red Cross in
l9l9 & sang songs like "Joan of Arc"), Economics (Money & Banking),
Bible,Ballads & Psychology.There were several Freshmen on Brigham Fourth
Floor & a senior named Cora Hughes, who were fond of me & pleaded with me to
attend Junior Prom. I explained that I had no partner, no evening dress,& no
money to pay for the ticket & to pay for a man's room.So one freshman named
Gray offered me a blue velvet evening gown(which I tried on).Cora Hughes
(l922) offered to teach me to run the Mount Holyoke College switchboard
saying I could make thirty=five cents a hour , & she would let me take her
hours until I had earned enough to meet the Prom expenses,which we small (&
I continued Senior year after she graduated.) Now the problem was the
man.(George Quint was graduated,about to be married).I wrote to my sister
Esther,asking her to find out the name of the boy who worked at the Coal
company across from Handy's. I was pleased to learn that he was the son of
the owner-&probably would have the use of a car. So I wrote him inviting him
to Junior Prom,and when he accepted,all of Brigham's Fourth Floor
rejoiced.It was all a pure joy from the time he arrived,until I received his
box of candy & thank you note . That summer again I worked at G. Fox &
Co.but now at the stationery counter which was short-handed.Also that summer
I wrote to the Dean of Mount Holyoke College (Purrington) reluctantly
telling her that I couldn't meet the costs of the Senior year. because my
younger brother had entered Trinity college & that my brother Al (Abe) was
married & that my sister Bea was not working because of illness. Whereupon
the dean offered to lend me without interest any amount that I might need to
return to college. So I borrowed several hundred dollars,which I returned to
the college before the end of the next year (l924). Again .senior year I
lived in the cheaper room Brigham's fourth floor,waited on table but had a
little more spending money because I worked a few evenings a week & Sunday
mornings operating the telephone switchboard,which I enjoyed..My courses
were French, Social Work, Statistics, Philosophy,& Art. "Lights Out" was at
ten o'clock. All girls in the college were supposed to be ready for bed at
this time. Occasionally a girl could keep her lights on later to study,but
even then she had to be safely in her room by ten o'clock. Toward the end of
the junior year I received a note from a Junior at Massachusetts
Agricultural College,who said his fraternity brother George Quint of New
York suggested we get acquainted.After that we dated Saturday evenings
during the remainder of junior & senior year. His name was Nandor
(Ferdinand) Porges (of Hyde Park, Massachusetts). Early in the senior year
my friend Nandor Porges told me that he had made the Massachusetts "Aggie"
football team.He invited me to the last game of the season against a
traditional rival.So I sat alone & saw him on the Aggie bench sucking lemons
& wrapped in a blanket.The game went badly for Mass Aggie & as time went on
I watched him impatiently sucking lemons,but the game ended without his
taking part.He planned to go on to Rutgers to study soil chemistry.On the
last Saturday evening of our senior year, he & I were sitting on a bench
under a tree near my dormitory.It was after nine thirty by the Mary Lyon
clock, which was illuminated & which we could see from where we were
sitting. He had to take a ten o'clock (9:50 pm) trolley for Amherst, & I had
to be in my room with lights out by ten o'clock.As we were both about to
take final exams & to leave right after graduation, we knew that this was
our last meeting.When he asked me to marry him,I agreed to..He pinned his
fraternity pin on me,gave me verbally his parents' address in Hyde Park,
told me again that he expected to go to Rutgers the next year to study soil
chemistry. As his trolley left at ten minutes before ten, he left me at
Brigham Hall at 9;45 & rushed off without even a handshake. Exams came &
went.I heard nothing from him. Commencement came & went.Still I heard
nothing from him.When I had been home (Hartford) a week & was about to leave
for New York City (social work) I decided to free myself of a promise made
hurriedly to a boy who didn't telephone or write,,so I wrote to him
carefully, putting my return address on the envelope, in case I had
remembered his address incorrectly & told him I had changed my mind about
marrying him & would return his fraternity pin shortly.But I waited to hear
from him before returning the pin,thinking that he would surely answer the
letter & make some explanation as the marriage proposal came from him
although I had never encouraged him to believe that I was interested in him
except as a pleasant social contact. I put the fraternity pin in a bureau
drawer & forgot to take it with me when I left for New York City very soon
after the letter & my father promised to forward any mail that might come
from him. I naver heard from him & I never returned his fraternity
pin,thinking if he wanted it he would have to write for it. But he never
did.At the first class meeting senior year there was a hearsay report that
all the previous year's officers should be re-elected unanimously. Some
members of the class were indignant that a handful of girls should run the
class all the time, so they insisted upon individuals nominations for class
officers. I was elected Sargeant at Arms, a post that gave me pleasant
duties that year & at reunions.(Class won silver cup for high attendance at
25th Reunion l948 -stolen photo showed Sophie holding the cup with class
officers) Before I was graduated,I knew every member of my class.Attendance
at morning chapel & at Church Sunday was required. In the Senior year each
girl wore cap & gown every morning to chapel.& when the service was over,
the Seniors marched out in twos,singing a hymn to the accompaniment of the
organ.Every Sunday a well known minister would visit the college to conduct
church services.. [near bottom page 23 - John Barrett note{Sophie's father &
mother and sisters Esther & Babe Rebekah rented a car to attend the l923
graduation at which Sophie received her A.B. degree. They were guests at the
luncheon table of Sophie's advisor & future boss, Amy Hewes, head of
Economics & Sociology Department,which was organized l907..The morning
speaker had been Alexander Meiklejohn, president of Amherst College,who had
strong views on excellence in education and was considered radical..Someone
asked "Pa" Meranski what he thought of the speaker,and he replied in his
usual loud voice,so that everyone at the table could not miss hearing
him,"They'll fire him."(Miss Hewes remained polite & unpeturbed). "Pa"
Meranski's prediction proved correct.He was active in teaching English to
immigrants through the Moses Montefiore society in Hartford and in helping
families make funeral arrangements through Capitol city Lodge..His daughter
Babe recollects that around l9l2-l9l4 Boris Thomaschevsky of Yiddish
theatre, Second Avenue, New York & members of his family when on tour would
sing at the Meranski restaurant on Morgan Street, & Thomaschevsky invited
Bertha Meranski to travel as a singer with his company,but her parents
considered it inadvisable. She was active in the glee club and girls
Business Club in class of l9l7 at Hartford High along with her friends Eva
Levin &..Silverberg. Their photos appeared in l9l7 yearbook, but in l9l9
there was no yearbook because of paper shortage after World War I.The three
older Meranski brothers,Harry Ben & Abe were drafted late summer l9l8.It
made their mother so nervous that she put salt instead of sugar she was
making.Two went to Fort Devens, Massachusetts & one to Fort Dix New Jersey.
Two had influenza, probably Harry & Ben.Several of the family took middle
names or nicknames -Benjamin Franklin Meranski, Sophie Ruth Meranski = she
loved the Book of Ruth in the Bible-Israel Peter Meranski & Rebekah "Babe"
Meranski Geetter.Sophie sang many World War I songs: "Alsace is sighing,
Lorraine is crying Your mother France looks to you.Our hearts are bleeding
Are you unheeding Come with that flame in your glance. Through the gates of
Heaven Do they bar your way? Souls who passed through Yesterday (chorus:)
"Joan of Arc,Joan of Arc Do your eyes from the skies see the foe? Don't you
see the drooping fleurs-de-lis? Can't you hear the cries of Normandy?Joan of
arc may your spirit guide us through! Come lead your France to Victory!Joan
of Arc they are calling you." She sang the Plattsburg March:"Oh it's not the
pack that you carry on your back,Nor the Springfield (rifle) on your
shoulder Nor the Four Inch crust of khaki-colored dust that makes you feel
you're surely getting older,And it's not the hike on the old turnpike That
drives away your smiles nor the socks of sister's That raise the blooming
blisters-It's the last long mile." (Breitel). She effectivly rendered Irving
Berlin's "Oh,how I hate to get up in the morning! Oh,how I like to spend my
time in bed! But the hardest thing of all is to hear the bugler call,":You
gotta get up,you gotta get up,you gotta get up this morning!Someday I'm
going to murder the bugler. Someday they're going to find him dead.I'll put
my uniform away,I'll move to Philadelphi-ay & spend the rest of my time in
bed."She also liked(with slight variations)to sing his:"I give the moon
above To those in love when I leave the world behind,I'll leave the song
birds to the blind.."and "Cohen owes me ninety-seven dollars. It's up to you
to see that Cohen pays.I have a bill of goods from Rosenstein & sons On an
I-O-you-ou-ou for ninety days.If you'll promise me my son, you'll collect
from everyone, I'll die with a smile upon my face."From l9l7 also were comic
songs music by Bert Grant & lyrics by Sam Lewis & Joe Young"Pat McCarthy
hale &hearty Living in Oregon-He heard a lot of talk about the great New
York-So he left the farm where all was calm,And he landed on old Broadway-
He took the little Mary Ann into a swell cafe: 'Arrah go wan I want to go
back to Oregon.I want to go back to stay.I could feed the horses many a bale
of hay for all that it costs to feed one chick on old Broadway.Arrah go wan
gowichagowaygowan arrah go wan I want to go back to Oregon!'" and "Timothy
Kelly who owned a big store Wanted the name painted over the door.One day
Pat Clancy the painterman came Tried to be fancy & misspelled the name.
Instead of a Kelly with a double L, Y, he painted "Kely" but one L was
shy.Pat says 'it looks right,but I want no pay -I figured it out in my own
little way.If I knock the "L" out of Kelly. It would still be Kelly to
me.Sure a single L, Y or a double L, Y, Should look the same to any
Irishmans eye--Knock out the L from Killarney, Sure Killarney it always
would be,But if I knock the L out of Kelly,He'll knock the "l" out of
me."From early Hartford days Sophie sang "Moving day, moving day. Take you
oil stove from the floor.Take your stove,and There's the door." "Oil,oil,kerosene
oil- My oil is better than Finnegan's oil. Finnegan's oil is water. Mine's
kerosene oil." To the tune "Love me & the World is mine" l907 hit she
sang_"I care not for the Hartford Times I dare not read the Evening Post-I
do not want the Journal-One cent & the WORLD (newspaper) is mine." She liked
Alfred Gumble's l9l3 " When the honeysuckle vine Comes a-creeping round the
door A sweetheart mine Is waiting patiently for me-You can hear the
Whipporwill Sounding softly from the hill Her memory haunts you Rebecca
wants you Come on back to Sunnybrook Farm." A minor key phrase in this song
also appears in l9l5 "Are you from Dixie? Are you from Dixie? Where the
fields of cotton beckon to me. I'm glad to see you Tell me how be you And
the friends I'm longing to see? Are you from Alabama, Tennessee or Caroline?
Anywhere below the Mason-Dixon line?Then you"re from Dixie! Hurrah for
Dixie! 'Cause I'm from Dix-ie too."(George Cobb-Harry Yellen) Also "In the
Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia In the Trail of the Lonesome Pine. In the
pale moon shine our hearts entwine Where You carved your name & I carved
mine-O June in the mountains of blue Like the pine I am pining for you.In
the Blue .Ridge Mountains of Virginia, in the trail of the lonesome pine."
Particularly when her younger brother Pete courted and married a Baltimore
belle Jeanette Goldberg, she was fond of the chorus "There's a girl in the
heart of Maryland With a heart that belongs to ME When I told her of my love
the ORIOLE above Sang from the old apple tree And Maryland was fairyland
when she prmised my bride she"d be There's a girl in the heart of Maryland
With a heart that belongs to me." To the same melody & rhyme pattern she
sang a curious parody:"'There's a man in my room',cried Mary Ann -'Put him
out,put him out' cried Sue."I'm afraid,I'm afraid',cried another little
maid,'What shall we all ever do? '....'who do you suppose that he may be?'
'No you DON'T put him out', cried Mary Ann-'What's in my ro-oom belongs to
ME.'"' end of NOTE} Sophie narrative:-_ ' _ Commencement day my father and
mother -24-came to the graduation exercises where President Meiklejohn of
Amherst was the main speaker. After his talk at Miss Hewes's luncheon, my
father said,"They'll throw him out." Sure enough a year later President
Meiklejohn was forced to resign from Amherst because of his controversial
views, My father and mother were invited by Miss Hewes to have lunch with
her at her table in Brigham Hall. Then we drove home. I have some good
snapshots [[stolen 1993]] of me and some classmates taken Commencement
Day.Miss Hewes in 1970 when this was written was ninety-two years old and
was living in OssiningNew York with Madeleine Grant, another Mount Holyoke
professsor. [Every four years Mount Holyoke put on a Faculty play, which
usually related to college history. Alzada Comstock of the Economics and
Sociology Department had a major role in the 1924 play while Sophie was
junior faculty. That play dealt with a Mount Holyoke faculty in episodes
twenty-five years apart, - 1874-1899-1924. President Mary Woolley was a
highly successful fund-raiser up until the 1930s Great Depression, and she
articulated the need for career opportunities for women in Education,
business, and government. She had a very active public speaking schedule and
spent much of 1922 in China touring on missionary-related activities. She
made a point of knowing every student and faculty member, though Sophie's
personal contacts with her were not numerous outside of the Sunday chapel,
in which Miss Woolley usually spoke and introduced speakers.Miss Woollley
was a strong opponent of smoking "a dirty habit." The college was founded as
a seminary by Mary Lyon in 1837. Miss Lyon had a major interest in botany as
well as religion. Although the seminary was very small, until developed into
a women's college in 1889, there was a strong tradition of scholarship,
including science. One faculty member found a fossil dinosaur skeleton in
the Mesozoic rocks of the Connecticut Valley, but it was destroyed in a 1917
fire. Many of the best-known faculty such as organist -choir director
Professor Hammond dated from the 1890s, as did biologist Cornelia Clapp, who
had affiliations at Woods Hole marine biology, so Miss Woolley was not
entirely responsible for the development of a strong faculty. English was
the largest field of study, but there were many concentrators in Economics
and Sociology, a combined department organized around the time Ames Hewes
came to the faculty in1907 and reflecting her interests as a labor economist
and statistician. She was friendly with Dr. Louis Dublin of the Metropolitan
Life Insurance Company an actuary and pioneer of statistical research in
public health and accident prevention - he made studies of tuberculosis and
venereal disease. Others in the Department included Alzada Comstock and
Ethel Dietrich, who tended to be on the Economic side- and Aryness Joy, who
went to the Children's Bureau, United States Department of Labor, where
Sophie Meranski worked summer 1924 in Detroit and June-November 1935, with
extensive travel. Of Sophie's friends from freshman year in Pearsons Hall,
Clara Michalopoulos born Symrna Asia Minor home in Springfield Massachusetts
became a social worker in Detroit, Boston, and New Haven - and Rebecca
Glover Smaltz was in State Labor Department of Pennsylvania and active in
Young Womens Christian Association in Philadelphia. These two remained among
Sophie's clostest friends more than sixty-seven years 1919-1987 and saw her
at 1933,1948, 1978, 1983 reunions. Becky's friend and roommate Frances David
was also in social work and statistics. She compiled an amusing colllection
of comic songs "College Crackers 1923" and as an unpaid voluneer she
continued the Statistical Reporting Sophie began at the Philadelphia Child
Guidance Clinic.Sophie was junior faculty in 1924 in the Statstics Lab under
May Hewes. In1988 College History librarian gave John Barrett junior a very
interesting photo of Sophie standing in the lab with five students of the
class of 1925 seating at typewriters and accounting machines. Unfortunately
it disappeared in 1993 thefts. Students included Frances Manning, Emily
Miller Noss, Emily Barrows. A member of the 1925 class Ruth Muskrat was a
Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma who became for many years an official of the
Indian Affairs Bureau of the U.S. government. In Detroit summer 1924 Sophie
lived with the Patterson family while doing statistical research on adults
who had graduated from schools for the Retarded -they generally were
self-supporting and had good family life. Mary and Ruth Patterson were in
the classes of 1923 and 1925. Ruth was in the statistics course and invited
Sophie's younger brother Pete to the 1925 Senior Prom as her own fiance was
far away to attend. It was an opportunity for Pete to see his sister's
college, and in 1926 he returned the courtesy by inviting Sophie to a dance
at his fraternity at University of Maryland Medical School, and she stayed
with the family of his future wife, Jeannette Goldberg and got to know the
Goldbergs.] Notebook One page 30- In September 1923 when I returned to Mount
Holyoke College to assist in the Department of Economics and Sociology I had
a lovely big room on the first floor of Hitchcock Cottage, occupied by
sophomores only.They were pleasant girls who gave me no trouble. We had our
meals in the large cottage next door where I headed a table and was served
by a waitress for the first time as I had waited on table all four of my
undergraduate years. I tried to lead the conversation and make sure the
girls got enough to eat. One of the girls at my table was Anna Mary Wells,
who had just entered the class of 1926 with sophomore standing. She became
of professor of English at Rutgers and writer of many New Yorker articles
and the 1963 "Dear Preceptor," a life of Thomas Wentworth Higginson
1822-1911 that emphasizes his interest in women's education and careers and
his editing and preservation of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, the
innovative woman poet who lived in Amherst, Massachusetts and spent a year
at Mount Holyoke. Dickinson and Higginson corresponded many years on
literature, with the older well-known clergymen in role of tutor and mentor,
though they met only twice briefly. Then in the 1970s I friendly
correspondence with Anna Mary after I learned from Elaine Trehub that she
was researching a second book on Miss Woolley. The second year 1924-5 I
lived at Cowles Lodge.,also occupied by sophomores. My classmate Betty
Gilman, an assistant in chemistry, lived there too. There was a kindly,
elderly house mother. Betty made a pretty red dress for me, with white
collars and cuffs, and she even did a good job cutting my long hair into a
stylish bob. I still have a fine picture of the two of us taken in academic
cap and gown on Commencement Day 1925 when both of us received Master's
Degrees. Betty went to Yale in New Haven on a fellowship and received a Ph.D
in Chemistry. She married Elliott Roberts Ph.D Yale soon after, - raised two
girls and a boy and has lived many years in Westport, Connecticut. When a
senior at Mount Holyoke College she was president of the Student Government
and has taken as an alumna a vital interest in the development of the
college. One of her daughters attended Cornell, another Tufts, and her son
completed a five year course for a master's degree at MIT. I sat next to her
at Alumnae meeting at our twenty-fifth reunion, and we had a good chance to
talk while we ate our lunch there - the box lunch. We also rode together in
Ruth Peck's car to our banquet at a Holyoke hotel. I have a real note fron
her every year at Christmas time. Soon (1973) we will have our fifty year
reunion. |