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Furman Magazine Volume 26 Article 2 Issue 0 1980 All Issues 6-1-1981 Furman Magazine. Volume 26, Issue 2 - Full Issue Furman University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furman-magazine Recommended Citation University, Furman (1981) "Furman Magazine. Volume 26, Issue 2 - Full Issue," Furman Magazine: Vol. 26 : Iss. 0 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarexchange.furman.edu/furman-magazine/vol26/iss0/2 This Complete Volume is made available online by Journals, part of the Furman University Scholar Exchange (FUSE). It has been accepted for inclusion in Furman Magazine by an authorized FUSE administrator. For terms of use, please refer to the FUSE Institutional Repository Guidelines. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The � Magazine The old order Magazine changeth Summer 1981/ Vol. 26 No.2 A personal history of Fu rman by Albert .N. Sanders THE FURMAN MAGAZINE is A !though it happened by sheer ternities occupied houses on University published by Furman University, 1"""\... accident, as a historian I could Ridge and Nona Street and the bell in Greenville, S.C. 29613 and printed not have come to Furman at a better the tower still rang for classes - by Provence-Jarrard Printing, Inc. time. In 1951 the college was com­ although electronic controls had re­ Copyright© Furman University 1981 pleting a yearlong celebration of its placed the bell-ringer on scholarship Marguerite Hays/Editor first hundred years in Greenville, and of my student days. Blake Praytor, David Burke/ my first "institutional task" was to In 1951 Furman was on the semester Photographers help professors Don Held and system: students took five or six courses Tom Hays/Consultant Dorothy Ritchie put on a historical and faculty members taught five classes pageant. While helping with the each semester. Classes were held on pageant lighting, I was enveloped by both campuses, at the Woman's College the history of Furman before I had if there were enough women enrolled to CONTENTS even learned all of my colleagues' make an all-female section of multiple­ The old order changeth names. section courses or on the Men's by Albert N. Sanders Now 30 years later I am retiring a Campus above Reedy River if classes this page few years after Furman's sesquicenten­ were all male or coed. From Turkey with ......? nial anniversary. My first classes on That first year, I was a "federal by jane Sampey the old campus included a large num­ citizen" of the history department (Dr. page 8 ber of GI Bill veterans of World War Delbert Harold Gilpatrick's observa­ A new strategy for a new era II. Now many of these men and women tion) since I taught three-fifths history by Dan Cover are greying members of "Golden Age" and two-fifths political science. Assis­ page 14 groups given to telling tall tales, and I tant Professor Ernest Harrill was on leave completing his work to become Diary of a Royal visit am teaching their children. In the Dr. Harrill, so I filled in with Dr. by Eric Spitler years between I have witnessed some Eugene Looper to be the political page 20 major changes in the life of this institution. science department which held forth in In 1951 the "Hill" with its forest West Hall. That "edifice" was air­ conditioned via thin walls and floors Cover photo: oaks and old buildings was not too different from the campus I had with too many cracks - hot in the fall Lynette Montgomery in front of the and unbelievably cold in winter. known as a student 20 years earlier, women's residence halls. By Bill Although Custodian Lark Harris kept except for the temporary buildings Henry. the furnace roaring and hot air (with constructed to provide minimal facili­ some constituent sulphurous, soft coal ties for the glut of students in the late fumes) poured through the ceiling­ 1940s. West Hall sat on the tennis Full-page photos: high ducts, students at the lower level courts behind Montague Hall; the Pages 1 and 21 by Blake Praytor wore their overcoats and kept their feet library had a strange extension Page 21 by David Crosby on the seats of empty chairs to counter connected to the old Carnegie the vicious cold coming through the building by a flying walkway through floor. The veteran students took it in what had been a window; North Hall stride and the ladies learned to cope. for single students and the houses on Young Eugene Looper was an able and Furman l'nwer.Sil)• offer.� f'qualupporlurnty 111 Graham Field were transplanted war­ ad»llHwrn ar1d 1/.{ nnployment, ('(/!U'alwnal time structures which provided arlHII/te.{ m lomplumlt' l{'llh T1tlt' IX and othn t 11•1/ nghts laws. housing of sorts for students. The fra- Right: Dr. Albert N. Sanders Students of the early 1950s hurry to class beneath the forest oaks on the Men's Campus. exciting instructor (and very good­ College was an unforgetable experi­ town by ex-pilots-an experience well­ looking, as the coeds told me). They ence. I used lO catch the city bus lO the remembered by Woman's College called his courses "Looperology " and Carolina Theatre and walk to the residents of those years. Later, when filled his classes despite the discomfort Woman's College. The schedule was classes were first held on the new of West Hall. such that I arrived some 20 minutes campus, Mrs. Gilly had an early In the history department, Dr. before class, giving me time to have a English class at the Woman's College Gilpatrick, Winston Babb and Miss cup of coffee in the dining room with and then the Gillys provided transpor­ Catherine ("Texas Katie ") Chambers the ladies who resided at the college. tation out to the new Furman. Periodi­ were my senior colleagues. For six There Dean Olivia Futch, Miss Aileen cally, we would threaten to drive on to years, as the junior member of the Coggins, Miss Marguerite Chiles and Asheville and spend the day - but we department, I taught the 8:00 and 1:25 Miss Garland Carrier would make a never did. classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and space at one of those round tables and At Furman on the Hill this new Fridays and taught the 8:00 section at catch me up on the college gossip, facully member was soon caught up in the Woman's College and the noon while the young ladies of my class the rhythms of the college year. Foot­ section on Tuesdays, Thursdays and leisurely finished breaking their fast to­ ball games were events. One night when Saturdays. My other departmental task ward the rear of the hall. When the Furman won, students rushed freshmen was to water the departmental snake bell rang, we all dashed to that corner to the bell tower to ring the bell - as plant each day and keep it heallhy. Dr. classroom in Old East where we solved was the custom -to inform all far and Gilly had brought the plant to that the problems of the rise of the West near that the Purple Hurricane had dark, one-window office (101 in Old and such things. Of the friends I made roared again, devastating the visiting Main) at the foot of the stairs where we in those early days, none are more foe. However, the bell did not start to each had a desk, lighted by a single bulb treasured than my breakfast com­ ring and Professors Winston Babb and hanging on its wire from the 18 foot panions -including Miss Elizabeth Schaefer Kendrick hastened to the tower ceiling. Tradition had it that as long as Donald who sometimes would arrive to correct this desecration of historic the snake plant flourished, so would the from Williamston in time to join the rites. The tower was locked securely and department. (The plant flourishes in sweet roll-and-coffee group. no keeper-of-the keys could be found. the chairman's office today.) In those first years ttansportation Undaunted, Babb and Kendrick (who Teaching that early section of back to the men's campus was by the was more svelte in those days) crawled western civilization at the Woman's famous orange buses driven across out a window in the second floor 2 The Furman Magazine Those were the days when departments had no budgets, no secretaries and fe w typewriters. English classroom, crossed the roof over the mathematics room, crawled through one of those slit windows at the second-story level of the tower and soon the bell rang out, with the rope enthusi­ astically pulled by a historian and a distinguished attorney-at-law. Building floats for the homecoming parade was a major fall activity. Lights strung among the trees, fires in drums, fallen leaves better than ankle deep, gallons of hot cocoa, hundreds of stu­ dents, thousands of paper napkins and yards of wire netting made it an exciting evening for students and the rest of us. On the more serious side, those were the days when departments had no operating budgets, no faculty secretaries and few typewriters. Class materials were run off on the mimeograph machine in the basement of the admini­ stration building, presided over by Mrs. Caroll Leeds. The instructor typed his own stencils and carried them over to be run. Mrs. Leeds was a gracious lady and shared with us the news of the building, as well as help­ ing us in the intricacies of operating that well-worn duplicator. Other supplies were dispersed by the secre­ tary of the dean or of the business manager.

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