Wesleyan University Alumni Association Alumni Council collection of recollections

This collection contains anecdotes written by Wesleyan alumni from the classes of 1859 to 1936. Major topics include their experiences with former Wesleyan professors, pranks performed with their classmates, the burning of North College in 1906, and the arrival of women on campus in 1872. Some sample reminscences:

Herbert L. Connelly, class of 1909: The frequenters of the front porches of Beta Theta Pi, Alpha Delta Phi, Eclectic, and Psi Upsilon after many and sundry observations during a period extending over month and even years finally came to the brilliant conclusion that Professor Armstrong, while en route from his home to Fisk Hall, had developed a custom, either consciously or unconsciously, of telegraphing to the world his plans of the ensuing class session. It was all a question of what clothes and decorations the Professor had on as he passed these hot beds of research. Hundreds of observations had proved to these young savants beyond all peradventure of a doubt that "Army's" plan to give a lecture or hold a recitation were indicated as follows:

Dark Coat, lights trousers, and jewelry across the vest = Lecture

Light Coat, dark trousers, and no jewelry across the vest = Recitation

The students planned accordingly.

M. Eugene Culver, class of 1875: I do not wish to close these rambling recollections without speaking of the first girls who came to college. My class of '75, of course, entered in 1871, but in 1872 the first co-eds were entered in college. There were four of them: Jennie Larned, Phebe Almeda Stone, Hannah Ada Taylor and Angie Villette Warren. I used to feel sorry for them because they could not join any of the fraternities, and have the pleasure that the rest of us enjoyed. They roomed somewhere on William Street and used to go parading up the College walks to recitations two by two. All I could thing of was the old song about Noah building an ark and "put in the animals two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo." They were good scholars, all of them. Jennie Larned, the youngest girl, from Tennessee, who used to wear her hair flowing down her back in very luxuriant style, reminded me of a Shetland pony with his mane hanging down. As I recall it, she came nearest to having the highest marks of anybody in the class, but I believe that George Coleman exceeded her by a small margin. All of the other girls made Phi Beta Kappa, and Phebe Stone got first grade, the same as Jennie Larned. Co-education was not popular with our class. Some of the boys were very outspoken with reference to it; but one of them, Leonard L Beeman, married Phebe Almeda Stone. He afterwards became a minister and went to Vermont. It was currently reported that, if he was indisposed when Sunday came, Phebe Almeda went into the pulpit and preached for him.

Nelson C. Hubbard, class of 1892: Anyone who was in college when Woodrow Wilson was there will remember his interest in the football team and his habit of carrying a wrapped umbrella which he used as a cane. In those days sparring ability served linesmen in good stead, and we were not always able to measure up to the quality with which our much larger opponents would be equipped. Those were the days, by the way, when signals were given, not in numbers but in phrases, and when one of our most energetic and efficient rushers, on receiving the ball, would automatically stop, throw his cap on the ground, and then proceed bareheaded on his diligent way. The first time I ever saw Woodrow to know him was at a football game, when he was excitedly marching up and down opposite the line-up, and when his uncapped fellow was slugged and knocked flat, he completely lost his temper, flourished his umbrella-cane in the air, and loudly yelled, "Kill him! Kill him!" I remembered this a good many years later when he was scheduled to address the New York Wesleyan alumni group on "Peace" or some such matter, and I planned to attend and confront him with his record, but was unable to go.