Nona Abrams interviewed by Caitlin Haskett, July 22, 2019

The following interview with Nona Abrams was conducted by Caitlin Haskett on

behalf of Bryn Mawr College as part of the project "Mid Century Jewish Martyrs:

A Collection of Oral Histories."

It took place on July 22nd at Nona's home,

[redacted] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To begin with,

can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and growing up?

I was raised in a family where synagogue

life was extremely important.

It was definitely a part of our life.

My father was the principal of the

religious school at our conservative congregation for over

35 years. So, my growing up years, school age,

I was at Adath Jeshurun in Philadelphia for

everything important in my life.

My parents were very actively involved Zionists.

My mother became a ...

What do you call that? A permanent member of Hadassah,

life member. Life member, when those became available.

And she was very involved also with the Jewish federations.

Our father was the founder of a Jewish day school,

the Solomon Schechter School, founder of the conservative summer camp,

Camp Ramah, in the Poconos.

And Judaism was a very important part of my life.

But I also had non-Jewish friends,

especially when I was in high school.

As a matter of fact, one of my bridesmaids at my wedding in

1943 was Nancy Ingham,

who was then engaged to the son of the Episcopal

Bishop of Philadelphia. And we were very, very dear friends.

And I never felt any discomfort being with

any of them.

I had cousins who lived in West Philadelphia, or in Overbrook,

who said to me, when they heard that I had some non-Jewish friends,

they had never met anybody who was not Jewish.

They were really living in like a ghetto. We never were.

Where we lived, there were many, many Jews.

But there were others as well. And of course, in

those years, what we called the colored people were the

maids in the house. Other than that,

I did have an experience with young black students in second

grade when they closed the old Negro grade

school a couple of blocks away from mine,

and they put them in with us.

And I fell in love with this one littler girl in my class.

And I put her on my birthday list.

And my mother looked over the list, and she said, "Oh, I know everybody here,

but who's this?" And I explained. And she said to be very sweetly,

"Sweetheart,

we can't have her." And I had to tell her that she was not coming to my

birthday party. But that's the way it was.

So, anyway,

but my growing up years were very much Jewishly

based. Friday nights were ...

We never did anything on Friday night except being home.

We shared Friday nights with my parents,

and my aunt, or always people in the family.

And all the socializing, my best friends

were my friends from Sunday School and Hebrew School.

And I was confirmed and married at AJ.

So there was no bat mitzvah in those days.

So that's pretty much the way I grew up.

Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about the synagogue you went to.

Adath Jeshurun is 160 years old,

maybe more by now. And it was

founded originally by German Jews. And the early years,

I understand the services were conducted in German. But over the years,

it changed. And we were one of the founding members of the United Synagogue,

which is the umbrella organization of conservative congregations in the

United States. And I just loved it.

It's always been a very

warm and welcoming place. AAnd then

some years later,

we were one of the early ones to study

the idea of having women be

counted into a minyan,

to allow a woman to be elected as an officer to serve on the board,

for women to be able to sit on the bimah during services.

That was a very exciting time for all of

us. We learned a lot. And as I grew up, I got to be more involved.

You only want to know about my college years, so I won't go beyond that.

Tell me what you were going to say.

When I was married a few years,

and after the war,

when my husband who was a naval officer came back from the Pacific,

and he went to law school. And I was teaching.

And when he graduated

law school, our first child was born, Jonathan.

We called him his graduation gift from law school.

And he was hired my a court

of appeals judge in the third circuit in Philadelphia.

And he served one year there. Very, very happily.

And at the end of that,

he was asked to go to the Supreme Court in Washington,

to serve as law clear to a Supreme Court Justice.

So when Jonny was a year and a half old, we went to DC.

And you can imagine what a

thrill it was. And in those days, Caitlyn,

there was no security at all.

We used to go in and out of the Supreme Court. I'd wheel Jonny in,

in his little carriage,

right in and out of the main doors.

I remember one day, Justice Frankfurter, or Felix Frankfurter,

spied him. He was a little red-headed kid. Oh, could he wheel a carriage.

He used to wheel a carriage. And it was an amazing time.

And the Justice for whom Harvey clerked,

his wife and he looked on the law clerks. They each has two at that time.

Now there are many more. The chief had three at that time.

And we were included in all their entertaining.

So it was a very heady

time for a very ... At that point, I was 24,

maybe close to 25.

And the wife of the

other law clerk and I were junior hostesses at the major

events that they gave. And President Truman,

who was president then, was invited.

They were very dear friends. Anyway,

it was a very exciting time. And while we were in Washington,

after Harvey served his clerkship, he went with a major law firm,

Covington & Burling. And while we were there--while he was there,

we bought a house in Chevy Chase, right over the district line into Maryland.

And somebody knocked on our door one night.

One of our neighbors who we did not know said he noticed our name,

he is assuming we were Jewish,

would we be at all interested in forming a conservative congregation in

Bethesda, Chevy Chase. Well,

we thought yes.

So we were one of 10 couples who founded Beth El of

Montgomery County, which is now a major conservative congregation.

And that was our entire activity,

outside of the legal stuff and everything. That meant so much to us.

And that was really a great time.

Nothing like being a pioneer. So, that's how much Judaism--And

then of course I became the president of that group.

And then when I came to Philadelphia, we came back, of course,

went right back to AJ. And in a couple of years,

I became president of that sisterhood.

Then I went on the national board. Then I became the national vice president,

at the same time that I was getting very involved in federation.

So all those things are in the past.

I'm now an honorary board member here, honorary board member, you know.

But I treasure those times.

They were a very important part of my life,

at the same time that we were very

involved with local politics and everything because

we just cared about all that. So we did a lot of work for that as well.

Wonderful. All right. Before we shift to talking about your years at Bryn Mawr,

tell me a little bit about your education before Bryn Mawr,

the high school you went to, things like that.

I went to the Philadelphia High School for Girls,

which it

was not a district's ... It was in the Philadelphia School District.

Didn't have boundaries. So you had to apply.

It was all academic.

And there was another girl's high school that time.

I think William Penn was still there. But that had academic and commercial.

So we were the only academic one.

So we really attracted people from everywhere.

That's how I got to know so many people,

including wonderful African American ...

we didn't use that word then ... in our classes. And

when I went to Bryn Mawr,

we had our first chapeling in Goodhart.

And President Parks said to us,

she was giving a description, profile of the entering class.

She said,

"85% of you prepared at independent schools,

private schools." She said,

"I am included in that number those of you who prepared at

the Philadelphia High School for Girls." That's how it was thought of.

I'm sure Joanie told you also wonderful things about Girls High.

And that was my education. While I was in high school,

I was in high school, I was taking piano lessons,

you know, that

kind of thing.

And after I was confirmed at my synagogue,

I entered Gratz College,

which is a Judaic Studies,

and I was there until I went away to Bryn Mawr.

And I loved that. I did that. Interesting, in those days,

we went to classes at night,

using the Broad Street subway,

standing on dark corners in the worst section of the city that became.

And yet it was like that subway was

like our private car. We always ...

We used it to go to school,

come back from school. So that was basically my education. Of course,

I also loved music. And we used to get tickets.

Our father would go in the middle of the summer to stand in

line so that we could get tickets to the youth concerts of the Philadelphia

Orchestra that they had during the year. And, I don't know,

we just always loved the theater. And I must say,

the ballet was not a part of my experience then.

And very little opera.

But orchestral music was very big.

And I always loved singing, and we enjoyed dancing.

Is that the sort of thing you wanted to know?

Yeah. You mentioned that you went to Gratz College a little bit.

Tell me a little bit more about what that was like.

I loved it because everybody there was there because they wanted

to be. You didn't have to go.

And so I took classes in ... Well, you know,

I guess there was some Hebrew.

But we did mostly a lot of discussions, sort of like autonomous study,

but not a forum. It was a forum.

I mean, we had classes, and we got grades and everything, and our professors ...

We didn't call them teachers. They were professors.

And they were brilliant Jewish scholars. And Julius Greenstone,

whom I remember very well,

was outstanding.

And it turned out that he was the person who had married my

parents in 1918,

and other names that probably people from that era

would know. And of course, being there,

I was with lots of boys because there weren't too many girls there.

And I loved that. I made many good friends there,

whom I kept over the years when they went to colleges in the area. You know,

Temple, Penn. We kept in touch.

Lovely. All right,

maybe you can tell me now about how you ended up going to Bryn Mawr,

and what that decision process was like.

I had to take the SATs,

which I remember my mother ...

As I told you,

I was married at 18.

I actually didn't start dating at all until I was

16 at least.

So I actually had about a year and a half of dating within

that period. In those days, Caitlyn,

there was no such thing as dating with one person.

It was in a group.

And you were seeing a lot of people. And you didn't kiss them.

Maybe you held hands occasionally, but even that was a big deal.

Yeah. And I forget what the question was.

Well finish telling me about dating.

You were saying that you wouldn't even really hold hands with people

Right. But we knew people. We would see people quite often.

At the time that I told Harvey that I would accept

his proposal, which I did not do instantly, because it was a shocker to me.

I was actually seeing, off and on,

nine different people. But my parents had a summer home in Ventnor.

And it

became a gathering place for not only their friends,

but Joanie's friends and my friends. And Joanie was such a baby.

Not a baby, but she was like 10, 11 years old. And I was in high school,

getting ready, thinking about college.

And it was a wonderful time.

So I took the SATs in ... I think in June. Oh, yes.

Because I was going out most Saturday nights.

Never allowed to do anything on Friday. Sunday was really a school night.

There was one person that I really liked very much.

And my mother gave me ...

my mother and dad,

that I was forbidden to see him or go out with him for

six weeks, so that I could study for the SATs.

And when I took the ... I had applied to Bryn

Mawr. But I did not know about whether I would be accepted or not.

And I knew that my dear friend Nancy Ingham, I told you about her,

was also ...

She was the main one in line for the Girls

High School Scholarship. And I don't know if you realize,

but board and room together at Bryn Mawr,

which was considered one of the most expensive colleges in the country,

for my entering year, was $1000.

And was actually $600 tuition,

$400 for room and board.

And my parents would have stretched to

do it, but made it much easier without it.

I mean, with it.

And we got word, in the mail, on

a Monday, in the middle of the summer,

saying that they were happy to announce, it was Bryn Mawr, that I was accepted.

Great joy. Couldn't wait to call my grandparents,

who had been waiting to hear. And my grandfather died that day.

So he never found out. And that always makes me cry, always made me very sad.

And then we found out that Nancy got the scholarship. Well,

the joy of being accepted, everybody was thrilled, mother and daddy said,

"You're going.

It'll be wonderful." Then Nancy finally decided she didn't want to go Bryn

Mawr. She wanted to go to ... Oh God,

I always knew the name of the ... a Christian college,

a nice one that she loved.

And so she withdrew her name.

And since I was the next, I got it.

And that was amazing. And yeah,

that was really something.

So that's how I got to Bryn Mawr.

But what I wanted to tell you is that I got a phone

call sometime after the SATs.

We took them in a big room at Penn, I think. And

I got a phone call from some guy.

And he said, "We've never met.

But I saw you at the SATs.

And I copied your name down from your paper." He said,

"I'd like to meet you.

Is that all right?" And so he had applied for Haverford.

And he was from a little town in New Jersey. Elmer, New Jersey. Not Jewish.

And so I never told my mother.

Because he did get in touch with me and came to the seashore

because we were already the seashore for the summer, in our house.

And he had the last name ... I can't remember his last name.

But it could have been anything. You know? I never told my mother.

And we had a very nice time.

But it was very clear it wasn't going to be continuing.

It was nice to meet him. To this day,

I still can't believe how he did that. But that's exactly what happened.

And I met him at one of the get togethers that we used

to have when the Haverford ...

I think it was during orientation week when they brought over the Haverford

freshman. I don't know if they still do that. And we saw each other then.

It was like, you know, "Nice to see you." That was it.

But that's one of the sidelights of my getting into Bryn Mawr.

Now you want to know what happened when I got into Bryn Mawr?

Yes.

I had seen an old ...

The old brochure that we had at Girls High was a lovely

thing about Bryn Mawr.

And I had decided that I wanted to be in Rockefeller.

I think Joanie was in Pembroke, Pem East.

Anyway, when I got my notice that I was assigned to Rhoads

North, I cried. I said to my mother and dad,

"It must be so far away." I never heard of it.

It never was ... Anyway,

it was an old brochure which didn't include the new

... Because it was only like two years old at that time. I forget,

but in the late thirties. And when we drove into Bryn Mawr,

my father was driving my mother and me.

And we followed the directions to go down into Rhoads.

And I remember the last things I said to them, "If we get to it,

and it's not nice, I'm going home." I said,

"I'll commute." You know, I was from Philadelphia.

Well, we pulled up to this mansion. You know what Rhoads is.

And in those days, of course it was almost new and it was

amazing. Well, I couldn't believe it. Not only that, but I get to my room and it's the end of the first floor, which is the end with the big bay window and the two beds. It was a suite, you know. And that's where I'm going to live, looking out over all these fields. I met my roommate, Irene Spiegelberg. And I met her mother that day. And she was from New York.

But she had come to New York,

I think like about a year before from Germany via

Belgium. And

that's how we started out.

[This section has been redacted until Nona’s death. During this part of the discussion Nona’s son Jonathan Levin enters and is present for the rest of the interview.]

Oddly enough, I was trying to remember when I knew you were coming,

how did I get to know the Jewish girls in my class?

Because we didn't have anything Jewish going on.

But I guess somebody must have told us about each other.

And we had this group of about

six or seven.

And then Sue Lichten transferred the next year so we were like eight

Jewish girls.

And we all became each other's best friends.

Before this happened with Irene,

she invited us to visit her in New

York. And one of

my good friends,

trying to remember her first name, Litvan,

whose father was a principal of a school of a junior high

in Brooklyn, invited us to her house.

We stayed overnight in her home.

But on the Sunday

before we came back, we were invited the Spiegelberg place.

Had no idea we were going. We only knew the address.

None of us really knew New York. Turned out they lived on

5th Avenue, the most gorgeous apartment. In the hall was a long chest,

cedar chest, which Irene opened to show us,

loaded with lines and silver and jewelry.

They came in like '38, '39.

But she was suffering.

And they had means. And really,

her mother was like a countess. She always pulled back hair, pearls,

and black dress. Anyway, that was an experience.

So what's the next story?

Well,

can you tell me a little bit more about what the group of Jewish friends and you

would do, and what kind of things would you get up to on campus?

Nothing Jewish.

No?

No. No, I can't think of anything,

other than the fact we would talk about if we had a family

member of something who was having a bar mitzvah, or a bat mitzvah. No,

there weren't even any bat mitzvahs. Bar mitzvahs,

or if there was a family celebration.

All my Jewish friends there were synagogue connected.

I seem to remember that they were all

very happily committed Jews. But there was no Hillel,

there was no club.

It just so happened, on the floor that I lived,

on the first floor of Rhoads North,

there was Norma Spielman, who was a senior.

And next to me

were two girls. One happened to be Jewish, one not.

They were dear friends. One was from York, Pennsylvania,

which is where my first husband came from. And her roommate

was Jocelyn Plough from Memphis, Tennessee, whose family ... Oh,

God. They were so rich,

became multi, multi--

Yeah, Schering-Plough.

Schering-Plough.

Plough Pharmaceuticals. St. Joseph's Aspirin.

It all started with St. Joseph's Aspirin. So Joce was my next door neighbor.

What I loved about Bryn Mawr was that there was not a freshman dorm.

Everybody's mixed up. I love that. And then on the other side of us,

we were at the end, was Dottie Lewis, from West Virginia.

Jewish. And Very Jewish. I mean,

she was involved in a lot of things. And so we did lots of things together.

Then I took them to my synagogue in Philadelphia, because

they were not from Philadelphia, occasionally.

And they were all at my wedding.

And what about, uh, Saydar?

Saydars? I don't really know--everybody went home.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh.

I hate to interrupt,

but I would really prefer if we could just keep the conversation between Nona

and I. I think it'll create a better recording.

Fine. Sorry.

And then you'll get a copy of the conversation later on.

Okay, that's fine.

Thank you. So you would take them to synagogue with you sometimes,

you were saying?

Only if there was a special occasion, which may have happened once or twice. Remember,

I got married in the middle of my sophomore year. From then on,

I was very involved with my husband and his war service.

Because I had to leave college to go to be with him on the

West Coast,

both my junior year and my senior year.

Because the senior year, he was already in action in the Pacific,

on an aircraft carrier. And a small carrier.

And they were hit by a kamikaze,

which took out all of his young men. He

was the ordinance officer on the ship,

in charge of all the guns and everything like that.

And they were badly hurt.

And they were escorted back

to San Francisco to go into dry dock to be repaired.

Once they repaired them, they pushed them back into the war.

So I went out. I got permission from the head of my ...

You want to hear this story?

Yeah.

Jon, he knows this. The head of my department,

I was a politics major because I was pre-law. And Dr. Wells, he said,

"Fine," he said. Because the year before,

I had gone. And he understood what it was.

The only one who was not happy about it was my English literature professor, Dr.

Hurbin. I had stupidly left one of my ...

I don't know how I did

that,

but I left one of my required courses that I had to take, in my senior year.

Well, I figure it's English lit, I'll read some books, right.

So he did not like the idea that I was leaving.

And when I came back to

Bryn Mawr,

I was a little late to take my comprehensives.

Dr. Wells gave it to me.

I did well.

Dr. Hurbin gave his to me ...

I had lugged a lot of books out to California,

which I hardly looked at, I have to tell you.

When I came back, I took the exam.

And he called me in.

And he showed me that ... What do they call ...

I got a condition. I was conditioned.

70 was passing. And he gave me a 67.

And he said, "But don't worry.

You'll take it over again." Fine. I said,

"When should I do this?" So he gave me the

date. And I looked in my little calendar. And I said, "Dr. Hurbin,

that's the day after graduation." He said,

"So it is." And I said, "Well,

I would like to take it before because I'm graduating." He said, "No,

you're going to take it the day after." We then called my father,

who was ... You can imagine how upset they were,

my parents, who were so thrilled to have a daughter graduating from Bryn Mawr.

Anyway, so daddy came out to campus.

It was the second time that he did. I'll tell you about the first time.

The second time,

Dr. Wells was there, Dr. Hurbin,

who was married to Professor Robbins,

who had been my history professor. And the dean,

I forget who the dean was at that time, and

Dr. Hurbin, of course. And we're all talking. And they are literally,

except for Dr. Hurbin,

begging him to give my the exam before I

graduated. And Dr. Robbins said, who is his wife, she said,

"She is fine student.

She was doing the only thing she could do

when her husband was involved, he was at war." And he sat there. He said,

and he kept saying ... What's that thing they keep saying? Immunity.

[inaudible].

Incomplete?

No. But he was relying on the fact that he had--

Oh, tenure.

His tenure, and his ... Yeah,

he was just basing everything that nobody could question him because this was

his authority.

And I remember my father crying.

And we could not budge him. The dean of the college could not budge him.

And his answer was, what he would always say,

"She made her choice." I never, ever,

until I knew that you were coming,

I have never thought that it might have anything to do with anything Jewish.

And I'm not sure, to this day, that it did.

But as I think about it, if that had happened today,

we would immediately be questioning, right? But I don't remember.

I know daddy never said anything about it. Nor did I.

So what I have to tell you, Ms. McBride,

who was by then the president. Ms. Park, and then Ms. McBride.

And I spoke ...

She saw me the day before when they were having graduation rehearsal.

And she came over to me.

And I didn't even know that she knew me. And

she said,

"I want you to be here tomorrow." And I said,

"I don't know that I can do that." Anyway, I did come. My parents came.

My mother-in-law came. My sister came. My aunt came.

And everybody's standing in line with the academic

procession. And everybody's wearing the hood.

I was the only one marching without

a hood. And can you ... I can't believe I did it.

And I'm marching down this path. We pass by Ms. McBride, who's standing.

She left her space to come over just to

wish me congratulations.

That's really lovely of her.

[Crying] Sorry.

That's okay.

I never wore a hood until

I had my 70th reunion,

when at that time Kim was being

installed as president of Bryn Mawr. And so I went to that.

And Elizabeth, my granddaughter, was working at Bryn Mawr. You heard about that.

Mm-mm (negative).

Oh, well. Yes, so this picture--

Oh, I see it behind you. Yeah.

That's Elizabeth,

after she put the hood on me when I was getting dressed to walk in the

procession.

Aww, that sounds lovely.

So because of him, I had to go out the next day. We all went for lunch.

We had a beautiful lunch. But in those days,

the evening bulletin always had a little block on the front page,

at graduation time,

of people in Philadelphia who had graduated from local colleges.

And my mother was just waiting and waiting for my name to appear

under Bryn Mawr. And all of her friends were waiting.

And it wasn't there. And she had to field all these questions.

And my parents were amazing. They never faltered for one second.

And they held their heads up the hold time. But it was horrible.

So the day after, I drove out to Bryn Mawr, went

to his office,

and he gave me the Blue Book and the questions.

And I sat there. He moved away a little bit.

And I wrote what I had to write. And I turned,

I handed it to him. He said, "No, well, no, wait a minute.

Wait a minute." So I waited. I could hardly look at him.

So he looks at it. He looks at it. And I forget what he wrote on it.

Something ridiculous. You know, we get numerical grades.

Nobody ever gets high grades. You're lucky if you ever get an 80.

And he writes on it, 90. And I

looked at it, and I looked at him,

and I tore it in pieces and threw it in the basket and left.

Good for you. Yeah.

And of course, I ... And you know I'm a crier. I cried all the way home,

driving, thinking.

So I got my diploma mailed to me the next year.

So I used to be listed as 1945/46.

But I was the only one,

because he said, "You made your choice.".

Yeah. Were there other people in your class who did similar things like you did?

Taking time away from the campus to go see husbands or boyfriends who were in

the war?

I was the only one married.

Okay.

As a matter of fact, this is interesting. After I married Harvey,

he was assigned to the Midvale Company in Philadelphia,

which was transforming from a machinery

manufacturer to ordinance manufacturing.

And as a newly appointed ordinance officer,

he was assigned to the Midvale Company.

So he was still in Philadelphia when we were married.

And we needed ... Oh,

you'll love this. Falls in with your story. I forget what

I was going to tell you about it.

You were talking about after you married your husband, and the job he got.

Yeah.

And you mentioned earlier something about an apartment? Is that what it was?

Oh, right, right.

And we needed a place to live because I was going

to be a

junior. And I had given up my

room. And by then,

I had a single room.

And so Harvey and I, he in his naval uniform,

naval officer, very good looking,

wonderful guy, me as a Bryn Mawr college junior,

we get in the car,

and we go out to the main line to take an apartment.

We went to every single apartment between

Overbrook and Bryn Mawr, all the way out,

Montgomery Avenue. And in every one,

we were turned down because we

were Jewish. It was so blatant.

And we got to the area right near Bryn Mawr,

even crossed past Bryn Mawr into Rosemont a little bit. And

we had no place to live.

And it was getting very close.

And so I said,

"Let's drive into the college,

and maybe they know something." I really didn't know what we were going to do.

And so we got into the college. I went into Taylor And

there was somebody in there, in the office, I don't remember who.

And I explained that we could not find a place to live,

and that we needed someplace. Now I know what I wanted to tell you.

And

so she said, "Well,

you know,

we have a graduate house on Old Gulph Road,

which used to be the

rectory of a church, of the church there, right across from the old gym.

Mrs. Shumway boards that house.

And maybe there's something available. Why

don't you go over and talk to her?" So

even though we were desperate, the house sat right next to cemetery.

And I said to Harvey, "I could never live next to a cemetery." He said,

"You could live next to a cemetery. They're interesting places.

We'll go for a walk, we'll read what's on there." So we went up to the door,

this old house,

and met Mrs. Shumway.

We explained what we were looking for, and she said, "Actually,

I have an apartment on the first floor that's available." "It's

available?" "Yeah."

So she showed us. And, you know, it's an old house.

We had almost the whole first floor. You know,

sparsely furnished and everything. But who cared? With a dining room,

and a kitchen, and living room. I guess there must have been a bedroom too,

but I don't remember. And she said, "I have to tell you,

the rent is $50 a month." "Well,

okay." So we decided. We

were so elated. And you would love this, Caitlin.

My husband was very smart. And he kept up with everything all the time.

And every Sunday,

the New York Times had a front page box that said

the 10 questions of the news of the week. And

so we would invite all my friends to come to the house.

And I remember on Sunday afternoon, they would sit on the floor.

And Harvey would be sitting in a chair with

the newspaper, asking questions.

He used to say, "I can't believe it. You're all in college,

and you're supposed to be so smart.

How can you not know these things?" Can you believe it?

That we really were not too smart in those matters?

But that was an interesting time.

But what I wanted to tell you,

after Harvey got his orders to go to the

Pacific, it was about half

way through that year. We didn't have a full year there.

And so I wanted to go back into my room, which had not been rented.

It was vacant. You know why I loved it, Caitlyn?

It was a little single room on the right as you go down the hall.

And it was right near the bathroom.

And you could always hear the water running and the toilets flushing. And to me,

it was like being at the seashore. It was like the ocean was ...

I used to tell her, "I love it. I'm right near the water." Anyway, so I thought,

"Well,

I'll just move right back into my ..." Did you know that Bryn Mawr had a rule

then that no married student could live on campus?

Yeah.

Because we were going to poison everybody's lives. Believe me,

married,

I knew a lot less than some of the people I knew at Bryn Mawr.

But that's the first time that my father came out to make a

plea, to change the bylaw, whatever it was. And they did.

So I was the first married

girl to live on campus. But do you know I used to walk

down paths, and some of the girls would go around me like I--

They'd avoid you?

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Just because you were married?

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Wow.

It was a very different time.

Yeah.

Anyway, so that told you a lot, really.

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Your turn.

Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about your social life at Bryn Mawr.

What you mentioned, playing bridge in the smoking room.

What other kinds of things would you do?

Oh, I loved our freshman show. Did a lot of work with that. I mean,

we sang, we danced. We had so much fun. Loved it.

I never felt any distinction religiously at

all. I never did. As a matter of fact, a rabbi,

who was very prominent,

my mother had a talk with him before I went. And she said, "You know,

we've always kept a kosher home. I still do. And my kids do too.

But she's going to be living at college.

And I don't know what to tell her." And

Rabbi Klein said to her, "You know, Elizabeth,

there is nothing more important than education and learning." He

said,

"If she doesn't drink a glass of milk

with a meat meal,

she needs ..." How did she put

it? "She needs her sustenance." So he said ... When

he gave me permission to eat, you know, nothing forbidden.

And that was amazing.

So you just ate in the dining hall with everyone else?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Do you know how we were treated when I came in?

Have you heard about the early days of Bryn Mawr and how women were treated?

Why don't you tell me your perspective on it?

One of the first things you got was a maid.

And Anna was my maid.

And she was the one who did the hems on our dresses. We didn't wear pants.

The hems on our skirts.

Took our phone calls.

Were just ... They were wonderful. Dinners ... Oh,

and we were not allowed

to make our beds. Because M. Carey Thomas, who as you know,

there's been all that discussion about.

Now they've just put her name up with a plaque.

Didn't want anything to distract from studying.

So we were not allowed to make beds. Our maids made the beds.

And then we went up to this baronial hall,

the dining hall. And there were six, you know,

two, two, two, two. Eight. Eight of us the table.

And we were served by porters who were dressed

like waiters, whatever they wore. We had maids and porters.

Matter of fact, at Christmas time, they did the maids and porters performance,

a show. And that's when

I learned all the etiquette things that we didn't do because it was usually

family style eating at home. You know,

the platter would go down, we would help ourselves. Anyway,

so we learned about serving from the

left and removing from the right. And then

they would refill our water,

and then they would take us whatever we wanted, they would bring us.

And they would stand behind ... You know, we each had one or two at each table.

It was a very formal kind of thing.

And most of the people there had never lived like that. We'd all lived nicely,

but never like that. It was really quite something.

And then came the war in December.

And by the end of that

Christmas vacation, when we came back, everything had changed.

Many of the professors had gone off to serve

in the war, or to serve in Washington, or serve the government, the way effort.

And I

had very few professors in my time at Bryn Mawr,

had mostly graduate students.

And so the professors I had were

already older at that time. Dr. Wells,

one of his daughters was in my class.

And one of the granddaughters of President Taft was

in my class. Shows you how long ago that was.

And Helen Taft Manning was a professor of history.

I had her for a short time. Then

I had Mrs. Robbins.

And it was totally different.

And when I went back to reunions and these

housed in road, and I set up the food and everything. Oh,

we even had hall dances. Oh my golly.

We had my freshman ball dance the spring of my

freshman year. That's when everything really started with Harvey.

Really?

Yeah.

Tell me more about that.

Well, that was interesting because my mother and dad knew him

because he was from York, Pennsylvania,

but his parents came to the seashore, Ventnor,

New Jersey, near Atlantic City, in the summer time.

And my parents had a house there.

And they got to know his parents, got to know

him. And when they realized he was going to be in

Philadelphia, my mother said, and he was five years older than I,

"We have to find an older girl for Harvey." II thought that was a great idea.

I hadn't really thought about anything with him. I knew his younger brother,

who I'd gotten to know at the shore.

He was at Harvard at the time. And

so I thought, "Hmm.

Dottie Lewis, who is a junior,

would be a good person." So I spoke to her. I said,

"Would you like to meet somebody?" Yes, she would. I said, "Well,

you know, I know somebody really nice.

Would you want to go to the dance with him?" "No,

no." She didn't want to do that. But she'd like to meet him. So I thought,

"Well, I guess I'll invite him to come to the dance."

And my parents had invited him for Friday night dinner, to

our house. And after dinner ... They did that quite

often. And I happened to be home for that one.

And I told him we were having a hall dance.

Would he want to come? And he jumped at it. He said, oh, he'd

love that. Fine.

So I told Dottie that Harvey was coming.

And the way it was arranged was that when Emma would

... We still had our maids.

When Emma would let us know that my date

had come, Dottie would go out to greet him,

tell him that it would take me a little while, so she could visit with him.

And then she'd come back, and then I'd go out.

So I'm all ready, and I'm waiting. And I'm waiting. And I'm waiting,

and I'm waiting. She doesn't come back. All of a sudden,

she shows up. And he first words to me were, "Are you crazy?

You're giving this one up?" She said,

"You don't give this one up." So I thought,

"Wow." So I went out to greet him.

And we went up to the dining room, where the dance was.

And we had a full orchestra. I mean, it was really terrific.

And everybody formal. He was in his Navy whites.

You know how gorgeous they are.

And we're in the middle of the first dance. And he said to me,

"We really fit together very well." That was it.

So, anyway, that all happened in Bryn

Mawr. You know an awful lot about me now.

Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit more about traditions at Bryn

Mawr. Did you participate in any of those while you were there?

Well, we did a lot of step singing.

And of course, Lantern Night. I loved Lantern Night.

Something interesting happened for me my freshman year.

Norma Spielman, who was a senior on my floor

... The senior tradition, I think it still is, that they have a garden party.

Yeah.

And each senior asks somebody to be a garden party girl.

Usually it's a junior. Mostly, it's a junior.

I was a freshman.

And Norma asked me to be her garden party girl. Well, it

became the talk of the dorm anyway.

Because they'd

never had a garden party girl who was a freshman.

So it makes you like the unofficial hostess

for her family. So I got to meet her whole family. She was from Chester.

Drove down, met her whole family.

I was with her all through graduation.

So that was an interesting thing.

Yeah. Why do you think she chose you?

We had become very close friends. When I was having all my problems,

I would talk to her. She became a psychiatrist.

She was wonderful for me during my freshman year.

And she later married Joan's brother-in-law and

changed, became a

little different. But

when I knew her, she was very,

very sweet, kind, unaffected, very bright, and

somebody that I could

really unburden myself to.

And she was great help to me.

So we had a special connection, which she realized.

She just died this year. But the family, her family ...

You're not ... I'm eating all of these, and you're not having anything?

I'll have a few.

Sure. That young man could have some too.

No. No, thank you.

Yeah. All right.

Is there any other memory or anything that you want to tell me about Bryn Mawr?

I'd like to end with talking about your life since then.

But if there's anything else you want to say about Bryn Mawr?

Is that we did not do the Maypole during the war.

Joanie had that. But we learned the Maypole dance.

Even though you weren't going to do it?

Right. We would have fun in our own room. You know, one, two, three, one, two,

three. And at every family event,

Joanie and I do the Maypole dance all the time.

Really?

We do. And my children will tell you that they know it.

And I kept a card from Harvey, my first husband.

It was a birthday card.

No, Mother's.

Mother's Day Card. And I don't know where he found it. I've never seen it since.

And it said everything about Mother's Day.

And then you open it up, there's a big maypole.

"To the queen of the May," and they're all doing the Maypole dance.

And he wrote on it, "Love to my Bryn Mawr girl.".

That's lovely.

It was. It was very lovely. So you've had it on for that, right?

Yeah.

Good.

What was the--do you remember how it was decided that the Maypole wasn't

going to happen your year? No?

No. So much of what happened that year

... Excuse me. We were so naïve.

We were so innocent. It was such a different world.