BELL TOLLS FOR UMW
A postcard snapshot of the "old days" at the University of Mary Washington as the school prepares to celebrate its centennial.
Date published: 5/12/2007
By Jennifer Strobel
POSTCARDS FROM campus?
Not likely in the 21st-century era of in- stant messaging and cell phones.
In the summer of 1944, however, a student who signed her name as "L. D." relied on a picture postcard to report that she was studying Victorian poetry, home economics and environmental science at Mary Washington College.
In her legible cursive script, she concluded: "Am worked to death with a thesis, etc., but I love it here." She signed it, "L. D."
The printed caption on the postcard reads: "E. Lee Trinkle Library, Mary Washington College, the Virginia State College for Women at Fredericksburg. Named in honor of the late E. Lee Trinkle, former governor of Virginia."
The Trinkle building remained a library throughout most of the 20th century, and for many years a road passed directly through campus and past the library. The road has been bricked in and is now a walkway supplied with benches and adorned with flowers.
The building itself, still easily identified, is now used for the admissions office and classes.
Seacobeck Dining Hall, featured in the second postcard, has changed little since that postcard was mailed in 1943--though students' dining attire has changed dramatically. The young ladies of yesteryear, who dressed up for meals, would have been shocked at the casual attire of their successors.
The third postcard (blank on the back) shows a view of the times of duPont Hall, listed in the caption as the arts and science building. It marked the edge of campus until construction of an athletic and science centers in subsequent years. It now houses galleries, a theater, and art and music classes.
Mary Washington College--now University of Mary Washington--is beginning its 100th anniversary celebration.
Yesterday, the newly built Carmen Culpeper Chappell Centennial Campanile was dedicated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and the structure's bells rang in the "centennial era."
The recently completed 88-foot-tall bell tower was built in memory of alumna Carmen Culpeper Chappell. She and her husband, John, first met when he was an officer in training at Quantico and she was a student at Mary Washington. She graduated in 1959, and married John in 1961.
After her death in 2003, the Chappell family made a generous gift to build the bell tower in commemoration of the university's centennial and to celebrate Carmen's life, love of learning and loyalty to Mary Washington.
The bells in the tower will ring twice a day.
Today is graduation day for the Class of 2007.
In the next few weeks, some underclassmen will continue their studies in summer sessions, just as "Louise" did in 1943. She didn't include her last name on the postcard showing Seacobeck Hall--just the message, telling the recipient, "I believe you get farther away from home than I do, for this is all the place I ever go. I am going to summer school. I will write you a letter later."
She meant with a pen and paper, not keyboard and screen.
Eve Carr, a Stafford County writer, submitted the postcards from her collection.
--Jennifer Strobel
Date published: 5/12/2007
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