A Different Kind of Vassar T-shirt

by Dan Eccher, Class of 1996

I remember the first time I saw a “V-ASS-AR” T-shirt, where the “a-s-s” was a doodle of a butt. It was on Eran Zacks (fellow ’96er). I asked him what the doodle was, and he said it was a Japanese symbol for butt. I just mumbled, “Oh,” even though I didn’t get it till much later.

I also remember taking long walks on the Vassar Farm and jogging through the woods behind the golf course. Vassar’s campus is so beautiful!

Live on the Today Show, January, 1961

by Anne Youngclaus Stratton, Class of 1964

In January 1961, while I was a freshman at Vassar College studying frantically for my first college exams, and truly frightened that I might flunk out, I got a message from someone official on the Vassar College staff inviting me to come to her office. Once it was clear that I was not about to lose my financial aid, I was still nervous. What would the public relations department want with me?

As a part of Vassar College’s centennial celebrations, the PR person (I wish I could remember her name) informed me that four students, one from each class, had been selected to be on the NBC’s The Today Show (with Dave Garroway, the original host).

I was going to be driven to New York City! And back. And be on live television! Me, little Annie Youngclaus from Elm Grove, Wisconsin.

This was BIG TIME!

The limo picked us up early on the morning of the broadcast. The driver, Harry Brickman, known to all as simply “Harry,” was famous around campus for being an entertaining and reliable ride to and from the train station.

In the back seat we introduced ourselves to each other. The senior was Susan B. Anthony ‘61, a relative of the suffragette. The junior was Mead Bridgers ‘62. The sophomore was Kate Sides ‘63. I am sure we were all very excited and nervous.

At Radio City, a Vassar alum met our limo and led us up to the studio. (I can’t remember her name, either, or what her connection to NBC was.) We were ushered into a very small, dark room where we could watch the show.

And there was Dave Garroway, looking relaxed enough to be sitting in someone’s kitchen sipping coffee, chatting with his guests and making jokes. Next to him was Beryl Pfizer, one of a string of Today “Girls.”

The first guest was Bruce Catton, the prolific and popular Pulitzer prize-winning historian whose latest book on the American Civil War was about to come out. One of the other Vassar girls was excited that we might be able to meet him. Did we? I don’t remember.

Floyd Patterson was charming and handsome. He may have appeared in his boxing uniform; at least that’s how I picture him. He and Ingemar Johansson were about to face each other again for the World Championship title.

According to NBC records there was a singer on the show that day too, but I have no recollection of her. [That person was Meg Welles, a Welch singer of Medieval and Elizabethan music.]

However, I’ll never forget Zero Mostel [who appeared toward the end of the program, after the four young Vassar women]. He was starring in Rhinoceros, a hit show on Broadway that winter. Dave asked him to roar the way he did every night in the show, which he did–loudly enough to make me shiver.

And then we were on, lined up in order, freshman to senior, left to right as you looked at the TV screen. I think Dave asked most of the questions. Susan Anthony explained her relationship to her namesake. I can’t remember what Mead or Kate spoke about, only that I was impressed with their composure and eloquence.

I wince when I remember part of what I said. You have to understand the time. It was 1961. Most women who worked did not have “careers.” They did not go into “business.” They were not lawyers. They were not physicians.

Either Beryl or Dave asked me why someone from Wisconsin would choose to attend faraway Vassar College. I said I thought it was important for a woman to get an excellent education so she could be a good mother and help her husband. I think I added something about a woman working so her husband could go back to school for another degree.

Then it was over. Back on campus my buddies welcomed me with cheers. They had even decorated the dorm room door with paper stars with my name on them. My parents called. My brother called. Lots of people wrote me letters saying they had seen me on TV and were proud of me.

Me, little Annie Youngclaus from Elm Grove, Wisconsin!

P.S. No one ever explained how we were chosen to be on the show. Since the other three were from the East Coast, however, I assumed the “powers that be” decided to include someone from the middle of the country. I have always suspected my Midwestern roots were also the reason I was accepted at Vassar. I guess you could say I owe suburban Elm Grove for my exciting live TV experience and for a wonderful education.

A Sense of Community

by Jennifer Henion, Class of 1998

I remember the sense of community. Having professors on campus even after class, very accessible with office hours (official and ad hoc!) was terrific. I remember feeling like I was learning as much outside of classrooms as in the classroom. And thoroughly enjoying it all.

A Call from my Grandmother

by Amy Wiener Paris, Class of 1978

In the early 1920s, my grandmother came to the United States from Warsaw to study at Hunter College. She grew up in a large family that valued education, many of whom were educators themselves. One of her sisters was already here and a brother followed, but most of her family perished at the hands of the Nazis some years later.

The connection with Vassar is this: my grandmother was a housewife with a lively intellect, and an independent thinker. She looked after her family, cooked, cleaned, and tended her garden. She stayed connected to the world as a reader of literature and newspapers, as a theatergoer, and as a member of several reading groups and women’s philanthropic organizations. She was both grounded in family and community, and intellectually driven. And her phone call one evening as I was filling in my various applications to colleges had far reaching effects.

“Have you considered Vassar?” she asked me. I hadn’t. But she wasn’t a meddler, my grandmother, so I listened carefully as she gave me her impressions of a place that valued independent thinking and that wasn’t averse to breaking norms in a challenging and true intellectual environment.

These many years later I fully appreciate that of all of the colleges that might have appealed to my grandmother’s sense of where a young woman might thrive, Vassar would sing to her as the right place for me. She was a brave young girl, traveling halfway across the world on her own, with only scant book learning of English, to study in America. She became a responsible wife and mother, reflective and nurturing and always attuned to the latest trends in nutrition (although I don’t think my uncle enjoyed the pre-fab vegetable patties called “protose” that she tried to convince him were hamburgers). An avid reader, she enjoyed gathering groups together in her home to discuss books. And she gave to others, both as a caretaker in the family and as a donor of time and money to charitable causes. She was a modern woman in her day, always feeding her intellectual curiosity even as she literally and figuratively nourished those around her.

I owe my rich and beautiful college experience, with all of the skills, new areas of discovery, and the lifelong friendships that came with it, to my witty and wonderful grandmother, who brought Vassar to my attention. That’s the kind of legacy that is so very consistent with a Vassar education.

Vassar: My First Love

by Elizabeth "Lisa" Flores, Class of 1982

We are supposed to be writing about our memories. I don’t know where to start (or end).

I became smitten with Vassar when I looked at the college catalog (remember, this was years before the Internet, e-mail, blogs, digital photos, and cell phones). I lived in Guam so there was no opportunity to visit Vassar before actually becoming a student.

Something caught my eye – maybe the pictures of the gorgeous campus or the detailed description of the college courses. Maybe I chose Vassar in part because it was located less than 100 miles from my oldest sister’s home (when the rest of my family would be 10,000 miles away).

I fell in love with Vassar from the moment we drove through Main Gate and a Vassar Greetle said, “Welcome to Vassar!”

I am taking advantage of this website’s suggested questions. Here are my answers:

• Who are the people you most remember? My freshman year roommate (especially when I woke her (a Brooklyn native) up early one Saturday morning because I saw my first snowfall). My student fellow. My freshman English professor. Professors M. Glen Johnson (also my faculty advisor), Wilfred Rumble, Molly Shanley. My fellow dorm mates.
• Memorable quotes from your time here: does anything come to mind? “What’s a co-ed to do?” and “Two linus.”
• What dorm did you live in? Raymond. Anything interesting about it? Freshman year, I lived in the only double on the 5th floor.
• What’s the wildest thing you ever did at Vassar? Actually, the wildest thing I ever did at Vassar happened years after graduating…
• What was your favorite spot (or spots) on campus? Raymond’s TV Room, the Mug, the Library (24 hour room), the Quad.
• What organizations did you belong to, and what was your position? Yearbook Committee, Student Fellow .
• What were some of your favorite classes? My PoliSci classes, Comparative World Views, French, Freshman English. (I do regret never taking Art History.)
• What were some of your favorite local places? Napoli’s Pizza
• What do you think the most important thing you learned/did at Vassar was? I learned to never stop learning.
• Was there any experience at Vassar that changed your world? Making lifelong friends.