Westhampton College alumni reflect on old divide

Two women entered the same college at different times, yet they both maintained a link to that school more than 50 years after graduating. That college was Westhampton College.

Nancy Elliott, 87, said: "[In the] Summer of 1945 toward the end of the war, I came in as a junior. I transferred from Averett College. I met with Dean [May] Keller before I came into the school. She was very happy that I was going to major in history because she favored the liberal arts."

Dean Keller was in fact the first dean of Westhampton, according to the university's website. She was dean for 32 years.

Before the Boatwright Memorial Library building had a tower and well before Gray Court was built, the University of Richmond was divided.

Westhampton alumna, Jackie Brooks, 79, of Culpepper said, "We had three buildings on the Westhampton side, [and] Westhampton on one side and Richmond on the other side of the lake."

Brooks spent four years at Westhampton College, she said. "[In the] fall of 1951, I came in as a freshman," she said. "My mother is a graduate of Westhampton College and was a graduate [in] 1921."

For the four years that Brooks spent at college, she said South Court and North Court were the only female dormitories, and Keller Hall was the main building on the Westhampton side of the lake.

Brooks said of Keller Hall, "The gym was attached to it. The upstairs rooms were music rooms. There was a tea room downstairs in the basement. The back door opened onto a garden, which then opened onto the hockey field."

While current students of the University of Richmond know North Court as a dormitory and having classrooms, at one point North Court contained one of the Westhampton dining halls.

"A scholarship you could get was the dining room scholarship waiting tables," Brooks said. "And it was seated family style, eight to a table--two seniors, two juniors and two sophomores and two freshman and the boys worked in the kitchen."

Today, having to sit with two members of every class would be almost impossible, even though students claim they know everyone on campus. But back then the schools were small enough, the students actually did know everyone.

"There were only 500 Westhampton students at that time and I would say that 85 percent were residents and 15 percent were town students," Brooks said.

Along with large differences in class size between today and 57 years ago, the Westhampton tradition of Ring Dance was also radically different. Ring Dance took place in the Keller Hall gym. Decorations consisted of crepe paper and the women's dates gave them their rings, Brooks said. The women also did not form the Westhampton 'W' at the end of the ceremony, and every woman had the same ring, the signet ring, Brooks said. One of the only similarities between Ring Dance then and the current tradition is that the women wore white dresses.

Just as the student body size was much smaller, the cost of attending Westhampton back then is even more of a shock. "I had a scholarship," Elliott said. "It was for $250. I didn't know what it cost to go to Westhampton back then, but it couldn't be more than $500 [a] year."

Both women were on scholarships while attending the college, and both women were able to enjoy a women's college but also got to use some of the academics of the men's college. "If you took science classes you had to go across the lake," Elliott said.

Brooks said, "Math and science were across the lake, [and] political science. All classes taught on Westhampton side were taught by women."

Not having male teachers on the Westhampton side of the lake would be largely implausible in today's society, just as co-ed dormitories would have been unthinkable back then.

Along with not having males on the Westhampton side of the lake, the female students had curfews.

"There was a place where [we] had to sign-in and sign-out when [we] went out on the evenings," Brooks said. "We had to be back at 10:30 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesday. And Thursday/Wednesday was 11 p.m. and Saturday was 12 a.m. until you were a senior, and then you could stay out until 1 a.m."

With curfews and only female professors on the Westhampton side of the lake, the female students were still able to pursue the study of topics outside of the "pink-collar" careers.

"I think one of the significant things at the college is that I was able to get an education that allowed me to do what had not been done outside of women's positions: which was teaching, graduate school, nursing and marriage," Brooks said. "I had an opportunity to major in math, and I was able to get a job outside the norm and so I went to work for NASA in Langley Field, Va."

Brooks said she later went on to learn to use the first generation computers and then worked for IBM for 31 years. While Brooks majored in math in the 1950s, Elliott took a different route.

"I went on later and got a master's 20 years after I graduated at the University of Virginia," Elliott said. "And I came back and taught at the University of Richmond in the school of education, which they don't have anymore. I taught guidance.

"I've been retired for 23 years, but I still teach English as a second language."

Elliott said she had been teaching English as a second language for 25 years and is currently working with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) students from Turkey, to help them pass tests that require English comprehension and some writing.

"They come every Saturday and we talk," Elliott said. "I'm the teacher, and they have to pass the international TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) tests, and I got them three books through my church and I have been coaching them."

After leading lives in different careers, both women are now members of the Boatwright Society. The society is composed of all University of Richmond alumni from both Richmond and Westhampton Colleges who who have been graduated from the school for at least 50 years, Brooks said. "It has a board of directors who give a scholarship, and they plan each year's dinner for each incoming 50-year class," Brooks said. "I'm serving on the board of directors of the Boatwright Society right now, temporarily."

While both women are members of the Boatwright Society, they also try to attend on campus events and both currently reside in Lakewood Manor Baptist Retirement Community.

Contact reporter Amanda Minnitte at amanda.minnitte@richmond.edu