Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 4

I will get back to sororities shortly but last week when I was looking for pictures of University of Minnesota buildings that Julia and Betsy Ray would have known in the early 20th century, I came across the name of Ada Comstock, who was the first Dean of Women at the U from 1901 to 1912.  Ada’s name was already very familiar to me because she was the president of my alma mater, Radcliffe College, from 1923-43. 

I was ridiculously pleased to think there was a connection between Betsy and me, although obviously attenuated as I never met Ada (she retired before my mother arrived at Radcliffe in the 50s, then married a Yale History professor and moved to New Haven, where she was living at her death in 1973 at the age of 97).  I was excited when someone suggested that Ada Comstock might be the sister of Betsy’s much loved history teacher, Miss Clarke. The Betsy-Tacy Companion explains that Miss Clarke’s real name was Grace Comstock; she was from an old Mankato family and had attended the U herself.  However, after some investigation it turns out that while they might conceivably be related, Ada and Grace were not sisters.  Originally from Maine, Ada’s father, Solomon G. Comstock (1842-1933), became a prominent lawyer in Morehead, Minnesota.  He was a Republican politician and served a term in Congress.  He was committed to education and supported the school that became Concordia College and sponsored legislation that led to the establishment of the eventual Morehead State (its student union is named for him).   Solomon’s wife, Sarah (1845-1941) was also civic minded and was involved in establishing the first public library in Morehead. 

Ada sounds like Winona Root.  She told people she was the first white child in the Red River Valley in Moorhead, and she grew up loving the wide prairies and wheat fields of the West.  She graduated from high school at 15 and began college at the U but was encouraged by her father to go East to college so transferred to Smith College in Massachusetts for her last two years (for those who know Smith, she lived in Hubbard House).  There is a story that she received a case of champagne while at Smith, which her housemother thought she should give away but she carefully stored it with the building’s water supplies so she could share it with her friends.

After graduating from Smith in 1897, Ada returned home and obtained her teaching certificate at what was then known as Moorhead State Normal School.  She then earned a Master’s Degree in English at Columbia in 1899, and then returned to Minnesota as an English Instructor and in 1907 was named Dean of Women at the U ( she would have been about 12 years older than Julia Ray when Julia arrived in September 1908 – that is, if Julia were real).  Although Ada looks severe, she was considered witty and was known for her unusually rich and persuasive voice (and she must have had a sense of humor to cope with the way Harvard treated Radcliffe as a second-class citizen).  The U still has an “Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholars Award & Lecture.”  She left the U to return to Smith as its first dean in 1912, and is remembered there with prestigiousscholarships in her name (at one point, she was the acting president of Smith but when the job was filled it went to a man – perhaps that is when she updated her resume and applied for the job in Cambridge).  In 1923 she left Smith for Radcliffe to be its first full-time president. 

Ada’s sister was, alas, not Grace but Jessie May, born in 1879.  She attended Radcliffe and their brother George attended Harvard.   Both Jessie and George (born 1886) returned to Minnesota after college, and George eventually donated the family home to the Minnesota Historical Society in 1965.  It has been restored to its 1883 appearance and is open for tours.  Moorhead appear to be closer to Fargo, North Dakota than to Minneapolis or Mankato so I doubt I will visit any time soon but the Comstock home sounds lovely: it is described as a “stunning example of late Victorian architecture. The 11-room, two-story home features elements of both Queen Anne and Eastlake designs. On the first floor is the front hall which leads to the parlor, library and sitting room. At the back of the house is the dining room, pantry, kitchen and a bedroom and bath. The second floor contains four bedrooms and a maid's chamber. An oak balustrated staircase leads from the first to the second floor. Many rooms contain original furnishings and personal effects of the Comstock family” and “[t]he home is characterized by a profusion of spindle work porches, high patterned chimneys and poly-chromed siding and trim. Situated on one of the highest points in the city, the property included an ice house, tool room, food storage room, and a barn for the family’s three horses and three carriages.”

The Comstock family's contribution to the early history of higher education in America lives on in the buildings at four different institutions:  Morehead State, the University of Minnesota, Smith, and Radcliffe (it now appears to have been absorbed by Pforzheimer House).  Imagine if Ada had spent more than a year at Columbia!

I am grateful to the Minnesota Historical Society’s website for Comstock House, from which I have quoted.

Betsy Was a Junior, Group Read, Part 3

It is time for Betsy Ray’s older sister, Julia, to depart on her first step towards the Great World – her freshman year at the University of Minnesota. She shocks Betsy by saying she both hates and loves Deep Valley – “because it has held me for so long,” Julia said. “And it isn’t my native heath. Never was.” Julia plans to study music at the U but tells Betsy (and the reader) that she wanted to study in New York or Berlin but Mr. Ray thought she was too young. And as we have often speculated, how did he even have enough money from the shoe store to lavish the women in his family with summers at Murmuring Lake and college educations? Everyone within a hundred miles of Deep Valley must have patronized his shoe store.

The last Sunday Night Lunch at the Rays before Julia’s departure is extra sad and extra fancy: Anna makes a towering five-layer banana cake, and Mrs. Ray even makes a gelatin salad with fruit (I didn’t know these were common until the 60s!) which almost offends Mr. Ray who thinks his usual sandwiches should be sufficient. “Anyone would think Julia was going to the North Pole!” he says, although “he felt as upset as anyone.” More people come over than usual that night to say goodbye to Julia, and she avoids sentimental favorites when she plays the piano, instead playing a lively new barn dance song:

"Morning, Cy,
Howdy, Cy,
Gosh darn, Cyrus, but you’re
Looking spry…”

For those who have not yet bought the Betsy-Tacy Songbook, you have a treat in store! It is a magnificent look at many of the songs featured in the books.

The Rays go out for a goodbye dinner Monday night at the Moorish Café where they are joined by Mr. and Mrs. Poppy. Julia’s trunk is already on its way to college and when we learn that Betsy and Margaret get out of school early on Tuesday although the train to Minneapolis doesn’t leave until 4:45, it seems a bit excessive but keep in mind that this is a big event - few women in this era pursued higher education (and if there were local options, they stayed close to home, as did Tacy’s sister, Katie, who enrolls at the German Catholic College in Deep Valley). Julia’s departure for college is not only an opportunity for Betsy to step up and out of the middle sister role, but also provides a source of news from the big city when Julia zips home on a quick trip due to (surprising in her) homesickness. She tells the Rays about sororities on campus, how the older girls had welcomed her, and describes all the fun she has heard about from them – “They give marvelous parties and invite the fraternity men. And the fraternity men give marvelous parties and invite the sorority girls.” Mr. Ray asks how the people who don’t belong have any fun (sarcasm from Bob Ray?!) and Julia replies that she has no idea. “You simply have to belong to a fraternity or sorority if you want to have any fun.” In a way, it is surprising that Julia, a confident leader in Deep Valley is susceptible to the flattery of strangers, but it sounds very enticing and when I first read this book I was as agog as Betsy and Mrs. Ray to hear all the details. Had I had more responsive junior high classmates, I am sure I would have tried to start a sorority myself!

During Julia’s brief visit home, “they talked sororities at every spare minute, especially when Tacy and Tib were around. Julia was given to enthusiasms and she knew how to communicate them. The Epsilon Iota house became in her description an enchanted domicile. The various Epsilon Iotas – the dark, queenly one, the red-headed one, the twins, the stunning blonde – moved through Betsy’s head like characters in a romance.”

The University of Minnesota Old Campus Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, includes a number of buildings on the Minneapolis campus that date back to the oldest days of the university.  Who knows which of these old buildings is still in use?  Take a look at Shevlin Hall, which was the headquarters for women students at the U when Julia and later Betsy were students. It provided a dining room, and places where the women could hang out and study between classes, and likely meet with their advisors.

Student life was certainly more than sorority rush, and as Mr. Ray pointed out, they were supposed to be studying! You will remember than the Merry Widow Waltz was a sensation sweeping across the country in Betsy in Spite of Herself, when Betsy and all her friends started wearing very wide hats. The craze had continued and co-eds at the U were scolded for wearing their hats to class, which prevented the instructors from seeing what the girls in the back row were up to (reading interesting books instead of taking notes, according to this Minneapolis Tribune article from November 1908). Here is another article on the Merry Widow hat by my talented acquaintance Evangeline Holland that you will enjoy (she really needs to read some Betsy-Tacy).

When you think that Vera Brittain (beloved by me since adolescence), born in 1893, a year after Betsy, was living in Derbyshire as Betsy is growing up in Deep Valley, desperately trying to persuade her parents to let her study at a decent school so she can take the entrance exam for Oxford, while Betsy is passing notes in class and these girls at the U are ignoring their professors… but I am getting ahead of myself. Still, it is worth remembering that access to a university education appears to be taken for granted by Betsy and many of her friends but was not common in Britain for several more generations.  A movie about Vera starring actress Saoirse Ronan is planned.

With hindsight, it is easy to recognize that sororities are not the best idea for Deep Valley High, but Betsy has loyally followed Julia in many activities – joining the Episcopalian Church, flirting with boys, learning to play the piano – at first it doesn’t seem that different from the other clubs Betsy, Tacy and Tib have started. I am the eldest in my family but for those with older sisters what are some of the reckless things your sisters inspired?