{"id":52,"date":"2014-10-14T13:37:30","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T18:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/?p=52"},"modified":"2015-06-29T15:21:29","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T20:21:29","slug":"alumni-spotlight-grammar-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/2014\/10\/14\/alumni-spotlight-grammar-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Spotlight: Grammer Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not many people in this world can boast that the friends they made at Morningside College nearly 75 years ago\u2026.are not only still living \u2026.but remain their \u201cbest buddies\u201d to this day.\u00a0 This is a short story about the \u201cGrammer Girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer four of the \u201cGrammer Girls\u201d paid a visit to campus.\u00a0 They were Annette Gray Carlson, Audrey Hughes Goodrich, Doris Peterson Markland and Ellen Westergaard Jackson.\u00a0 They wanted to see the changes that have taken place since their days on campus.\u00a0 To be sure \u2013 they were very impressed.\"DSC_0023\"<\/p>\n

For years I have heard a great deal about these ladies. They shared with me their story.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 1942, a group of fourteen young ladies met at Morningside College.\u00a0 Nothing too unusual about that.\u00a0 Back then the campus was alive with men and women and as I\u2019m told, Sadie Hawkins Days was a big deal.\u00a0 Street cars buzzed up and down Morningside Avenue.\u00a0 There were four buildings \u2013 Charles City Hall, Lewis Hall (Old Main), The Library (the Gym) and Dimmitt Hall.\u00a0 And in the winter of \u201842, the \u201cGrammer Girls\u201d recall slipping and sliding on the sloping sidewalk from Dimmitt Hall. Again, nothing unusual about that!!<\/p>\n

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The fall of 1943 brought a huge change.\u00a0 The Army Air Corps cadets took over everything\u2026the dorm\u2026the streets and the sidewalks!\u00a0 The young ladies were placed in designated housing with a designated teacher\/housemother!!\u00a0 This was all part of the war effort.\u00a0 Fourteen lively ladies were assigned to live with Miss Lois Grammer \u2013 a professor of music education.<\/p>\n

As one can imagine, 14 young ladies in one house with a professor brings about special challenges.\u00a0 In fact, it is said that Miss Grammer after a week of having the girls at her home said with some amusement, \u201cWhy\u00a0me?\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of the activities that brought the young ladies closer together was their love of music.\u00a0 As the ladies said, \u201cAs many of us were music students, or at least in the choirs, there are special memories of \u2018Mr. Mack\u2019 (Dr. Paul MacCollin) \u2013 chair of what was then the Music Conservatory.\u00a0 He was so good but he also had a challenge since so many of our boys went off to war leaving gaping holes in the choir.\u00a0 The same was true for the orchestra and frankly, the entire college!\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cGrammer Girls\u201d survived the war years with most graduating in 1946.\u00a0 In 1944, one left to marry her airman-sweetheart in Tucson, Arizona; another had a Christmas wedding held by the fireplace in Dimmitt Hall.\"DSC_0006\"<\/p>\n

Husbands and babies were soon added to the group, with the men justly called \u201cThe Grammer Guys.\u201d \u00a0And in the convening 70 years plus since starting their journey at Morningside, they have not missed getting together.\u00a0 Early on it was all of the girls and their families.\u00a0 Their children grew up knowing one another. They too bonded into the \u201cGrammer Girls Family.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cGrammer Girls\u201d were not all that different from others on campus. But, there\u2019s something about how they have managed to stay so close.\u00a0 Certainly their shared war experience, similar backgrounds, and intense zest for life is, perhaps, what has kept them together.\u00a0 As one of the ladies said, \u201cWe were grateful and lucky to have been squeezed into that little house where we borrowed clothes, toothpaste, corsages, shared cadets from the dorm, shared our letters from our servicemen.\u00a0 Yes, there were tears but oh, so many joys in those war years.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a remarkable group of ladies \u2013 \u201cThe Grammer Girls!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not many people in this world can boast that the friends they made at Morningside College nearly 75 years ago\u2026.are not only still living \u2026.but remain their \u201cbest buddies\u201d to this day.\u00a0 This is a short story about the \u201cGrammer Girls.\u201d This summer four of the \u201cGrammer Girls\u201d paid a visit to campus.\u00a0 They were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":629,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52909],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-volume-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.morningside.edu\/alumninewsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}