This week’s Sepia Saturday photo prompt depicting SPORT
in the foreground and BUILDING in the background is well-matched with this
photo from 1924.
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| from Velma Davis's scrapbook 1924 Field Day activities at Harrisonburg Teachers College |
This was how James Madison University (GO DUKES!) looked
when my grandaunt Velma Davis was a student. Beyond the open field was Rockingham Memorial Hospital.
Fourteen years before then, though, the campus was simply
two buildings and a lot of acreage. Yet the Normal School offered a full campus
life beyond the classroom. Clubs and athletics were popular. Tennis, in
particular, had so much interest that two clubs were formed: Racquet Club and Pinquet
Club.
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| Racquet Club 1912 from School Ma'am yearbook Ancestry |
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| Pinquet Tennis Club 1911 from School Ma'am yearbook Ancestry |
The rivalry between the two clubs began with the school’s
first tennis tournament held in 1910. It was a doubles match in which Willye
White and Amelia Brooke of Pinquet defeated Frances Mackey and Eva Massey of Racquet.
The prize was a silver loving cup which the winning club kept until the next
year.
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| 1910 - Frances Mackey, Eva Massey, Willye White, Amelia Brooke from Madison College: The First Fifty Years 1908-1958 by Raymond C. Dingledine, Jr. |
These women are not in my family tree, but the little
bits of information about them available online indicate they were talented, smart,
and serious women.
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| from School Ma'am 1911 Ancestry |
AMELIA H. BROOKE
(7 May 1889 – 20 Feb 1980)
Member of the first graduating class, 1911
Amelia’s mother was the matron (aka “Dorm Mother”) on
campus. Mrs. Brooke and Amelia also took care of any student who became ill.
Amelia never married. She worked for the government first
in the Department of the Interior, then US Treasury, and finally with the IRS
where she retired.
Activities
President Pinquet Tennis Club
Captain Basketball Team
Charter member of the Lanier Literary Society and the first President
Chairman of Social Committee for YWCA
Business manager for the yearbook
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| from School Ma'am 1912 Ancestry |
WILLYE O. WHITE
(23 Jul 1895 – 22 Feb 1944)
Willye studied to become a kindergarten teacher, but it
appears she never worked. Her mother ran a boarding house in Boykins, Southampton
County, VA. Maybe Willye helped her. Willye married sometime around 1925 but
was left a widow when her husband died from injuries in an explosion while
engineering a train. In 1940, she married Hinton Smith, a boarder in Willye’s
mother’s boarding house.
Activities
Basketball team
Pinquet Tennis Club
Glee Club
Lee Literary Society
FRANCES I. MACKEY
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| from School Ma'am 1913 Ancestry |
(19 Sep 1893 – 8 Nov 1981)
From at least 1915-1922 Frances was on the faculty of the
Harrisonburg Teachers College teaching Manual Arts. She left to pursue further
education. In 1933, she married Thurston Huffman and continued teaching,
probably in Rockbridge County, Virginia.
Activities
Tip Top Basketball Team 1910
Captain of the Sophomore Basketball Team in 1911, Junior
team in 1912
Vice-President Racquet Tennis Club 1912
Executive Committee German Club 1911 (dance society, not foreign language)
Secretary of the Lanier Literary Society in the Third
Term
Glee Club
Vice-President of the Art Club 1913
Art Editor for the yearbook 1913
EVA D. MASSEY
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| from School Ma'am 1912 Ancestry |
(13 Oct 1892 – 31 Aug 1970)
Eva was a lifelong educator in the public-school system
in Clarke County, Virginia. She never married.
Activities
Associate Editor for the yearbook 1910
Secretary and Treasurer of the Racquet Tennis Club 1910
Charter Member of the Lanier Society, Secretary 1911
Secretary YWCA
These four were among the first students, the ones who shaped
the traditions at my alma mater. The two literary societies these women helped
start, Lee and Lanier, enhanced their education by presenting programs of
biographical studies, debates, essays, readings, and special music. While the
literary societies were abandoned long ago, the colors selected by the two
societies gave us our school colors: GOLD from Lee’s gray and gold, and PURPLE
from Lanier’s violet and white (the violet became purple because it was an
easier color to obtain in pennants, sports uniforms, etc.).
My alma mater has come a long way from its simple
beginnings as a 2-building campus. That empty field beside the hospital? See it
today.
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| Rockingham Memorial Hospital grew and remodeled many times but notice the original portico remained. Instead of a field, there is Burruss Hall (academic building), parking lot, AND a street! JMU purchased the hospital building when RMH moved to its new site. |
Be a good sport and see what other bloggers have come up
with at Sepia Saturday.
Wendy
© 2020, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.
You did a good job matching the theme this week!
ReplyDeleteSo the campus grew and changed, and the alums obviously have gone on to greater things too!
ReplyDeleteWonderful accomplishments of those women!
ReplyDeleteBetty
Loved the pix of the tennis club gals in their middies. It's really hard imagining how to play in those outfits. They must have tripped over those skirts at least once in a while. The four featured women did very well for themselves in life it seems.
ReplyDeleteIst so interesting to see the changes over time and a school’s history. Imagine having to play in those dresses! I love your school albums..they contain so much information. Willy White seems more suited to the Glee Club than basketball or tennis.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine how much research you had to do for this post. I particularly enjoyed the bio of each woman. I always thought it was odd that I had a great-great-aunt whose name was Willye but after reading your post, I've learned that Willye must have been a common name around that time.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post and research. Amazing to read about the different paths that these four remarkable women took -- especially as their lives spanned such pivotal periods for women: from long skirts to short, from disenfranchised to voting, from homemaker to Rosie the Riveter, and some living through the rise of the women's movement of the 1960s. Fascinating to see how the school changed as well.
ReplyDeleteI just love this post. And those bios of the girls were fab; you really got a sense of their personalities. How wonderful to know this much about your alma mater. Isn't Willye an interesting name? I haven't come across it before.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see how colleges have grown and expanded not only their course offerings, and social opportunities, but the campus as well. I love seeing how athletic attire has evolved!
ReplyDeleteNice post from the prompt. I've never heard of pinquet before.
ReplyDeleteWonderful photos! Great match to the photo prompt.
ReplyDelete