Golden rules

Jane Osborne Jones, AB ’67, emailed ohiotoday the following recollection of herself and her life as an OHIO student, now fifty years on. I returned her email with a few questions I had, and she provided me with her answers, but not until after she escaped Hurricane Irma, which barreled down on her home in Florida in September. Despite the chaos that ensued, Jones responded to my queries by patiently awaiting her turn at a public library’s computer bay, far from home. That Bobcat tenacity strikes again.—Ed.

Fifty-four years ago, in 1963, nine fresh-faced, very naïve young women gathered on the third floor of Bryan Hall to claim three very small rooms. After getting acquainted, we jumped into college life with abandon. We considered ourselves lucky to be in the only dorm on campus to have an elevator, and Bryan Hall was practically at the back door of the College Green, where the library and auditorium were.

At 18, women (girls actually) think the world is their oyster and that life will be easy and wonderful. Even though college was probably one of the best times of my life, I soon found out that there are many pitfalls on the journey through college life. I learned I was responsible for getting up and getting to class on time. Freshmen were routinely assigned 8 a.m. classes. That was a real eye-opener. And life got harder after that. Mom and Dad were no longer there to take care of me.

President (Vernon) Alden had not been in office long, and his youth, sense of adventure, and optimism were contagious. We were told by some naysaying “welcome-er” (I don't remember whether it was a man or woman) that maybe one in four of us (women, that is) would graduate, a prediction we were certain did not apply to us.

Then the Kennedy assassination rocked the nation in November of that year, and the campus and the country lost their innocence. I remember hearing that the President had been shot as I walked back to my dorm after golf class—everyone was required to take P.E. of some sort. My thoughts, especially after Oswald was shot while everybody watched, was that somebody, some country, some entity was trying to take over our country, and that war might be imminent. And I don't think I was alone in that conclusion.

Live television was brand new. Bryan Hall had one small television, and the entire dorm tried to squeeze in to watch the events unfold on screen. We had only been in college two and half months and the world was too much with us by November 22. The whole thing was shocking, terrifying, and incredibly sad.

After freshman year, the nine of us went our separate ways, though we stayed in touch, often rooming with one another in the dorms, during summer school, and, for those of us studying education, while student teaching. I lived with Carlene Wittenauer* (one of the nine), in Bryan during my sophomore year. By then, there were only two to a room. During summer school after my junior year, I lived on campus with Janaan Beacham Muntean, BSED ’68.

Deborah “Debby” Smith Main, AB ’67, and I shared a very strange "house" (a converted general store) in Lancaster for student teaching. Three of us, Carol Healey, AB ’67, Judy Pearston Hambrick, BSED ’67, and I, went to Lake George, New York, during the summer after our sophomore year and worked as waitresses. That whole experience turned out to be a great adventure. Three of the nine of us joined sororities and lived there.

We ALL graduated—eight with bachelor’s degrees and one with an associate degree—defying the odds of that earlier prediction.

After graduation, we tried to stay in touch. Marriage, kids, and careers happened. Five of us went on to graduate school and received advanced degrees. One of us became an accountant, one a lawyer, one a speech therapist, one a librarian, and the rest of us teachers. It was the 1960s, after all, and women were just starting to venture into new career fields. We got together whenever time and proximity allowed, which wasn’t all that often. We stayed in touch by mail and phone.

Our ranks have thinned—two of us have passed on, and contact with the other four has diminished over the years. Never had more than two of us gotten together at the same time. That all changed two years ago when three of us gathered in Washington, D.C.

In November 2015, Debby Smith, Janaan Muntean, and I gathered in the US capital. We stayed in Old Town Alexandria at the home of one of our offspring—she was traveling and generously offered her home to three senior citizens. We visited the White House and took in the musical, “Beautiful,” at the Kennedy Center. The laughs were plentiful. We had so much fun, in fact, that we decided to do it again. We gathered in Chicago at the Palmer House Hilton in July 2016 to see the sights and to pick up where we left off.

•••

The years are quickly passing and the class of ’67 celebrates its fifty-year anniversary this year. We three look forward to several more “reunions” before we trade in our walking shoes for wheelchairs. 

Jane Osborne Jones, AB ’67, retired in 2002 after careers in teaching, government administration, and technical writing. She lives in Florida.

*Wittenauer earned her associate degree in accounting in January 1966. Sadly, she was killed in a car accident in May 1966. –Ed.