Liz Hawthorne – Class of 1965

Liz Hawthorne (class of 1965)

In 1963, I was president of my class (class of 1965) and lived in Tilton Hall (it was really new then, but I stray).  I don’t recall if it had been customary, but I believe we decided that the class had to leave a gift when we graduated and our task at that point was to figure out how to raise money.  At that time the food in the dining hall, was, well, questionable–we called it ‘wonder’ food as in “I wonder what it is tonight.”  Heavens, those brown pieces of whatever covered with brown glop and the lady in the hairnet saying, “P’dadas* Miss?”.  I think we all learned to love salads and greens for the lack of them.  For context, a piece of pizza (large) from Leaning Tower of Pizza was $1 and we ordered that weekly.  So, food was really critical.  Walking up that hill every day required our strength!

Donuts…we said “Donuts.”  Sunday morning donuts delivered to the dorms—the old houses.  And so every Sunday one of us got a couple of dozen donuts to girls in Eliot-Pearson housing and we sold them on the honor system.  That, it turned out, was not the best approach, although we made a fair amount of money in the beginning.  Well, after we started losing money, we stopped the donuts and got more sleep on Sunday mornings!  Eliot-Pearson girls probably lost a collective fifty pounds after that!

Well, we had to come up with another scheme and Eliot-Pearson girls if nothing else are resourceful.  Turtlenecks.  Honestly, they were a new fashion statement in those days.  I remember taking the MTA into town and going to a store near the Park and picking up a dozen or more turtlenecks in assorted sizes for $3.00 each—retail– and schlepping them back to the dorms and selling them for $5 each.  I made the ‘runs’ weekly and we made a lot of money for the times.  We donated the money as a class gift to the nearly established Martha Chandler Scholarship Fund.  I have always felt proud that we were able to help someone who needed it to get a little bit of help from us..

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