"TESSIES" - more about 50s collegiate life

Living in a college town has been an eye-opener for me. There are so many differences between now and "back in the day" (in the 50s) when I was in college and I thought I would paint a picture for you of life then.

I attended what was then called Texas State College for Women. Now it is Texas Woman's University. We called ourselves "Tessies" but I don't know what they call themselves now. Maybe "Twus"? It's hard to believe how different and stringent life was then. Firstly, I remember we couldn't go off campus during the week, just on Saturday and Sunday. Also, on Sunday when we ate in the cafeteria we had to wear gloves, hose and a hat. Of course we wore hose almost every day then, the kind with the seam up the back and that was always crooked. Once in a while they would herd us all in to a bus and take us in to Dallas to see a show or some other cultural experience. That's when I saw Shirley MacLaine when she was a stand-in for the star in Pajama Game, her debut role. 

Of course, there were no computers then and all our research was done in the library which was in a huge, ugly brick building with a dank basement which is were all my necessary books seemed to be. My major was Spanish and it wasn't easy. I had to write a review in Spanish on one Spanish novel I had read and the teacher gave me a "C". I felt my work was better than that and confronted her with it whereupon she told me that she thought I had copied from other writings. I finally convinced her that I hadn’t copied anyone . She changed my grade to a B+.

We had no choice as to where to live so we all lived in dormitories and all had a roommate. There was a girl in our building who was from England and had been in the London Blitz, (look it up), and one night some stupid person set off a firecracker in the elevator shaft. The loud boom was awful and the poor English girl screamed and dived under her bed. On another occasion we had to talk her down from a stroll on the edge of the roof. There was no one on campus to help her in those days….or help any of us  with our mental health, for that matter.

TSCW was the sister school to A&M in those days before women were admitted there. The guys used to drive up and look around our campus like they were shopping, and maybe they were. Each year they chose an Aggie Sweetheart from our school and when I was a Senior I was nominated by my classmates as a candidate for that “privilege”. There were about eight of us girls to be interviewed by four Aggies and early on I decided I didn’t want to participate. Therefore, I decided to be as obnoxious as I could and it worked. All that fawning and giggling over those boys was sickening. Anyway, it didn’t matter because I went to the Aggie Homecoming Ball as a representative for the South Texas Hereford Association. Unfortunately in the brochure for the ball they had me listed as “Miss Kay Russell Hereford”!

These are but a few examples of what we went through as women who wanted to further their education "way back" then. College was difficult but worth it and I’m glad I made it.  


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