Dixon's School for Girls Ann Taylor Mumford '45 Life on a college campus, according to the movies that played at the Egyptian or the Orpheum Theater during the 1930's, included a lot of singing and dancing with some romance taking place in the back seat of a convertible. As a teenager with an overworked imagination, I believed all of it. And my fantasies were supported by articles and pictures published in the Ogden Standard-Examiner. Whole layouts were dedicated to the football games, the cheerleader antics, the homecoming parades, and the assemblies. Queens smiled broadly at their adoring escorts, and I could hardly wait for my turn to be a popular coed at Weber College. When I finally enrolled, a great change had taken place at Weber. It was the fall of 1943, and the comics had renamed Weber "Dixon's School for Girls." World War II had snatched away nearly all the male students and greatly depleted the ranks of instructors. Left intact were seven social clubs, all female, and that was the only thing going to support my dream expectations. During the two years I spent at Weber College there was a total of four dances. The first one, held during fall quarter of my freshman year, was a precursor of computer-dating. The United States Navy was utilizing Weber for primary training of fledgling naval cadets. Therefore, a ready-made pool of eligible young men existed. Mae Welling, dean of women, worked with the Naval Commander. He presented a list of cadets - their names and heights -and she produced a list of coeds with their heights. In 1943 it wasn't considered chic to have a date with a shorter man. The dance was held in the ballroom. We came in our formats and sat in chairs along the wall. The cadets arrived, marching in military precision. They stood against an opposite wall "at ease." The naval officer read a name, and the cadet marched forward. Miss Welling read a matched name, and the coed came forth to meet her date. As the evening went on, some date switching occurred. Some very rude cadets were rumored to have offered money to fellow cadets to trade. Some dates led to further dating, and letter writing followed after the cadet had shipped out. My heart was temporarily broken when "my cadet," after exchanging many letters and long-distance telephone calls, informed me he was going to marry his childhood sweetheart before he went overseas. There are many teachers I remember fondly from those years: Orson Whitney Young, who instilled my first appreciation for the miracle of the human body; President H. Aldous Dixon, who also taught some sociology classes and accepted students just as they were. I felt his love and support. Walter Buss, who was a little crazy, but it was a lovely craziness. I looked at rocks differently forever after. Mr. Espy, who left for active service and was missed by the English Department. Lydia Tanner, who was past retirement age, but her skills in the Home Economics Department were so desperately needed that she continued teaching. Classes were small, usually 20 to 25 students, and the instructors generally got well enough acquainted that they could call the students by name. For some unknown reason Mrs. Tanner called me "Mae." I corrected her the first twenty times, but she persisted, so finally when she said "Mae," I answered. The first year I attended Weber I shared a basement apartment with three girls I had known for a long time. None of us would qualify as a good cook. We each brought our share of ration stamps for meat from home, but since money was scarce, we usually had meat substitutes - mainly cream sauce from a recipe devised by Mrs. Tanner and mixed with every imaginable food. We all gained weight. The war also put restrictions on clothing (one stamp per year for shoes), and as we were similar in size, a lot of clothes borrowing went on. I could always tell when my best black shoes had gone out on a date without me. Tuition was $35.00 per quarter. I supplemented my allowance by working Saturdays and Monday nights at C.C. Anderson's, a department store in downtown Ogden. I worked at the hosiery counter, which consisted mostly of ankle socks, because silk stockings (nylons had not yet been invented) were very scarce. Occasionally a bus load of Italian prisoners of war would be brought into Ogden from the internment camp nearby. They would finger the materials and exclaim over the merchandise even though everything was substandard during the war. I was fascinated by their happy demeanor, their rapid chatter, and their flirting even though I did not understand a word of their language. Since there were no other social outlets, our clubs became the focus of our attention. Each club presented an assembly, and naturally the competition was fierce. We Mae Welling 36 were normal in behavior, so like all college freshmen, we started preparing our assembly a few days before it was to be given. The night before, we held a dress rehearsal on the stage in the Moench Building; then we began making the scenery. At midnight the custodian came to remind us we were to be out of the building in five minutes. We pleaded for an extra half hour, promised to turn off the lights and lock the door behind us, and he left, believing us. At 5:00 a.m. we finished. I walked to our apartment, five blocks away, with never a worry about my safety. The lady who lived upstairs had promised our fussing mothers, when we moved in, that she would be a housemother, and she took that position very seriously. The lights upstairs did not go out if she thought we were still out on a date. I crept past her bedroom window very quietly, eased myself through the back door, and started down the stairs carefully. She suddenly appeared on the landing. "My goodness! You are certainly getting an early start today, aren't you?" "Yes ma'am." I quickly swiveled around to face the outside. "I have a test today and I thought I would go early to study," I lied. I hurriedly went out the door and headed back toward Weber. I had been dreaming of a hot shower and then my lovely bed. I went to the rest room and washed my face. I flopped onto a lumpy sofa in the women's lounge. One of my club sisters woke me in time for the assembly. At the end of spring quarter 1944, the club members decided we needed to enjoy a retreat before beginning summer employment. One of the group invited us to enjoy a few days at her parents' cabin. We packed swim suits and shorts and lots of food and moved into the old frame house that was built right on the bank of the Ogden River just below Pineview Dam. Without adult supervision (but compared to today's standards, we were a sedate bunch) we hiked, slept, consumed humongous amounts of food, and talked and talked and talked. The night of June 5th we were awakened when one of the girls became ill. The owner of our sole transportation, a convertible, decided to drive the stricken sister home. She was instructed to stop at another home and pick up a chocolate cake. We went back to sleep as they backed out to the highway. We were jolted out of bed by a very excited young lady an hour later. She burst into the house screaming, "It's D-Day! It's D-Day!" We had not listened to the news since arriving in the canyon, so we hadn't realized the invasion was imminent. The girl said every light in Ogden was burning and every siren in the county was wailing. Suddenly I wanted to go home to be with my family. Most of us cried; all of us were sober. Crazily, one girl was screaming at the convertible owner because she had eaten most of the chocolate cake on her way back to the cabin. I thought, at this very moment American servicemen are landing on the beaches of France and they are dying. I think that moment may have been when I realized the awfulness of the war. I moved into the girls' dormitory fall quarter of my sophomore year. Board and room for the quarter was $35.00. I shared a room with two other girls. We lived in the old County Courthouse on 24th Street. The U.S. Navy had converted the building into barracks for the naval ca- dets, but the program had been transferred somewhere else during the summer of '44. Mae Welling became the dorm mother, and the cooks, hired and trained by the navy, stayed with the building. They fed us the same foods and amounts they fed the growing young men of the Navy Air Force -about 3500 calories per day. The seams of my clothing grew tight. My face mooned. My roomies and I skipped breakfast in an attempt to diet. Around 10:00 a.m. we would meet in the College Inn (affectionately called the C.I.) to get something to help with the hunger pangs - a piece of pie and a Coke, usually. The big dance of the sophomore year was aptly named the Polygamist Prance. It was girl's choice. It did not matter if the boy you decided to ask had already been asked; he had to accept all invitations. I shared my date with three other girls. One very popular young man had so many dates, he had to get a flatbed truck and fill it with folding chairs. He drove carefully to the parking lot with all his ladies in their formals. The girls took turns dancing with their man. I danced every fourth dance. I believe those with the truck driver date danced only once during the evening. There were rumors and more rumors that the war in Europe was coming to a close. The end of April we listened at every opportunity as the newscasters related the victories as cities fell to the Allied Forces. Finally in early May 1945, the sirens wailed again. This time they signaled Remembering D-Day 37