In the next photo, I'm getting pinned with my "Honors" cord. I entered the school's honors program and graduated magna cum laude. My thesis was "A 2,000 year Circle in the Use and Concepts of Ladies Undergarments". A copy is in the school library and when our younger son Bill was at ETSU, he discovered my name in the card catalog and called me in Minneapolis to ask if I knew about that!
I started to Troy State in Sept. 1952
and met Jim in the summer of 1953. He was in the army and stationed at Ft Rucker. We got married in Oct 1953 and in Jan. he was sent to Germany and I dropped out of school at the end of the winter quarter and went with him. During the ensuing years I would take college classes at various places we lived and in 1973 I entered Paris Jr. College to take some art courses. I only needed a few basic couses to get my Associate Degree so I did that in the spring of 1974.
My art teacher encouraged me to go to East Texas State Univ. in Commerce, Tx (40 miles away) and get my B.S. degree which I did in May 1976. Jim was working at Vassarette, ladies division of Munsingwear, and I was very interested in the history of ladies undergarments and chose this topic for my honor's thesis. I enjoyed my historic costume classes so much that I asked Jim if I could travel to London to visit the Albert and Victoria Museum when I graduated and he agreed that would be a great trip for graduation. Six years passed before I went to London.
Soon after I graduated, Jim was transferred to Minneapolis where we lived 2 winters and decided to move back south, this time to Winston-Salem, NC. Soon after moving to NC, I signed up to go on an exchange trip with FriendshipForce and we went to Peine, Germany for 2 weeks.
You lived with a host family one week and then could travel other places the 2nd week. Finally I was going to go to Albert and Victoria Museum in London. I arrived in London by train and found a place to stay near Victoria Station. The next morning I got up very early and got the tube (subway) to the museum.
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When I arrived at the museum that morning, I went to the building housing the historical clothing, etc. and a sign on the door which said: "Closed for renovation until further notice". I could not believe what I was reading. I sat down on the steps and cried. I remembered passing Harrod's Dept store on the way to the museum so to ease my grief, I decided to spend the day browsing around Harrod's.
Then I left there and visited the National Gallery of Art. The next day was Saturday and I did the tourist stuff in London, i.e., Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards, a double decker bus tour of downtown, and the Royal Gardens. That night I went to see "Best Little Whore House in Texas" at the Royal Theater, along with a friend of our son Bill who was living in London. She met me for dinner and then we went to the theater.
When I got up Sunday morning, it was very cold (April) and it was Easter Sunday. I didn't have many clothes in my carry on bag, so I put on everything I had in the bag to keep warm. I was wearing open sandals so I wore 2 or 3 pair of stockings. I went to Easter service at Westminister Cathedral and was allowed to sit near the front of the church since I arrived early. It was so warm inside, I stayed for 2 services and to hear the beautiful music again!
On Monday, I read the newspaper headlines that the airlines were on strike and trains were about to stop running. I cashed in my airline ticket for a train ticket and headed back to Peine, Germany - located between Hamburg and the East German border to meet up with my group to get on a bus to go back through East Germany to Berlin where we would fly back to the US.
I arrived back in Peine at 2 a.m. and got a taxi back to the family's home where I was staying.
My trip from London, thru Belgium, France and back to northern Germany was an experience I'll never forget. I'll save this for another blog. I thought that if I ever got back to NC, I would remain there forever.... but I didn't.
Years later when I was visiting my sister Carolyn when they were living in Ascot, near London, she asked if I wanted to go to the Albert and Victoria museum and I had lost all interest. For 3 weeks she took James (our mentally handicapped son) and me all over England on day trips. James and I took the train to the Cotswold mountains one Sunday to visit my daughter-in-law's parents who were retired and living in Stroud near the Wales border.
Moral of this story is to call ahead when you are going to see something special (even in a foreign country) to make sure they are open! For example, Jim went to the Louvre when in Paris, France, attending a meeting in the early 1970's and the museum was closed because the workers were on strike!!
