Spring 2006 Alumnae Quarterly Web Extra
Mountain Day Memories
Last fall, the Alumnae Association sent alumnae an e-mail on Mountain Day. Several alumnae responded with thanks and memories of Mountain Days past. (The tradition has been going since 1838.) Here’s a sample to whet your appetite for this year’s surprise holiday.
Even if your schedule doesn’t permit an impromptu holiday on MHC’s official Mountain Day, you can celebrate it on another glorious fall day. Go on, give yourself some good memories.
Mary Jenkins Daniels ’43
“Mountain Day was an exciting day for me. It was in 1939, my freshman year. Ingrid, Madelin, Lee, and I decided to walk cross country to the top of Mount Holyoke, innocents all. We had a good time looking at the new trees and plants. By late afternoon we hadn’t gotten to the top and decided to turn around. We were lost in the middle of the woods.
We conferred and decided to go downhill, figuring we would come out of the hills eventually. Down we went through the bushes, We found a stream and followed its flow downward. We came to a trail and followed it until it came out on a road. It was dark by then. We caught a ride to the college. Everyone was looking for us and happy to see us. We were tired, hungry, and scratched, but OK. It was quite an adventure.”
Waltraut Benke Lehmann ’76
“Mountain Day! What a glorious day it was! Definitely a day in October. My first semester at MHC was fall 1974. I quickly learned how to guess at the exact day: not a Monday or Friday, so it would not become a mere extension of the weekend; outside of hunting season, so unsuspecting MHTs roaming the woods would not be mistaken for wildlife; not too late, so the weather would be good; not too early, so the leaves would have turned; by tradition, usually a Wednesday.
When the bells rang, a few friends and I went downstairs, snubbed the dining room picnic offering, and—lucky!—took off in the car one of us had. We stopped to buy bread and cheese and other goodies and went to Quabbin reservoir, walked around, ate, chatted, enjoyed the fall scenery. I have a small snapshot from a roadside stand where we stopped on the way back, and look at the pumpkins. I’m wearing a black jacket and standing in the midst of a sea of orange and yellow. Great memories.”
Lenora Castles Bryant ’64
“Mt. Day as a sophomore—having done the Mt. thing as a freshman, spent the entire day under a tree outside the dorm reading Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, which begins (as I recall) with a glorious scene of the church bells ringing all over Paris, each church joining the dawn chorus one by one until they were all ringing. Read it!”
Ruth A. Dillingham ’75
“Best Mountain Day snapshot: the freshman standing in front of the dorm mailboxes saying “But do we get mail on Mountain Day?””
Eileen B. Sypher ’68
“Mountain Day: the words this morning appearing on my computer screen turned all this day into the sound of morning bells. And all day memory (did they become one?) spilled out, a thing I had forgotten I held inside all this while, still and perfect. And, called out, now, this memory feels more powerful for me than the laurel chain: this is the laurel chain, the day binding me with all those who also carry this thing within and who have even this very day made the thing, so that we all together gasp again on hearing those bells, and tumble out laughter, and open our faces to the breeze and our mouths to apples. Ears and skin and mouth, tired legs: we all somehow are tumbled together in this, like children playing in a newly raked leaf pile. I told everyone I could around me this day on (another) campus about “mountain day,” a day also so fine here in New Haven, and, miraculous: I could feel the leap, the same leap in each of them who had never known it!
But what is my now single memory that I carry about quietly within, still and perfect and permanent and mine—and yet a memory that two words “mountain day” can so suddenly release, like a bunch of brightly colored helium balloons let go? It was the anticipated yet always surprising first peal of a bell out of sequence, a bell too quick, too joyous. And then the yells all down the corridor. The rushing to a friend’s room, and then downstairs to pick up a box of lunch (how did they know I always wondered?), and then out to the bicycles. Mine was already old, and one of the non-geared kind (this was in the 1960s)—and we wore no helmets. The going was slow, yes, but that was part of it, the lingering, as two or three or more of us would make our way “up” the mountain. It took all day. I was, at the end, tired and so sore. But I remember now the taste of that apple and the feel of the early autumn breeze on my upturned face and the look of the land, yes, that look, one place in particular, a marsh off on a side road, a soft still blend of reedy textures and russet and gold color. When we got back, late in the afternoon, having forgotten by now everything, classes and papers and tests, everything blown away by the wind and the taste of apples and the sight of a marsh: why then the campus itself was different. It was now in a new world, like Eden, nestled at the foot of a mountain, still, perfect and now ours.”
Karen Hatch-Bernold ’97
“Ahhhh, Mountain Day. I get teary, too. We did something a little different junior and senior year. A large group of us—you know who you are—went to the Quabbin Reservoir. There’s a videotape out there somewhere of 1995’s event. I have decided that every year on Mountain Day, as long as I’m still getting the e-mails, I’m going to let my kids, Lizzy (3.5) and Teddy (16 mos.), play hooky. It’ll be a day to refresh and renew ourselves. If it weren’t raining and fifty degrees here in SE Minnesota, we’d go to the nature center!”
Carrianna K. Field ’97
“I love finding out when it is Mountain Day. Generally Mountain Day meant an early morning soccer practice before I then relaxed for the day. Senior year I biked to Noho with my roommate and we then climbed Mount Holyoke. meeting a group of friends at the top.”
Jules Dickinson ’77
“I’m afraid I was a “bad” MHCer, because I stayed home and studied my first three years of Mountain Day. However, in my senior year I had a good set of friends in my dorm who insisted that I had to celebrate Mountain Day with them: Karen Milliken, Patty Klaas, Debbie Simpson, Anne Hurst, and I don’t remember if Martha Cecil or Tulasi Hosain were there (the memory is the first thing to go when you reach fifty!). I don’t remember everything we did, but we drove out for cider (um, Atkins?), spent the day outdoors, and in late afternoon ended our day with ice cream cones from Friendly’s. Somewhere in my gigantic box of unorganized photos I have a picture of all us standing in line outside of Friendly’s, holding up our cones in toast and celebration of the wonderful day we’d had.”
Carrie R. Austin ’97
“Every time I receive the e-mail letting us know it’s Mountain Day, I get a little teary-eyed... Mount Holyoke in the fall is just so beautiful! My favorite Mountain Day memory is from my sophomore year. My roommate (Woj) woke up before me, turned off my alarm, and left me a note letting me know that the bells had rung and it was Mountain Day. She didn’t leave me any typical note, though. She absolutely covered a piece of paper with stickers so that the first thing I saw when I looked at my clock was a bright, shiny, colorful message of fun and good news. It was one of many cute notes she left me throughout the year. And, I still have it.”
Sallie Wright Abbas ’65
“I recall a Mt. Day 1962, when I bicycled to the notch, purchased a half gallon of fresh apple cider, brought it back to Pearsons, set it on the window sill, and let it ferment! (In those years alcohol was not allowed on campus!) Of course, there was nothing intentional, deliberate, or sneaky on my part in this accidental, natural transformation!”
 |
Leadership is by example. — Kavita Ramdas ’85, president and CEO, Global Fund for Women |
