As we begin a new year with new First Lady Mary Hynes, this is a wonderful time to share long time member Janet Germane’s delightful recollections.
Janet Germane with new member Katie Vigeant taken at the Spring Tea. This venue was the Jackson Home in 1952, where a Business School Reception was held — 64 years ago.
Janet writes: “We were a smaller faculty in the 1950s. The Sterlings entertained both faculty and wives at Hoover House, where we went up and down the stairs to the garden. Anne Loftis would remember; she and John came in 1952, the same year that we did, as did Patricia and David Levin and Pat and Larry Ryan.
My late husband, Gayton, and I arrived at Stanford in fall of 1952, and were welcomed by a reception at the home of the dean of the Business School. Dean J.Hugh Jackson and Fredericka Jackson entertained at their home on El Escarpado — the same home where SUWC had a tea in May.
We lived a few months at Stanford Village on Ravenswood in Menlo Park, which was full of students with families. It had been an army hospital, perhaps called Dibble.
Anne Sterling was active in various ways and even wrote notes to each faculty wife, when babies were born to us. She was instrumental in organizing a committee of some of us to provide support to an organization of student wives. Mary Stegner, Ruth Spangenberg, and I were some of those appointed to that committee in 1955-56.
Other minutia, related to the Women’s Clubhouse:
Mrs Felix Keesing was chair of the dance section of the SUWC and later persuaded me to become section chair. We had monthly dances in the upper floor of the Women’s Clubhouse, playing records for our music, such as: “Love and Marriage”, “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White”.
We took turns in bringing sandwiches for supper, which we served in a room on the lower floor.
We even met there in the lower floor room of the clubhouse for a formal dinner when Bayless Manning, then the new dean of the Law School, spoke to a group. It must have been before the Faculty Club was built. (The Faculty club was dedicated on Oct. 1, 1965)
Anne Sterling was a charming, interesting, high energy, and authoritative woman, urging the wives to attend various cultural events in our area, which usually meant traveling to San Francisco, which we called “The City”. This was at a time when there were traffic signals on Bayshore at University Ave. And, when driving down to San Jose, I could count 19 windmills in the many truck gardens beside 101.
Fun to remember all of this; not all of it is relevant to the Lou Henry Hoover House, but perhaps to the history of SUWC.
Ten years ago, I helped Cassandra Moore write a history of our Radcliffe Club of the Peninsula. [1967 to 2005}. Fifteen Radcliffe alums were also faculty or faculty wives back in the 1970s. They were: Rosemary Enthoven, Jewelle Gibbs, Gloria Leiderman, Cassandra Moore, Constance Pratt, Anne Scowcroft, Leah Chodorow, Madeleine Crowley, Mary Moser, Maclin Guerard, Iraida Espinosa, Ellen Ehrlich, Margaret French, Gretl Meier and Janet Germane. Only 4 or 5 survive now.”
Editor’s Note: I welcome messages and hope to share more memories during this Anniversary year. – Audrey
Marina Lewis shows her great Chico’s style at the 2015 Fashion Show
