Looking back on school days at Wood College in Mathiston

While we were still in the heart of the Great Depression, men would come to our house in Macon and wait outside until my mother brought them a hearty breakfast. She remembered how hard times were when they lived in Winston County.
These men were vagrants who had nothing. I have read that it was their custom to mark houses where they could get food with an X, but I don’t remember seeing one on our house.
I started school in Macon and finished there. My father told me that he had gotten me a real job. (I had been working at a ladies dress shop on Saturdays and making $5 a day. I politely (I hope) told him that I didn’t want the job as I had a scholarship to Wood College in Mathiston.

When I got to Wood there were many students from Calhoun County. The rules were strict. You couldn’t go home for the first three weeks and if the girls went off campus they had to sign out and sign in when they returned.
Two of my best friends were from Texas and Michigan and didn’t get to go home until Christmas and so I would take them home with me.
Years later they told me that what they liked most about that was my mother’s cooking and the feather bed we slept on. And wouldn’t that just kill your back now?

I couldn’t wait to become a sophomore and be eligible hopefully to be selected as a Maroonette or campus hostess. I did and when it was our duty day, we wore maroon and white outfits.
It didn’t take long to learn that some of that duty involved washing and drying fine china when the president’s wife had a special event at her home.

We didn’t have much of a washing machine at my home in Macon, but it was one. At Wood, we had large sinks and a rub board. I had never used a rub board and I was so pleased with how white it got my socks that I wore holes in them using it.
Being at Wood was a special experience and did I fail to mention that I married one of the students there?

You may email Jo Ann Denley at joanndenley@brucetelephone.com