Meet the women in TCU’s past

Fort Worth, TX

1/25/2007

By Sherrie Reynolds
School of Education

Several years ago, I discovered TCU’s rich heritage, especially for women. TCU was founded in 1873 as AddRan Male and Female College, where men and women attended classes together as equals. That was not the prevailing wisdom of the day. It was assumed that women could not handle the same studies as men and, in fact, Harvard University started Radcliffe as a separate college for women on the basis of this assumption, 21 years after the founding of TCU.

In the archives I met an early, and little known woman, Ida Jarvis. It might be said that Ida Jarvis was responsible for saving TCU at a moment at Thorp Springs when its survival hung by a thread. It was an issue of student conduct. “There was a musical concert in the college chapel on Monday night. The next morning an anonymous note was sent the President saying that a young man from the boy’s dormitory had walked home with a young lady who lived in town. This open disobedience of rules was the subject of the chapel talk. The offender was asked to stand that all of the audience might see the student to be expelled for breaking the rules.

When one of the finest young men of the senior class quietly arose, it astonished the faculty, but did not change the sentence. Before an hour had passed a petition was brought from the student body asking for pardon and stated that the offenders of the evening before were to be married in two weeks. The petition also stated that nearly all of the students had stolen privileges at some time during the year. An assembly of student and visitors was called. The president stated the decision was final; there was no excuse for breaking rules, and all students who had done so during the year must consider themselves expelled.

Mrs. Jarvis walked slowly to the girl’s dormitory where she found all in confusion, girls in nearly every room were packing trunks and weeping. The matron, almost frantic, said: ‘something must be done, call a faculty meeting.’ Mrs. Jarvis replied: ‘Faculty nothing, ––there has been too much faculty now. Give me my umbrella, and I will attend to this.’ She tied a large white handkerchief on top of the umbrella and went to the home of Mr. Addison. He was in the cow pen with Mr. Randolph and both were in earnest conversation, seated under a live-oak tree.

Mrs. Jarvis marched up to them, waved her flag of truce and said: ‘good morning, you seem to be in trouble.’ Mr. Randolph said: ‘I’ve been trying to talk some sense into him.’ Mr. Addison replied: ‘we are in deep trouble, and I wish you could tell us what to do.’ Mrs. Jarvis had come prepared to do just that, and readily outlined the situation. It meant breaking up the school over a trifle, in the presence of hundreds of visitors from all over the country. She ended by saying there was only one thing to do: ‘Take back what you have said and forgive them.’ Mr. Addison looked down in deep thought for some moments, then the humor of the whole situation appealed to him, he threw back his head and laughed heartily. He called an assembly at once and not only revoked the sentence, but gave the students full privileges for the entire week. Mrs. Jarvis was a heroine.” Mason, p. 115, an interview with Mrs. Ida v. Jarvis.

I decided that I would find out more about Ida Jarvis and other women of TCU. I am interested in what might be called a psychological history, that is, I want to know about the intangibles that only reveal themselves in the stories of TCU told by its people. So, I decided to search the archives and to interview women alumni, faculty and staff of TCU and listen to their stories.

I am still completing the interviews and have not begun the analysis and writing yet. I’ve had a marvelous time listening to these amazing women. One pattern that is quite clear is that women did not, as a person, feel that TCU treated them differently even at a time when many women faced discrimination outside the university. Women who graduated in business, for example, did not face discrimination in their studies but, upon graduation, as one woman said they were offered jobs “dipping chocolates”.

Another woman said that even though there was discrimination against minorities other than women, it has been less so at TCU than in the culture at large. She thinks that it is because, no matter what prejudices people bring with them to TCU, they are secondary to the fact that we are all horned frogs, and that means we are family.

Several people have joined us in this project and made significant contributions, including my co-authors Joyce Marshall (photographer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) and Dr. Fran Huckaby (assistant professor of education). Others include Ann Lowden (special assistant to the Chancellor), the graduate and undergraduate students from the Qualitative Research Special Problems class, and the first group of students in my freshman seminar: “TCU, its history, its heritage.”