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The pattern has changed since grandmother attended the University of
Nebraska in 1871. Today’s co-eds glide thru their four years of college
with a minimum of discomfort. Grandmother undoubtedly led a more
vigorous life, tho it cost her less (but again, money was money then).
Lincoln’s few citizens were urged to be kind to open up their homes to
farmers’ daughters bent on education. Or she could stay at “ladies
hall,” which our sleuthing has led us to believe stood at 14th and U,
for 50 cents a week if she toted in her own bedstead. Wherever she
stayed, chances are she often had to crack ice on the water pitcher
winter mornings. And crossing the pasture toward University hall in
temperate seasons she ran the risk of falling over someone’s
tethered-out cow.
In the evening grandmother lighted her kerosene lamp in a chilly room
and sat down to her lonely studies—perhaps with her chilblained feet
asoak. She was more or less isolated, as phones were still missing from
the Lincoln scene. If it had been arranged in advance, she might meet
other young men and women for a candy pull or sleigh ride.
Now, in Carrie Belle Raymond, Julia L. Love and Northeast halls—on No.
16th—the way of the co-ed is smooth. She may roam at large over an area
predigested as to temperature, blossoming with deep chairs, radios,
cardtables, piano, shampoo rooms, dancing halls and tennis courts.
Fifteen sororities in the region of the campus furnish approximately the
same sort of living for grandmother’s granddaughter. Others take their
living places where they find them. But even at the worst those living
places are much superior to what was the common lot in 1871.