When members of the Class of 1957 came to UD for their 50-year reunion this fall, they found a campus that had grown and changed enormously and a group of students whose everyday lives were notably different than theirs had been.

And yet, they say, it still felt very much like home.

Their 1957 Blue Hen Yearbook is dedicated “to the Future,” and its opening pages show photos of buildings and students on campus surrounding the words: “The beauty that is Delaware will live in our hearts.”

For many class members, that has indeed been the case. Their recollections of the campus and the years they spent there are clear and affectionate. For half a century—to one degree or another—they’ve stayed connected to the University and one another.

“The friends I made my freshman year are still friends today,” says Barbara Cubberley Schalick, who is well remembered by her classmates for her energy, enthusiasm and baton-twirling abilities as she led the UD Marching Band onto the field at football games. “Many of us stayed in touch over the 50 years since graduation. We have been our own support group, sharing joys and sorrows.”

Alan and Grace Evans Woodruff, who met during Freshman Week but didn’t have their first date until sophomore year, now have been married 50 years. They’ve tried always to return to Delaware for Homecoming, missing only three or four such events over the years, “but this year was really special,” Grace says of their 2007 class reunion.

Alan says they’re from a generation that values loyalty—to their country, but also to the school that gave them a good education. “Life’s been good to us, and we want to give back,” he says.
“Plus, we still get goose bumps when we hear the alma mater,” his wife adds. Those in the Class of ’57 were undergraduates during the Eisenhower administration, and despite

worries about the Soviet Union and fears of The Bomb that hovered in the background of that era, a general sense of peace and prosperity predominated. The waves of World War II veterans attending college on the GI Bill had mostly come and gone before this class arrived on campus, but those who had fought in Korea—easily identified as “a few years older and wiser and using much more colorful language than the rest of us,” one class member recalls—were scattered among the student body.

With the Civil Rights Movement still young, the pages of the 1957 yearbook include only a handful of African-American faces. More than a decade after UD became coeducational, women made up a significant part of the senior class, but the yearbook shows clear distinctions in their limited athletic opportunities, for example, and almost total lack of representation in such fields of study as agriculture and engineering.

One class member, Mike Jacukowicz, began his freshman year a decade older than most of his classmates. He was a Holocaust survivor who, after his concentration camp was liberated in 1945, spent several years working for the U.S. military in Germany before finding someone to sponsor him for entry into the United States. He worked as a chef at Wilmington’s Hotel du Pont for a time and then enrolled as an undergraduate at UD.

“I had a tremendous desire for an education,” Jacukowicz says. “I was one of the oldest in the class, and my English wasn’t as good as the other students, but I joined a fraternity [Theta Chi] and the drama club and the wrestling team, so I enjoyed myself.”

Commencement for the Class of 1957 was interrupted by a mid-ceremony cloudburst that sent all the new grads dashing for shelter as they listened to their names being called and their degrees bestowed. Still, Jacukowicz says, “My college graduation was the most beautiful day of my life.”

Class members have mostly fond memories of things that might seem strange to today’s students, including mandatory freshman beanies (called dinks) and name tags, nightly curfews for women, vigilant housemothers enforcing dorm rules and separate residence halls on different parts of the campus for men and women.

There were pep rallies the night before football games, friendly competitions among the women’s dorms as they devised and performed original dances for May Day and skits for “Women’s Playbill,” elaborate floats at Homecoming and a half-dozen or so formal balls throughout the year, featuring women in full-skirted, strapless gowns and men in tuxedos.

Fraternities were extremely popular, and much of all student social life centered around them. When a member gave his soon-to-be-fiancée his pin outside her dorm, his fraternity brothers gathered with him to serenade her and present white roses. When she went back inside, another tradition took over, and her dorm mates tossed her, still fully clothed, into the shower.

“We really feel that the ’50s were the best decade to grow up in and to attend college,” Alan Woodruff says. “It was a special time, and we developed a real love for the University.”

Several members of the Class of ’57 shared thoughts, nostalgia and anecdotes about UD. Following are excerpts from some of them.

David Tompkins

My memories center around four major aspects of my life at Delaware—The Review, Kappa Alpha fraternity, E-52 [student theatre] and concert choir.

I signed up as a reporter for The Review in my freshman year, progressed to be sports editor, then news editor, then editor-in-chief in my senior year. The Review office was housed in the smelly basement of the Library (now Memorial Hall), along with the Scrounge and student mailboxes. Long before computers, I remember long hours in the office with the staff writing, rewriting and typing copy, devising headlines and preparing page layouts for the weekly issues. I also recall my weekly, not-always-so-friendly meetings with Dean of Students John Hocutt, who often conveyed President [John A.] Perkins’ disagreements with my editorials.

I lived in the KA house for three years with a great bunch of guys. I remember sleeping (and shivering) in the unheated sleeping decks during the cold winter months….

I had some musical theatre experience in high school, so as a lark I tried out for an E-52 show in my freshman year. I was shocked when I was told that, based on my audition, I had won the lead as Sir Boss in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Here I was just 17, and my two leading ladies were seniors!…

My long interest in music was greatly enhanced by the choir under director Ivan Trusler, a wonderful musician/perfectionist who taught us the greatest works ever written. My wife, Ginny, and I have joined choirs in Boston and elsewhere, but have never again enjoyed the quality of music and performance he provided.

Barbara Cubberley Schalick

It seemed demolishing [the postwar barracks that served as temporary] dormitories followed us. Hanover, Eaton and Windsor were razed our freshman year, and Topsy, Turvy and Boletus our sophomore year. Smyth Hall was new and could house us. Rooms were assigned by lottery. My senior year, I drew No. 1 and chose the Quad [later known as The Mall and now as The Green] in Warner Hall with the beautiful big window. When jet planes flew over from Wilmington, every pane rattled. No men were allowed on the second floor of any dorm, and if your father visited your room, “Man in the hall!” was the shout.

As a member of the marching band, I think our trip to Bucknell was most memorable. The football game was played in a blinding snowstorm, and the band performed in coats, scarves and hats. We looked like orphans of the storm. Try twirling a baton in a full-length tweed coat!

With Delaware’s winning football tradition, home games were always fun. The band would form behind the end zone. Many times, a running back or receiver would come charging at us. The sounds of the game on the field always surprised me. Then, out to the 20-yard line and the announcement, “The University of Delaware Blue Hen Marching Band,” four blasts of the whistle, and off we’d go across the field with the stands cheering.

Henry "Pete" French

I’m really an alum of two classes, ’57 and ’59.

I entered as a freshman with the Class of 1957, but through membership in ROTC, I became very interested in the military, and I took two years off to serve. I was stationed in Korea, after the war ended, with the military advisory assistance group, handling adoptions of mixed-race children there. Based on that military experience, when I came back to UD, I switched my major from Greek and Roman history to Chinese and Japanese history and graduated in 1959.

When I came back to the University after my military service, I was a sophomore and I felt left behind at first. But I had been a cheerleader and involved in student government as a freshman, so I still knew a lot of the seniors when I returned, and my new roommate and I got along well. In the end, I got reintegrated to student life fairly easily. And I must have liked the academic life, because I ended up continuing my education and becoming a professor. Today, I’m still involved in the University of Rochester as a professor emeritus.

I met my wife, Bev, who wasn’t a UD student, one night when she had had plans for a date with the fullback on the UD football team. Unfortunately for him—but fortunately for me—he suffered a concussion that day, so she was free, and we went out. I knew immediately that we would get married, and eight months later, we did. Now, 48 years later, we’re still happily married.

While I finished school, I worked for my uncle at Rhodes Drugstore on Main Street. Every week or so, he’d send me over to campus to check out how much the student bookstore was charging for paper and pencils. Then, he’d mark down his prices so we were a penny cheaper. A lot of students were always in our store, so it was a fun place to work.

Clyde Louth

When I graduated from high school, all my classmates seemed to know what they wanted to do with their lives, but I had no idea. So I joined the Navy in 1949 and served for four years. It was a great experience, and when I was discharged at age 22, I knew I wanted to go to college. I had GI Bill benefits, so I enrolled at UD. I was wooed by a couple of fraternities, and I let them wine and dine me, but I never joined any, so I think I had the best of both worlds. I think I met more people and had more friends than if I had limited myself to a single frat house.

I played freshman basketball, and that spring, the track team needed a freshman miler. I said, “OK, that might be a good way to stay in shape for basketball.” Ten days later, we were competing against Penn at Franklin Field. I had never been timed in the mile before, but I won the race and set a new freshman record. The rest of my years at UD, I played basketball and ran track and cross county. I was the captain of all three teams my senior year and ended up with nine varsity letters, which was the most you could have.

Academically, I was “one of the girls” as just about the only male majoring in elementary education. The summer before my senior year, I got married, and on the day of my last exam in my college career, my son was born. Nothing can compare to that experience.

Richard Haines

I wandered, wide-eyed, into the chemical engineering department in 1953. Although I had always been fascinated by chemistry as a kid, I had no idea what the whole thing was about. But it quickly became demanding fun. While learning to mathematically describe physical systems, analyze processes and solve problems was great, the mentoring of wonderful professors was truly awesome. Robert Pigford and Arthur Metzner, in particular, were my Pied Pipers. While significantly different in both age and personal approach, both were superbly capable, caring and fun-loving. And, of course, they managed to deliver the best engineering education possible.

Like many freshmen, I joined a fraternity. As a chemical engineer, I soon became chief “pyrotechnics brother.” In this capacity, I planned and sometimes executed very foolish campaigns. On one occasion, I was lobbing devices at the rival house, and one ignited prematurely just after leaving my hand. The incident ended at the UD infirmary, where I was treated for burns and sent away without too many questions of how it happened—sadder, relieved and a whole lot wiser!

Marie Thielman Godfrey

I grew up in Philadelphia, but my dad, Joseph A. Thielman, graduated from Delaware in 1923. When it was time for me to pick a college, he encouraged me to pick one in Pennsylvania, but when I visited the UD campus, there was no comparison. Everyone was so friendly, and Delaware was about the size of my high school. Since my college days, all four of my children attended UD, and now I have a grandson attending. So that is four generations.

I wrote the “Blue Hen of the Week” column in The Review, which was fun….The mice in the [temporary women’s housing] barracks and in the New Castle dorm caused a lot of hilarity, especially since I wasn’t scared of them….

Panty raids put our house mothers on pins and needles, but I think it was a great idea having dorm mothers who were widows to look after us. We had to sign in and out after hours. It was a good system.