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| College Hall |
Today is the 100th
anniversary of the Great Fire that burned down the College Hall of Wellesley
College which took four years to build and a mere four hours to become burned
ruins. College Hall was where many students,
faculty, and staff lived, studied, worked, ate and shared their time together.
But all that changed on that fateful foggy morning when the Japanese bell, gong,
and crackling flames rousted sleepy residents, clad in nightgowns, kimonos and
robes and some barefooted to the five-story atrium as embers and cinders rained
down on them and roll calls were made.
Within ten minutes all 216 of the residents were safe and they began an orderly
bucket brigade to save the treasures from the flame. Not a soul perished. Thanks to the tradition of the running of
fire-drills in Wellesley since the 1870s and the collected calmness and
presence of mind of the Wellesley girls.
Wellesley was founded in 1875 by
Pauline and Henry Fowle Durant with a vision of raising women from a position
of subordination through higher education to a nobler and graceful status to
become “the crowned queen of the world by right of that knowledge which is
power and that beauty which is truth.” By the time of the fire Wellesley was internationally
known; sixty percent of its students came from outside Massachusetts. It first international student was from
Japan, Kin Kato, who spent a year at the college in 1888. The Japanese bell which was rung during the
fire was from Horinsan Rengeji or the Temple of the Lotus Flower near Tokyo and
it was a comfortable symbol of her Japan home. The news of the fire appeared on the front
page of the London Times
On this anniversary, a great
number of alumnae, students and faculty gathered in the Houghton Memorial
Chapel to remember this occasion. This
was where the students, faculty and staff gathered after the fire to listen to
President Pendleton’s inspiring speech that the students and the faculty were
the college not the building. This coming from a President who in the previous
evening greeted the Wellesley debate team in the atrium celebrating their
victories and defeat with rival team of Mount Holyoke when she aptly said,” It
is a fine thing to be enthusiastic over victory. It is a better [thing] to learn enthusiasm
from defeat.”
Despite the loss of their home,
worldly possessions, irreplaceable years of academic research findings and
scholarly work, Wellesley with an overwhelming outpouring of support from
colleges and people all over the country rose up as a unified community with
courage and resourcefulness towards a common goal: to reconstruct a new and
vibrant Wellesley from the ashes and to continue the Wellesley’s legacy of
staunch and heroic spirit in the belief of the strength and purpose of women’s
higher education for the next generations of young Wellesley girls so they too
could experience the greatness that is Wellesley, our alma mater. We should all take this occasion to remember
the loss that allowed us to show forth the true resilience of Wellesley and to
celebrate its courage and conviction to continue the great experiment for
higher education for women.
It makes me proud to be a
Wellesley woman!
…for the things which are seen
are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:18
King James Bible
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