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Interview with UNC Class of 1942, 1950, & 1954
by Charly Mann
I have enjoyed receiving e-mails from Chapel Hill Memories readers every day, and some of the most interesting and informative have come from former UNC students of more than fifty years ago. I recently arranged to interview three of these individuals over the phone to discuss their experiences as students and their reflections about Chapel Hill and the world we now live in. These people are alumni of the UNC classes of 1942, 1950, and 1954. One of the individuals wished to remain anonymous because she thought her relations might be hurt by some of her statements, so I have simply identified all of these people by the year of their graduating class. Class of 1942 and 1954 are men, and Class of 1950 is a woman.
UNC Chapel Hill students in a dormitory store in 1942
Charly Mann: Thank you all for agreeing to this interview. I would like to start off by asking each of you to briefly describe what the University of North Carolina was like when you were a student.
Class of 1942: I started UNC in 1938 at the height of the Depression and left to in 1942 to fight in World War II. The years in Chapel Hill were the best of my life. Everybody knew everybody and there were so many wonderful things to do.
A UNC coed in front of the Bell Tower in 1950
Class of 1950: I loved Chapel Hill and the campus. I lived in Spencer Dorm which I recall was like living in an elegant manor house. UNC must have had 5,000 students in those days, so I never felt like I knew everyone at UNC by name, but there was hardly an unfamiliar face, and I knew almost every coed on campus.
Class of 1954: I grew up near Sparta and had hardly been away from home until I entered Carolina. It was such a magical place. There was always so much to do in and out the class room. In those days all students automatically got tickets to basketball and football games, and I think the majority of the students went to home football games. I know I never missed a game. My son went to UNC and my granddaughter is currently a junior. Today only a fraction of UNC students get to attend football and basketball games.
Class of 1950: Yes, that's terrible and I understand it is a multi-step lottery students must enter to get tickets to any basketball or football game.
Class of 1954. That's true. My granddaughter told me you have to go to the Internet and fill out a request for each game just to get a chance for a ticket in the lottery.
Class of 1942: That is a shame. UNC football in my day, and basketball and football today, are what creates the common bond and spirit of being a Carolina student.
1950 UNC Cheerleaders and Ramses
Charly Mann: Besides attending sporting events what did students do in their free time when you were there?
Class of 1942: We did not have TV, computers, or video games so students were more self-motivated to try a variety of things. Almost everyone I knew was part of an inter-mural team as well as working with some student publication or volunteer organization. We also had six big dance concerts a year where the top bands in the country would perform at UNC, so one thing we did was practice our dancing.
Charly Mann: What types of dance steps did you have to know?
Class of 1942: I recall we would have to be able to at least do the foxtrot, waltz, jitterbug, and the lindy hop.
Charly Mann: Wow! Did most students dance?
Class of 1942: Everyone did, and finding a date for a dance could be a big challenge.
Class of 1950: Dances were still going strong during my UNC years, and I always had at least five invitations to everyone of them. Of course there were at least six times as many male students as women in those days.
Class of 1954: I remember at the Spring 1953 Germans Dance three of the biggest orchestras at the time performed - the Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey Orchestras, as well as Ray Anthony, and as if that was not enough Kay Kyser who had one of the most popular bands in the country in the 1940s also performed.
1953 orchestra leader superstars at UNC Spring German dance. Left to right: Jimmy Dorsey, Ray Anthony, Tommy Dorsey, and Kay Kyser
Charly Mann: You all have children and/or grandchildren who have attended Carolina. Do you see much difference in students today than when you were at school?
Class of 1954: Most things are the same - learning to live on your own, being a diehard Tarheel sports fan, alcohol to an excess on occasion, and finding a girlfriend or boyfriend.
Class of 1942: Students today cannot read or write. They scan information and they communicate in tweets, which are just short sentences without much substance.
Class of 1950: We have gone from being literate people to visual ones. People no longer read anything with any depth, and I have not met anyone under the age of 30 who knows anything about history.
Class of 1942: I have kids who are in their late 50s and early 60s and they are obsessed with their media gadgets, cell-phones, laptop computer, and iPod. Even when I see them for a meal there is no time for conversation, since at least one person at the table is inevitably texting on a cell-phone which is not only distracting but prevents meaningful discussions.
Class of 1954: I have a 25 year old granddaughter who is a very nice and lovely girl. She graduated from Carolina two years ago, and sends me short messages by e-mail several times a month. The truth is though I cannot tell if she can write. I do not think I've really learned anything about her or her life from any of her messages.
Class of 1950: Have you noticed nobody asks real questions anymore? When I was at UNC that's all we did, and it just wasn't with people our own age, but with our parents and grandparents.
Class of 1942: That's how we learned most things.
In 1950 UNC Chapel Hill dorms were very crowded with four to a room
Class of 1954: Not today - I think all this technology makes people think they know too much - you know what is called information overload, but in reality they know very little.
Class of 1950: That's true - people cannot communicate their ideas - instead they send out e-mails with copies of something someone else said about a subject that they believe, or send you a link.
This is Franklin Street in Chapel Hill in 1954 (the first year I have a clear memory of downtown - I was 5).
Class of 1954: It's like our modern political leaders, they make speeches that someone else has written for them, and read it through a teleprompter.
Charly Mann: Well to wrap things up, what do you see for the future?
UNC Chapel Hill coed in 1942 surrounded by friends as she writes her boyfriend a letter
Class of 1942: Unfortunately - I think it is pretty bleak because everyone now plays the blame game. The country is fairly evenly divided between the left and right, and each think the other side is screwing things up.
Class of 1954: I just look around and see so many people connected to their phones and computers, but they are more and more disconnected from life.
Class of 1950: I've noticed in my 82 years that better informed people are happier than those who are not, and I just do not see people anymore who are deeply curious or who have a passion for learning.
Comments:
Jonas Moore
2:51 PM Thu 7/29/2010
I'm afraid these "old" alumni see the future better than most of us. I think we need to place more emphasis on developing the individual than trying to be part of a group. I just do not see the depth and uniqueness I once saw in people, and it is that characteristic that gives us our creativity and personal satisfaction.
Sue Foster Vause, Class of 1957
3:18 PM Mon 7/26/2010
I came to live in Chapel Hill August, 1958. Bought a little house at 39 Oakwood Drive and taught school at Bell's School in Chatham County....most of the way down Old Farrington Mill Road, almost to Highway 64. [such sweet children]. All these memories of that Chapel Hill are still so near and dear to my heart.
Before moving to live in Chapel Hill, and four years before while still in college, I came for 'date weekends,' stayed at the Victorian house on the corner of Cameron Avenue and Ransom Street for
$ 1.00 per night and they gave me breakfast to boot ! I danced holes in two pairs of 'ballerina' type shoes at the Patio, located on the country field which now houses the Holiday Inn [corner of 15-501 and Ephesus Church Road]. The Patio was screened in with a concrete floor and a juke box...also tables, chairs and "set-ups." Set-ups were a bowl of ice with inserted lemon slices so the patron could add their brown-bagged bourbon or vodka or scotch in a glass. We were not too versed in drinking so vodka was a real risky thing to bring and one drink was nursed all evening. They were such fun days......oh my...so nice to recall...
Maria Ford
3:10 PM Mon 7/26/2010
Thanks for putting this interview together .I really enjoyed learning that most students at UNC actually once spent a lot of time practicing dance steps!
I hope their prediction about the future and the current generation proves incorrect, but from everything I see around me I am afraid they are correct.
J. Cole
3:34 PM Sun 7/25/2010
I like the wisdom offered by these alumni. Are you going to interview people from more recent classes on some of the same topics in the future?
Brad White
2:06 PM Fri 7/23/2010
Kenan Stadium seats 60,000, and the Dean Smith Center has a capacity of almost 22,000. UNC teams play at these arenas, and UNC students should have first priority for seating. I think maybe a policy that gives seats to all students with at least a "B" average would be great for academics and retention rates. I say put everyone else on a lottery system.
Janet Johnson
9:49 AM Fri 7/23/2010
This is a great interview, and I agree with many of their comments on the "wireless" age. My son setup a FACEBOOK account for me several years ago. I soon noticed nobody really said anything. It was rare when anyone had more than a sentence of information to share about what was going on in their life. A full paragraph was very rare. I tried expanding the dialogue by writing descriptions about what I was doing each day, but I soon learned no one wanted to do the same. I have since quit FACEBOOK, but still enjoy writing letters to a few friends who enjoy this dying art.
I am 41 and graduated from UNC in 1991.
Check out our other website:
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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I didn't think women were admitted to UNC -Chapel Hill until about 1956, except for Graduate School. I thought UNC women attended UNC-G back then, which was all women. Is your photo of the UNC coed at the Bell tower a grad. student?